I laugh, my cheeks hurting from smiling so hard, as I take his hand. “Annie McIntyre. College student who’s broke as hell. Girl who has nowhere to be this holiday.”
“So, see? It’s official,” he says and cringes when he takes a sip straight from the bottle.
“What’s official?”
“This. Us.”
“Excuse me?” I choke over my own sip and his laughter floats through the empty complex.
“Yeah. Our own Evermore-McIntyre-Thanksgiving.” He takes another sip and uses the bottle to motion to the space around us. “We’ll drink some, laugh some, order takeout from that taco shop right down the street that has a sale running.”
“One should never eat from a place running a sale on their food.”
“Let’s be daring Annie McIntyre. I mean, it’s better than being alone.”
I stare at him and shake my head. “Who said I wanted to spend Thanksgiving with you?”
“Women don’t say no to me. It’s easier to just realize that now and save us the time.”
“Save us what time?” The man may be gorgeous but he talks like I already know what he is talking about.
That and he’s arrogant. A usual turn off for me, but there is something about him—a playfulness mixed with that boyish grin—that has my complete attention.
“The time it’ll take for you to argue with me, pretend you’re not interested, and then grovel as a means of making up when you realize you really are.”
“You’re pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”
“Always.” Another blistering grin that has me smiling in response. “So what do you say we make our own tradition? Whiskey and rolled tacos from the taco shop down the street and no mention of how somewhere along the way we lost our family in some way or another.” He taps the neck of the whiskey bottle against the edge of my glass. “Sound like a plan?”
* * *
I smile as I hold on to Lyric a little longer and think about that first Thanksgiving four years ago. How I told him about how I was fumbling blindly through my first year of law school and how he talked about his plight as a struggling artist, bumming the couch of a friend to sleep on, while he tried to get his demo tapes listened to. We talked about our nonexistent families, our likes, our dislikes, and when the weekend was over and our friends returned, how we made a promise to one another to meet again next year regardless of where life had taken us by then.
2
Lyric
God, she smells good.
I hold onto Annie a little bit longer and just breathe her in. A small piece of normal in my crazy, chaotic world of touring and groupies and everything in between. A world I fucking love but that I need a break from every now and again.
And she is the perfect kind of break.
Someone who has no problem putting me in my place, who doesn’t lap up my every word because of who I am, and who knew the poor, pitiful Lyric Evermore before the world did.
“You look good. Great.” Beautiful. With her dark hair, the flash of freckles across her cheeks (I know she hates them), and her light eyes, Annie McIntyre is anything but ordinary as she so often claims.
“So do you,” she says and pulls up one of the cuffs on my black t-shirt to look at my biceps. “New ink, huh?” There’s disapproval in her tone and I love that it’s there. She wouldn’t be Annie without it.
“Yep. I got it when the guys and I were in Tokyo.” I shrug at the Japanese letters and think of that night. Way too much saki, a little homesickness, and an odd urge to call her when typically, we don’t talk for weeks at a time.
“Let me guess . . . you had too much to drink? Does that imply you don’t remember what it means?”
I give her half grin. “Something like that.”
But I know exactly what they mean and who I was thinking about as I had the word love tattooed on my arm. It was generic enough that the internet sleuths could decipher it and not think anything of it, while deep down I could keep its meaning to myself.
My own whiskey is slid across the bar top toward me. I let the burn of the first sip hit me before I speak again. “So tell me what’s new? Any intriguing cases you’re working on? Any guilty clients who are actually innocent? Is the legal world still thrilling you? Fill me in.”
* * *
3 Years ago
“Cheers to our second annual Annie-Lyric-Thanksgiving taco fest.” I hold my whiskey up and tap it against hers. “This time without the discounted tacos that made us get a little bit sick.”
“Cheers,” she says through a laugh. Her smile is shy, but her eyes are warm as she meets mine again. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to show.”
“What do you mean you weren’t sure if I was going to show? Of course, I’d be here. Isn’t that the promise we’d made each other?”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean . . .”
Annie averts those gorgeous eyes of hers down to her glass and hides them behind her thick lashes. Why the sudden shyness?
“It’s only been two months since I moved away. Are you going to tell me you thought I’d forgetten about this tradition? About you?”
“It’s technically not a tradition until it’s been done a few times so . . .”
“You and your technicalities, Annie.” I scoot my chair next to hers, grab her into a bear hug, and press a kiss to the top of her head. “Of course, I’d be here. This is our thing. This. Us. Remember?”
When she looks up at me, I swear there are tears welling in her eyes and as much as I hate the sight of them—the understanding that she thought I’d flake on her—I also love seeing them there too.
That means I matter. That this matters.
“Ok. Yes. This is our thing.” A ghost of a smile graces her lips followed by a resolute nod of her head. “I’m glad you’re here.” Her smile widens a little bit more.
“Me too.” I clink my glass against hers again. “Now I’ve got something I’ve been waiting to tell you in person.”
“What?” Her head startles, eyes growing big.
I fight the grin on my face but it’s useless. “I did it, Annie.”
“No way.” She squeals and claps her hands together and wiggles in her seat before jumping up and throwing her arms around me. “You’re serious?” She pushes against my chest and looks up at me. I love that she knows what I’m talking about without me having to say another word. “You are serious. Oh my god. It’s really happening, isn’t it?” Tears fill her eyes this time but out of pure happiness.
“It is.” My own eyes burn with tears I push away. “I signed a recording contract last week. It’s with a smaller company but they have a great vision and plan for me and Evermore and—”
“Don’t you dare make any kind of excuses, Lyric.” She presses a kiss to my cheek. “You did it. You really fucking did it, and I couldn’t be more proud of you.”
When she meets my eyes again, it’s hard to swallow over the emotion lodged in my throat. I didn’t realize until just now how I wanted her to be the first person to know my good news. Hell, I didn’t even realize how much I looked forward to this—her, tacos, a tradition—until I walked in here tonight and saw her sitting by herself.