Only The Beginning (Rockin' Country) (28 page)

If you text me again, I’m going to seek harassment charges on you. Don’t text me, call me, or mention my name in the press again. I’m serious.

She fired off the text message to Ashton, feeling better than she had earlier in the day. It made her feel like she was taking charge of something in her life.

This isn’t Hannah. Its Shell, isn’t it?

Why would he think she couldn’t stand up for herself and tell him to leave her alone? Without a second thought, she pressed the FaceTime button. Immediately, he picked up.

“No, it’s really me. I’m asking you to leave me alone. Stop texting me.”

He smirked, his mouth twisting. “You know that you don’t want me to leave you alone. It was good between us.”

“I don’t know why you’re even saying that. The only thing you liked about me was the fact I bowed down to whatever you told me. I did everything you told me to do. You had me under your thumb, and I’m not there anymore. I’m asking you to leave me alone.”

“Or what? You’re gonna sick
Reaper
on me?”

She hated the way Ashton said Garrett’s stage name. He added a shiver for effect and then laughed.

“I’m not scared of him.”

“Maybe you should be,” she told him, wishing Garrett was with her right now. That he could rip the phone out of her hand and tell Ashton something that would make him shut up.

“You haven’t even told him about this have you?”

Her face reddened. “I’ve told him enough.”

He smiled. “You never were a good liar, sweetheart.”

“Don’t call me that,” she frowned.

“Maybe I should tell him myself,” Ashton threatened.

“What? You’re going to tell him that you’re harassing me? Yeah, that’s a great plan.” She rolled her eyes.

“C’mon Hannah, I’m a lot smarter than that. Give me some damn credit. If I tell him about this, he’s gonna think we have something else going on too.”

“He won’t believe you.”

“Oh really? Just like I don’t put doubts in your head?”

She was furious again, nothing new where Ashton was concerned. “I’m going to tell you one more time, leave me alone.”

“And I’m going to tell you one more time. I haven’t even started.”

The rage finally overtook her, and she hung up on him, screaming loudly as she threw her phone on the bed.

For just a moment, she allowed herself to let the tears fall. For everything she had lost, for all the anger, for all the fear, for all the sorrow that he had placed on her. More than anything right at this moment, she wanted Garrett here, to tell her that everything would be okay. To tell her that she wasn’t crazy, that sometimes things like this happened and you couldn’t change them, you could only learn from them. She was sick of giving herself the lessons that other people learned in relationships. Looking at the calendar, she tried to console herself that it would only be seven days until she would be in his arms again.

She needed that more right now than she needed her next breath, but it wasn’t meant to be. The lives they led would never make their time together a priority, and for the first time, that made her question whether she wanted to continue her career or not. The thought alone scared her, but it was a legitimate concern.

Grabbing her journal out of its hiding place, she began to write. They had no concert this night, so she figured she would just write herself to sleep. Tonight was one night she felt that she couldn’t face Garrett—for the first time ever.

*     *     *

Hannah was having the absolute best dream. It was warm where she was, and she could hear the beating of another heart. The chest felt like Garrett’s, and she snuggled closer to it, wanting to stay there forever, needing it after she had written in her journal until her hand hurt, pouring out everything that lay so heavily in her chest.

“Hannah, babe, wake up.” That voice sounded so real, so deep.

This was definitely a dream that she didn’t want to wake up from. She fought opening her eyes, wanting to stay in this space where it felt as if she floated.

“I’m here, open those eyes and look at me,” he whispered.

Did she dare? What if she couldn’t get this back? But then again, what if it was real? What if she was missing out on being with him? Taking a chance, she slowly opened one eye.

“Hey.” His dimples greeted her when she opened the other eye.

“You’re really here?” She put her hands out, feeling of his chest, his hair, sinking her fingers in the warmth of his body.

“I am,” he laughed, pulling her to him, holding her tightly against his body. “Surprise.”

“This is the best surprise ever. How did you do this?” she asked, kissing his cheek before tangling her legs with his.

“Your stop tomorrow is only an hour and a half away from mine if I take a flight. I needed to see you, especially after I read the article about how Ashton’s ‘getting over’ you.”

That was the perfect time for her to tell him about everything that was happening, but she was so excited to see him and to feel his arms around her that she didn’t want to ruin it. Hannah knew she should tell him, she did, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” He cupped her cheek with his hand, his eyes looking deeply into hers.

“I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to do is talk,” she whispered, rolling him over so that he lay flat on his back. His eyes widened when she straddled his waist and rocked her body against his. A part of her realized she was doing this for the wrong reasons, but she couldn’t face the truth, and she needed to feel close to him. In her mind, there was absolutely nothing in the world that made her feel closer to him than giving her body to him—even if her heart told her she was wrong.

*  *  *

“I
’m so glad that you came to see me,” Hannah smiled as she looked up into Garrett’s eyes.

“I’m glad I was able to. We’re just going to have to make time whenever we can. This is just me showing you that I’m willing to do that.”

She grinned, pushing her cheek against his chest. “Makes me feel pretty special,” she admitted.

“You should.” He buried his hands in her hair and combed his fingers through the brown length. “There’s not a lot of people I would do this for, and I’m not just trying to impress you. When I’m not on tour, I can be a jackass, but there’s something about you that makes me want to live on three hours sleep and surprise you for a few hours. Even if it is only for a few hours.”

Hannah wanted so badly to tell him about Ashton and what was going on, but at the same time, she didn’t want to ruin this. What if Ashton was right and he didn’t believe her?

He tilted his head to the side. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“Nothing,” she shook her head.

“If you say so, but I had another reason for surprising you. I was worried about that article that popped up about Ashton. I know that had to hurt your feelings.”

He just kept opening the door, allowing her time to tell him everything that was going on. “It did, especially since I know that he’s the one who cheated on me and not the other way around.”

That pensive look was on her face again, and he couldn’t place it, but he got a feeling that she wasn’t being completely honest with him. It took him back to a time and place he didn’t like to revisit. “If you have something to tell me, please do it. Don’t hide things from me or play games. The look you have on your face tells me that something else is going on. Just tell me.”

She got up from the bed and put on the shirt that she had stolen from him, hugging her arms around her middle. From her charger, she grabbed her cell phone and put in the lock code. “Here.” She handed it to him. “It’s all there.”

He sat up, a scowl on his face as he saw Ashton’s name and the fact that there were texts as well as a FaceTime session that had ended hours before. “What the hell?”

The silence in the tiny room killed her as she started to pace. He was obviously reading and taking in everything that had been said between the two of them in the past couple of weeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I thought I could handle this on my own, but I’m worried about what he may do next.”

“Goddamn it, Hannah,” he glared at her, his voice hard. “You’re not supposed to try and deal with this shit on your own. You’re supposed to tell me and let me handle it.”

“No, I don’t need you to fight my battles for me. I just need you to let me know that you’re here.”

“Where the fuck else would I be? Where the fuck else have I been?”

“Please don’t yell at me.” She ran her fingers over her forehead. His anger frightened her, even if it was directed more at her actions than her. “That’s not what I need right now.”

“What you need is a fucking reality check. This man is harassing you. You even said it yourself…”

“I know what I said,” she yelled back at him. “I know what I said, and I know what he’s doing, but he’s just trying to spook me.”

“Which he’s obviously done. He’s just trying to steal your happiness because he’s not a part of it.”

“Now you sound like Shell.”

“That’s because she has a brain in her damn head.”

“So what? Now I’m stupid?” she fumed, turning her back to him.

“No, you’re not, which is why I don’t understand why you don’t see this asshole for what he is.” He got up and put his pants on, so that he could come face her.

“What am I supposed to be seeing that I’m missing? Why do you think you know him so well? You didn’t even know who he was before me.”

He ran his hands through his hair, pushing it back from his face and tried to tell himself to calm down with her. She wasn’t used to his explosive temper; she wasn’t used to the words that sometimes came out before he could control them. She had mentioned that Ashton was a dick physically; he had his own thoughts about what that entailed, so he tried valiantly to keep his temper from flying off the handle. “I don’t have to know him. All I have to know is that he’s a man. Because let me tell you this, if you left me, my world would be over, and I would walk through fire and over glass to figure out how to get you back. Don’t you understand that? You are the type of woman who gets under a man’s skin so deep that he can’t breathe without knowing that you’re going to be there. He felt safe when you had no one because he figured that you were still healing, he figured you didn’t have enough self-esteem to try it with someone else. Now that you do, and now that we’re together, he’s feeling threatened. So he wants to threaten this.” He gestured between the two of them.

“But he’s not going to,” she argued.

“Fuck!” he screamed, pulling at his hair. “He already is. Don’t you see that? You were questioning my intentions, what I’m doing when you’re not around, if you’re enough for me. You weren’t doing that before he started sending you these messages.”

“That’s my own baggage,” she screamed, not able to keep the tears out of her voice this time. “That’s mine, no one else’s.”

“But baby,” he lowered his voice, his chest heaving. “It’s your baggage because of him.”

Inside her head, she could see where Garrett was coming from, but that meant that Ashton had once again played her for a fool, and she wasn’t ready to admit that to herself again. She turned from him, not wanting to look him in the eyes, not wanting to see his face.

“You could be doing things,” she lamely threw out there.

He laughed, but it wasn’t heartfelt, it was hollow. “I could be. You have no idea what I could be doing. And I think that’s what pisses me the fuck off more than anything. Before you, I could go out, find some bitch in the audience who was gorgeous. Oh my God, would she be gorgeous. She would suck my dick right after coming off stage, stinkin’ and sweaty. God as my witness, she’d drop to her knees right there in front of the rest of the band if I asked her to. Any of them would. Then I’d pick another and we could go back to the hotel. I had so much free pussy, I was handing it off to road crew.”

“Stop,” she whimpered, putting her hands over her ears.

With rough movements, he pulled her hands away, before dropping her wrists when her eyes widened. “But that’s the thing. It did nothing for me, here.” He pointed to his chest. “It was a hollow pleasure that I didn’t even like, but I felt like I had to live up to it. You can ask Jared, the night I met you, the night we took a picture together on the red carpet, that all changed, and I don’t know why, but there was something about you that got to me. I haven’t even looked at another woman since that night. Do I see them? Fuck yeah, they throw themselves at me every day. Do I take them up on it? Not on your life, because I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose what I’ve managed to build here. So the next time you wanna listen to that little pencil-dick motherfucker, think about all that free pussy that you
think
I’m getting and know I gave it up for you.”