Only The Beginning (Rockin' Country) (37 page)

He came around the car and grabbed her hand in his. Butterflies danced in her stomach and she wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like this was the first time she was going to a boyfriend’s house. She and Ashton had done it a couple of times, more so in the beginning than towards the end. Never had she felt at home with him, at his house. Hannah didn’t ever want to feel that way with Garrett. Underlying fear had her nerves on edge. What if she stayed here with him and they realized that maybe they weren’t as compatible as they seemed to be?

“You okay?” he asked as he let her hand go to separate keys on his key ring.

“Yeah, just nervous,” she giggled.

“Why?” He grinned at her giggle. “It’s just me here.”

“I guess,” she shrugged. “This is all still new to me.”

“Never stayed at Ashton’s?” he asked as they walked inside and he put a code into the security system.

“No, I did. This just feels different.”

Hannah was having trouble articulating her feelings. She couldn’t put into words just how important this was for her, for them, and for their relationship. With other people this was probably easy, with her, it felt like the rest of her life counted on how this visit went.

“It’s supposed to,” he told her as he walked into what she realized was a kitchen and began turning lights on. “When it’s important and it means a lot, it feels different. We’re not playing house here, Han. This is the real fuckin’ deal.”

She huffed and he stuck his tongue between his lips. “Knew that would get ya.”

Just as she was about to ask him a question, she heard the clickety clack of nails and the unmistakable sound of a dog collar. Before she could say anything, Garrett was on his knees, his arms wide open for what looked like a gray Doberman pincher. The dog whined, running towards his owner and threw himself into Garrett’s arms, yipping and whining, obviously excited.

“Hey Havock,” he cooed, running his hands over the dog’s head and using his fingers to scratch the hair there. “Did you miss me?”

Standing back, she watched as Garrett had a seat in the middle of the kitchen floor and let the dog pounce on him. Havock, as Garrett had called him, was so excited that he kept licking the man’s face. His chest heaved until finally Garrett stuck his hand out and pointed his finger in the ‘down’ direction. “Sit,” he commanded and the Doberman obeyed.

“You wanna come meet him?” he looked back at Hannah.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your reunion,” she smiled, slowly walking over to where the two sat.

Garrett’s face burned. “It’s been a little while since he’s seen me for longer than a few days. He’s my boy,” he ruffled the hair on the dog’s head again. “C’mere,” he indicated, holding his hand out to her. “He needs to smell you first. He’s a trained guard dog. He’ll take you down if you aren’t careful.”

Dogs hadn’t ever been something that she and her family had, so this did make her a little uncomfortable. Not so uncomfortable that she couldn’t stay in the same home with them, but she wasn’t sure how to act.

“Havock, this is your new roomie, Hannah,” he introduced them.

Hannah snickered when he called her a roomie, but then forced herself to relax as she put her hand out to the dog. He sniffed her a few times and made a circle around her before sitting in front of her and licking her fingers. “Does he like me?”

“Yeah, he likes you,” Garrett laughed as Havock licked her hand and then laid down on the ground on his back. “Nobody wants to see your junk, buddy,” he clapped his hands. “C’mon, let’s give her the tour.”

*     *     *

If Hannah had ideas about what his house looked like, it didn’t begin to compare to what the reality of it was.

“Do you really need all this room?” she asked as they entered the fourth bedroom. It was decorated the way she figured a typical bachelor pad looked. His basement was amazing—even to her. It had a fully stocked bar, a pool table, a lounge area and a huge set up for video games. He mentioned that he hosted tons of game nights and they sometimes went into the wee hours of the mornings.

“Nah, but when you’re young and you have money…you have an image to uphold. Especially when you’re out here on the West Coast. You’re lucky you grew up in Nashville where it’s so laid back.”

“It’s not as laid back as you think. There’s a good ’ole boys club that it took me a long time to break into.”

“But you weren’t expected to drive an Escalade right outta the box now where you?”

He had her there. “No, I wasn’t. But ya know, I think that comes from there being so many songwriters in Nashville. There’s only really a select few that are making a ton of money. Most of the people who roll up outside of a recording or writing session are in a rusted out pick-up truck. I mean, most of the artists write music to make money. That’s what a typical Nashville deal looks like. If I had no songwriting credits, I’d be living like a College Freshman and that’s no lie.”

“Even with touring?”

It was still so odd for her to be able to have these conversations with him. She’d never been this comfortable with Ashton to have these kinds of talks and nobody else really knew the business the way he did. “I got my butt kicked on my touring gig to tell you the truth. I make pretty good on the merchandising, but I should have held out for a bigger piece of the ticket pie. Shell and I wrote that down for next time. We both knew there would be a few things we didn’t exactly do right, and that was one of them. Learned a lesson with that.”

“That’s good though, as long as you learn from your mistakes. There’s not a damn thing wrong with that.”

A silence encompassed them and she rocked back and forth on her heels. “So we’ve been all over this house and there are two things I’m wondering.”

“What’s that?”

“Number one, what’s the backyard look like? Number two, what’s your bedroom look like?”

“Well, I can answer one question right now,” he grabbed her hand and pulled her in the direction of a closed door at the end of the hall. “This is my bedroom.”

He opened the door and allowed her to walk in before him. She turned around to give him a little grin. It was exactly how she imagined it would look. The walls were a gunmetal gray, dark carpet covered the floor, all of the furniture was black and in the middle sat a huge bed. It was four-poster with again dark covers.

“You really are dark sometimes aren’t you?”

Garrett shrugged. “It’s all a part of my personality. Why should I get rid of one part to make the other part better? I am who I am.”

She couldn’t argue with that. He really was who he was and she realized that there wasn’t anything she would ask him to change. There was no reason to ask him to change. Hannah loved him exactly the way he was.

“Come over here,” he maneuvered her over to where a set of double doors sat in the wall.

She watched as he moved the curtains back and then opened them. It lead out onto a balcony that had all weather furniture. She loved it already.

“This is amazing.”

“Believe it or not, this is where I do a lot of writing. It’s so damn peaceful and you can just get inside your own head out here. I close those doors and in essence I close the world off and I escape into my own world. I get rid of everything that’s bothering me or whatever I’m going through in my life. This is my own little piece of Heaven right here.”

It was so special to her that he was showing her this part of him—this place that he obviously loved. “Ever brought anyone else here?” she asked on impulse.

“Nope, I’ve never seen myself being happy with anyone here. I get the feeling you already love it just as much as I do.”

Grabbing his hand, she pulled him to her and then put her hands on his hips. “I’ll reserve judgment on that until you show me the back yard.”

“You’re beautiful and smart. You reserve your opinions until you really know what you’re dealing with. I’m gonna have to remember that about you, Hannah Stewart.”

Slowly, he pulled her over to the edge of the balcony and then pointed down. “Take a look at the backyard.”

When she looked down, she knew that this was the place for her. There was a huge pool—much bigger than hers. To the left of it was an outside dining area along with what looked like an outside fireplace. She had always wanted something like this, but Tennessee wasn’t exactly conducive to it—with the summers being so hot and muggy—and the winters being a crapshoot. It was landscaped beautifully and she saw a volleyball net further back on the property as well as a gate.

“That gate leads to my own personal part of the beach.”

“You were right,” she told him as she looked up into his eyes. “This is a little slice of Heaven.”

“It is,” he agreed. “But it’s been damn lonely. I think it’s been waiting on you.”

In little moments of truth, he could completely undo her. It was a part of his personality that she still wasn’t used to and wasn’t sure that she ever would be. Garrett had the habit of just throwing out little things like that in every day conversation.

“Maybe I was waiting on it,” she corrected. “Maybe I need it even more than I thought I did.”

For the first time in a very long time, she felt at peace. There was no one running her this way and that. No one asking for an autograph. She wasn’t sitting at her Nashville home feeling bad that she wasn’t hanging out with family or friends. That’s what they expected her to do when she was in town and not working. Hannah was doing something for herself and she had a feeling she was going to enjoy every single minute of it. A jaw-popping yawn came out of her mouth at that moment and Garrett leisurely ran his hand down her back.

“Why don’t we go to sleep? This will all be here in the morning. I can take you down to the beach and we can explore and then you can call your long lost friend Shell and the two of you can have lunch together.”

That sounded so good to her. “Does anyone know I’m here?”

“Just my parents and Stacey. I haven’t even shared it with the guys yet. So we can keep it quiet if you want.”

“I just really want to enjoy myself and relax.”

He framed her face with his hands. “You have nothing to explain to me. We’ll do whatever you want to do. I’m just happy you’re here.”

And so was she.