Chapter 26
Joz
So this is what true happiness feels like.
A few months ago, if I’d been asked what happiness was to me, I’d have said when a song I’d been struggling with suddenly came together, or walking out on stage to a sellout crowd, or cozy winters in my loft, strumming on my guitar as the wind howled outside.
Only now did I realize how superficial those things were.
They brought me joy, but it was fleeting.
Sitting in front of a roaring fire, toasting marshmallows, and snuggled under a blanket with my girl was true happiness.
The last week had flown by, and despite a permanent sore arse from sitting on the back of a horse for hours on end, they’d been seven of the happiest days of my life.
I wished we could stay here forever. Unfortunately, Aspen had a company to run, and I had an album to promote, and we both had to face the heat of the press that we’d swerved by coming here.
“Don’t tell him I said this,” Aspen said, snuggling closer, “but London was right to take our phones.”
Her brother had suggested when he’d handed over the keys to his ranch that we leave our mobiles behind.
He promised they’d be waiting in the car for us on our return to New York tomorrow.
Once he’d assured us that, if anything urgent came up, he’d call the house phone here, I’d happily given him mine.
Aspen hadn’t been as keen, but in the end, she’d agreed.
“Oh, I’m definitely telling him.”
She prodded me in my stomach. “Hey. Your loyalties lie with me.”
I squeezed her hip. “Gotta admit, I’m not looking forward to returning to reality.”
“Me, either. If I could I’d stay here another week, I would, but work’s piling up. Besides, it doesn’t matter when we go back, the press will still be waiting.”
Her PR team had crafted a response to the outing of our relationship before we’d left Seattle, and once Mike had approved it, we’d given the go-ahead to release it. No matter how honest we’d been, though, that wouldn’t satisfy the vultures. They’d make shit up whatever we said or did.
I fucking hated the press.
“I think we should make a short statement when we land that reiterates what was in the press release, then refuse to take any questions. Agreed?”
I kissed the top of her head. “You’re the boss.”
“You’re playing to my ego every time you say that.”
“Yeah, I know.” I slipped a gooey marshmallow into my mouth and chewed. “These are pretty disgusting.”
“Funny that, considering you’ve eaten about ten.”
“It’s eat these or eat you.”
“Hardly the same thing.”
“Correct. You’re far tastier.” I shifted her body weight until she was lying beneath me, a mass of purple hair fanning out over the cushion, and those enchanting hazel eyes that locked onto mine.
Aspen was the kind of person who held my gaze without having to look away after a few seconds.
The intimacy of it made my breath catch in my throat.
I’d fallen hard and fast, and I hadn’t even seen it coming.
“You’re everything to me, you know that, Spitfire?”
“I do now.”
I propped myself up on one elbow to keep my weight off her and gently ran my fingers through her hair. “How did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Make me fall in love with you.”
Surprise registered in her eyes. “You… you love me?”
“Yeah. I mean, I told you already in Seattle.”
“No, you didn’t. You told me I was your world, but not that you were in love with me.”
This woman. What a fucking catch. “And what did you think that meant, Spitfire?”
“I don’t know.” She ran her hands over my chest. “Not that.”
“Y’know, for a smart woman…” I laughed.
“I just…” She pulled me down for a kiss. “You know I love you, too, right?”
My heart doubled in size. “No, but I do now.”
Wrapping her arms around my neck, she thrust out her chest. “I want to hear you tell me you love me when you’re inside me.”
“I got you, Spitfire.”
I undressed her slowly, savoring every hitched breath, every graze of her eyes over my body, every touch she graced me with.
We’d fucked dozens of times in the last week, but this felt different.
Was different. There was no frantic pulling of hair or clothes, no scratching or biting.
Just two people who’d somehow found one another in a world of eight billion people and discovered the other half of themselves.
Our gazes locked, her words of love still echoing in my chest. Her body fused to mine, and I mapped every inch of her with my eyes and my hands and my mouth, committing each dip, each soft curve, to memory.
I pushed inside her, inch by inch. It felt different now.
Our confessions had changed the dynamic, making it deeper, more meaningful.
I’d never made love to a woman, but I was making love to one now.
My woman.
I buried my face in the warm curve of her neck, breathing her in. Her fingers dove into my hair, grounding me in this moment. Every thrust was a vow, every kiss a promise. I love you. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and we’re going nowhere unless it’s with each other.
When her release came, it wasn’t with a scream but with a quiet sigh, the look in her eyes connecting us on a different level. Trust, love, respect. The kind of look that gutted me and simultaneously stitched me back together.
“I love you.” I came with her name on my lips, and when it was over, I didn’t let her go. I couldn’t. Loving Aspen wasn’t about words. It was about living, breathing, drowning in a woman I knew I didn’t deserve, yet she’d somehow found me worthy of her.
I made a silent vow to never let her down, to always put her first. To love her for the rest of my life.
“Can I meet your mom and sister when we’re next in London?”
I plucked Aspen’s bag from her hands and slung mine over my shoulder. “I guess you should, since you’ve pushed them down the list of important people in my life.”
A soft smile teased the corners of her lips as she locked up the lodge and slid the key into her pocket. “And I thought music was your first love.”
I tossed the bags in the back of the rental, slammed the boot, then grabbed my woman by the hips, pulling her flush to my body. “It was once. But it pales compared to the love I have for you.”
“You’re saying all the right things,” she murmured.
“Good. Get used to it, because I’ll be saying more things like that for years to come.”
“Even when I’m old and gray and my knees give out and you can’t rail me from behind anymore?”
“Even then. Besides, it’s probably my knees that will give out first.” I opened the passenger door, but Aspen paused, cocking her head.
“Is that the phone?”
I listened, then nodded. “Sounds like it. Want to go back inside and get it?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “No. I don’t want to miss our take off slot.”
“It must be urgent, though. Only London would call.”
“Not necessarily. It could be a cold caller. Besides, we’re on our way home now, anyway. If he hasn’t left a message on my cell, I’ll call him when we’re in the car on the way home from the airport.”
“Fair enough.” I waited until she’d got herself settled, then closed the door before rounding the bonnet to climb in the drivers’ side. “Ready?”
“Not even a little bit.”
“Me, either.”
“When we get back to New York, we should look at our calendars and carve out time to do this at least a couple of times a year. Go completely off grid. No phones, no internet. Just us.”
I started the engine. “I like that plan.”
We made it to the airport without any hitches and took off on time, but as the seat belt signs turned on, and the plane began its descent into New York, I began fidgeting. If even one reporter cast shade on my girl, he’d need a fucking dental appointment to fix his teeth, and fuck the consequences.
“Relax.” She reached across the table that separated us and squeezed my hand, then returned to the book she’d been reading since take off.
I’d tried reading, too, but couldn’t focus.
My guts felt off, and not from eating too many marshmallows last night.
I wished we’d taken that phone call back at London’s ranch, then if it had been him, we’d have been armed for whatever it was we were walking into.
The landing was textbook, and Aspen’s car waited at the foot of the stairs, engine running, as we disembarked.
The beauty of flying by private jet was the access to smaller airports, and there was no sign of the press.
As London had promised, our phones were there, and both of us immediately switched them on.
The minute my phone booted up, notifications kept pinging from all sources: text, email, social media. My stomach bottomed out. Something was horribly wrong.
Aspen muttered a curse under her breath. “What’s going on?”
“Your phone the same?”
“Yeah. Hang on. There’s a voicemail from London.” She pressed her phone to her ear, and I navigated to a message from Mike. I read it, and my world collapsed.
“No. Fuck, no, no, no.”
Aspen turned to me, face ashen. “Oh, hell.”
Her driver turned onto a narrow road that led to the highway, and out of nowhere, journalists and photographers surrounded us. Lightbulbs flashed, and fists banged on the roof and sides of the car.
“Drive,” Aspen hollered. “Get us out of here now!”
Blinded by the cameras, I covered my face, as Aspen’s driver swerved around the ravenous mob. The road cleared, and he floored the accelerator, but not before a booming voice made himself heard.
“How does it feel to know you as good as murdered your ex-girlfriend, Joz?”
I slumped in my seat, my thumb scrolling through the multitude of messages.
“How?” Aspen asked. “How did they get hold of something so personal?”
Nausea clawed at my stomach, sweat slicking the back of my neck.
“I don’t know.” Somehow, the press had got hold of a diary I wrote when I was in rehab after Caroline killed herself.
A diary I kept in my desk at home. A diary that had only ever been read by me.
Every thought, every dream, every admission, every horrific detail about what happened that night laid bare for them to pore over like they hadn’t just set off a bomb and destroyed multiple lives.
Kate, Arthur, my mother and sister. They’d all know what I did, and they’d never forgive me.
“Someone must’ve broken into my home. There’s no other way they could have access to it.
No one knows about that diary other than my therapist from my trip to rehab, and I don’t think he’s even practicing anymore.
” I covered my face with my hands. Next thing I knew, Aspen was straddling me, pulling my hands away, looking at me with nothing but love in her eyes—a love I didn’t deserve.
“Listen to me. We’ll find out who did this, and we will throw the fucking book at them. They committed a crime, Joz.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course it matters.”
“It’s too late. Too fucking late.” I pushed her off me. “Those were my private thoughts, Aspen. My fucking private thoughts! The kinds of thoughts I’d never want anyone to read or hear. And now everyone knows what a piece of shit I am.”
“Don’t you dare talk about yourself like that.”
“Why not?” I looked at her, eyes bleak, but I couldn’t hold her gaze. It was too intimate. Too much of a reminder of what I’d almost had. “It’s fucking true.”
“Pity? That’s what you’re going with? I expected better of you.”
“Yeah? Well, more fucking fool you.” The car stopped at a red light, and I opened the door and jumped out, marching to God fucking knew where. Just not here.
“Joz, wait. For Christ’s sake.” Aspen grabbed my arm, but I shook her off.
“Leave me the fuck alone. Go home, Aspen. Just fucking leave me.”
“Not like this. Let me help you.”
She’d never give up. It wasn’t in her nature. She was a fighter. A strong, independent, fierce, smart-as-fuck woman who would battle to the bitter end, and it would be her undoing—and mine.
“You can’t help me.” I flagged down a cab and threw myself in the back. “Get me the fuck out of here,” I snapped at the driver.
As he drove away, I didn’t look back.
After a few miles, I asked him to pull over.
I didn’t know where I was, and I didn’t care.
Tugging my hood over my head, I kept my eyes on the ground as I walked and walked, my heart shattered, and my throat full of ash.
I lost track of time, of myself, of everything that had happened, yet the only thing I couldn’t shake was the resurgence of guilt and shame being with Aspen had allowed me to quash for a few blissful weeks.
I craved oblivion, and only one thing would give me that.
It didn’t take me long to find what I was looking for. I was an addict until the day I died, and addicts could sniff out a pusher in any town, city, or country. I stuffed a bunch of notes in his hand and left with my bag of powder and a syringe.
The motel owner didn’t pay me any attention as he handed me a key. I made straight for the bathroom and prepared a hit. No second thoughts, no hesitation.
The rush swarmed through my veins like a bush fire; cruel and unstoppable, destroying everything in its path. It was easier to drown than fight. Easier to forget than remember.
The world tilted. I slipped off the edge of the bathtub and slammed into the floor. Aspen’s face appeared like a mirage. I reached out, but she vanished before I could touch her.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled as the dark swallowed me whole.