Epilogue
Theodore
“Are you nervous?” Scarlet asks as I grab my faded jeans and slip them on.
“Of course not.” I’m fucking terrified.
She hops off the stool and saunters toward me. My dick’s hard in less than three seconds. It’s not a good time to get an erection. Her finger traces down the lines of my chest, over my abs, stopping at the waistband of my briefs.
“I’m not jealous,” she whispers, looking up at me through thick eyelashes.
“You shouldn’t be.” I hold completely still.
Why is she sliding her finger past my waistband? I glance at the clock on the wall next to the door.
Four minutes. I have four minutes. I need more than that to properly fuck her.
“Just remember…” she tugs the waistband down an inch, her hand totally ignoring the pulsing head of my cock “…when bras and knickers land on the stage…” her finger traces the script “…you belong to me.”
I close my eyes. For the love of God … this woman likes to torture me. But I love it when she admires my tattoo.
I don’t deserve Scarlet …
but she’s still mine.
Scarlet is in red. The rest is in black.
“Now, finish getting dressed and go be a rock star.”
I look up at the ceiling and shake my head. “Sure, Scar … I can’t fasten my fucking pants now, but I’m sure the over 18,000 fans in this sold-out venue won’t notice.”
She presses a kiss to my chest then digs her teeth into my tense muscle.
I groan. “Not helping.”
“How much time do you have?” She kisses her way down my chest.
“Not enough.” My chin drops to my chest, jaw slack. I thread my fingers through her long curls, ready to protest.
“How. Long?” She frees my cock as she gets on her knees.
Fucking hell! “Two minutes,” I pant.
She runs her tongue along the hard vein then circles the head of it, her wicked intentions twinkling in her eyes. “I only need one.”
“Fuuuck …” I grab the wall next to me with one hand and fist her hair with my other hand as she proves, once again—No. Gag. Reflex.
*
Three years ago, when I walked out Scarlet’s door, I never imagined I could overcome the feelings of betrayal, grief, and hatred for everything and everyone in my life. I made a piss-ass attempt at building a house on my acreage, because building it for myself gave me little motivation.
Instead, I turned to my first love—music. My old manager once told me there’s nothing more magical in the music industry than a broken heart. So I wrote and wrote and wrote. Thirteen songs later, I felt a helluva lot better. I packed up my stuff and drove back to Savannah to get the girl.
I waited a week to ask her to marry me, without asking Oscar’s permission. Asking for it seemed like a bad omen. She pointed to my guitar and the tattered stacks of paper with the scribbled lyrics to all of my songs and said, “I want to marry a rock star. When you’re a rock star. I’ll marry you.”
Seven months later, I signed a record deal and my marriage license.
My wife beat cancer. She’s my hero, my friend, my lover.
Scarlet is the reason I’m living my dream.
I nod at the crew as I make my way to the stage, with my guitar in one hand and her hand in my other.
We stop at the bottom of the backstage stairs, both of us grinning at the thunderous roar of 18,000 fans chanting my name.
“Tell me a story, Theo.” She says the same thing before every concert.
I kiss her long and hard until I know she’s gasping for air. “I’ll sing you a song, Scarlet.”
“Make it a love song.” She releases my hand.
I take several steps up toward the stage. The adrenaline begins to burn in my veins. “It’s your song. They’re all your songs.” I wink and take my spot—center stage at Madison Square Garden. Tonight, I will perform every song from my debut album, Songs of Scarlet.
*
Scarlet
Two Years Later
My name is Scarlet Reed. I enjoy counting breaths, observing the diversity of the human condition, and witnessing miracles. Oh … and I’m married to a rock star.
“Let me guess … you thought you couldn’t get pregnant?” Mary, our adoption agent, peers over the frames of her reading glasses, zeroing in on my baby bump. Theo signs the adoption papers then hands me the pen.
“How’d you guess?” I rest my hand on Theo’s leg.
Six months ago I feared the worst—that my cancer had returned.
After a trip to the doctor, we discovered I didn’t have cancer and my infertility from endometriosis was no longer an issue.
I was diagnosed with a healthy case of pregnancy with the side effect of morning sickness.
I didn’t speak for days, I was so gobsmacked.
Theo, on the other hand, strutted around like a cock, claiming he had super sperm.
“I see it all the time, honey. Years of failed attempts leads to adoption. Then … boom! Once you stop actually trying, it happens. Most don’t go through with the adoption when that happens.”
I shrug, placing the pen on the paper after signing it. “We’ve been Maya’s foster parents for a year. She’s already family.” I smile.
Two years ago, Maya lost both of her parents and her older brother to gang violence in Chicago. Her closest living relative is a grandmother here in Nashville. Last year, her grandmother suffered a heart attack and was moved to an assisted living facility. Maya was put into foster care.
Theo met her through a school-sponsored music outreach program shortly after her parents died.
At seven, she is nothing short of amazing.
Theo calls her a music prodigy. Although, I think he fell in love with her smile before she ever played a single note.
He said she has a small dimple on her right cheek when she smiles really big, just like me.
I don’t have a dimple. We agree to disagree.
“Well, she’s a lucky little girl. Often times, black, adolescent children can spend their entire youth being bounced around in foster care until they turn eighteen.”
With everything finalized, we thank Mary and hurry to the car. Maya will have finished school in an hour which means we need to get our adult activities done before she gets home.
“Don’t speed.”
Theo shoots me a sideways glance. “I’m not.”
“You’re ten miles an hour over the speed limit.”
He returns his eyes to the road. “If you must know, I’m fifteen over.”
I laugh. “We’re not talking about how fast you’re going, are we?”
“He said four days and it turned into over two weeks.”
I roll my eyes. Although Oscar let Nellie go without so much as one guilty look at either one of us, Theo hasn’t forgotten that I was going to let Nellie get away with murder so that Oscar could have a chance at love and happiness.
Theo claims he understands why I did it, but I don’t think he ever understood how anyone could fall in love with Nellie.
He never had the chance to see that side of her.
“He visits us two or three times a year.”
“Too many,” he grumbles.
Fifteen days. He’s gone fifteen days without sex.
When we pull onto our private property, I smile at Thor, our retired thoroughbred, and Queen, our goat, both grazing by the barn.
Our two-story house on the outskirts of Nashville isn’t a Theodore Reed original.
It’s a thirty-year-old house that he’s making his mark on one room at a time.
It’s in need of love and rebuilding—I was in need of love and rebuilding.
I am his greatest masterpiece. I see it in his eyes. I hear it in the words he sings.
“Down, Derby,” Theo scolds our rescued pit bull terrier when he goes to jump on me.
“You’re fine, baby.” I squat down and scratch behind his ears. “He’s just overprotective.”
Theo hooks the truck keys on the hook by the door then walks into the living room. “Derby knocked over another one of your plants.”
I stand, resting my fists on my hips. “Derby.”
He cocks his head to the side.
I narrow my eyes. He drops to the floor and rolls on his back.
I shake my head. “No. You don’t get your belly rubbed if you didn’t play nice with my plants.”
“Do I get my belly rubbed?” Theo shrugs off his shirt and tucks it in the back of his jeans.
I admire his arms and all his new tattoos. Lots of song lyrics—about me. When we decided to adopt Maya, he added her name to his back, each letter connected with notes.
As much as my pregnancy hormones scream for me to rip off my clothes and sprawl out on the worktop for Theo to love every inch of me, I let myself enjoy the moment, counting breaths and staring at the man that was made just for me.
“What’s with the sappy look, Mum?” He refers to me as Mum and it makes me smile every time.
I think it’s because my life has found a perfection beyond anything I ever thought to dream of that I find myself reflecting back so often.
“We nearly destroyed each other.”
Theo nods, a bit of tension wrinkles his forehead.
“We nearly destroyed ourselves.”
Another nod. He slides his hands into his pockets and it does all kinds of wonderful things to the muscles in his chest and arms.
“Sometimes I feel like we broke together, and some of your pieces mixed with mine, and some of mine mixed with yours.”
He crooks a finger at me. I grin and walk to him, my whole body feeling quite itchy.
“I think I like it when our pieces mix together.” He rests his hands on my belly.
I wait for them to move, make haste with removing my clothes, the sound of my gasp when one of his fingers slides into me—his tongue and teeth torturing my nipples. I’m so horny.
But … he doesn’t move. It’s just my beautifully inked husband—my rock star—holding our baby in his hands and me in his eyes.
“She’s moving,” he whispers, wide eyes focused on my baby bump.
I cover his hands with mine. “We did it, Theo.” Emotion builds inside of me.
“After many dinners and small talk, me saying things that made you grin, and you saying things that made me laugh. After countless walks on the beach in the shadows of the night, too much wine and conversation—some of it lies, some of it truth—we finally managed to find a real life and feel … human.”
Theo’s eyes shift to mine. I feel like his whole world—like his song. Then he takes this perfect life, perfect day, perfect moment, and makes it even better by saying that one word that still reaches my soul. “Scarlet …”
The End