The Duet(92)

“It means I love you. It means I want to give us a real chance at being together.”

The knocking outside grew louder and then they started shouting our names along with a few choice expletives. We just kept right on ignoring them.

“So you’ll be staying in LA?”

He smiled. “Yes, but we’ll still take trips to Montana. The gang already misses you. Dotty refuses to take sugar cubes from anyone since you left.”

I smiled. “On one condition,” I said, twining my fingers together behind his neck.

“What’s that?” he asked with an arched brow. He knew I was putty in his arms.

“We collaborate again.”

He smiled, his brown eyes crinkling in the corners just before he bent down to kiss me.

“You want to do another duet?” he asked skimming his lips against mine.

“I’m thinking a whole album.”

He groaned, working his lips up to my ear until I was shivering in his arms. “Let’s take it one song at a time.”

“Perfect. That’ll be the name of our first song,” I joked.

The pounding on the door threatened to break the door off its hinges.

“Brooklyn Heart, get your ass out here right now! You just won Best Solo Artist of the year!” Summer yelled through the dressing room door.

“Oh shit,” I gasped, jumping out of his arms and ripping the dressing room door open. There were two stagehands, Summer, and a show producer standing there with wide eyes.

I sighed and propped my hands on my hips as if I’d been ready for days.

“Outta my way people! I have an award to accept.”

I tugged Jason along as I made my way through backstage. Hopefully the producers wouldn’t mind if he escorted me back on stage. I had a feeling this would be the last award I’d be winning as a solo artist and I wanted him standing by my side during the speech.

…



It was later, after I’d accepted my award with a bright smile and shaky hands; after Jason and I had taken our seats once again; after Cammie clutched my hand as they announced the nominees for Album of the Year, and after Jason’s name was announced once the thick envelope had been torn open.

That’s when he took the stage with the crowd cheering him on. I stood up and whistled as best as I could (which is to say, not at all). His dark eyes locked with mine as he accepted the award and then he looked up to the faces in the crowd and took a deep, calming breath.

Names rolled off his tongue as he thanked the label, his manager, agent, friends, and colleagues. And then his gaze fell on me and my stomach clenched in anticipation for what he would say.

“I was once asked which I would pick if given a choice between experiencing love firsthand or writing about fictional love in my songs. At the time I’d chosen what seemed like the logical choice: to write. It’s what I’d done my whole life, it’s something I do every day.” His gaze never left mine as he held his Grammy in both hands. His dark eyes burned through me and I gripped the velvet seat beneath me for support. “But I was wrong. You can write one million songs about one million types of love, but none of those can compare to feeling it firsthand.” He lifted the Grammy up in the air and looked out into the expanse of people. “So this award is for the dreamers, and the romantics, that they may follow their hearts and not their heads, and seek to find a nonfiction love song of their own.”





Chapter Thirty-Two



Epilogue





“So you’re going to be my brother in law now?” Cammie asked as soon as Jason and I had joined her for breakfast. It’d been a week since the Grammys, and Jason and I had spent our days in bed alternating between writing and having sex. I have to say, it was a pretty great system and we’d already finished the first song for our next album. (A fact that our record label was ecstatic over.) After nearly wearing a hole in my mattress, we’d managed to extricate ourselves from my condo so that we could meet Cammie for breakfast.

The bistro in downtown LA was bustling with families enjoying their meals. I glanced around the space, smiling at the lively atmosphere as our mugs were filled with steaming coffee.

“Cammie, Jason and I have technically only been dating for one week. We aren’t getting married,” I told her once the waiter had walked away.

She leaned back in her chair and stared between the two of us with a wide smile. “I give it a month.”

Jason chuckled, but didn’t disagree. Dear God, would I be engaged in a month?

No.

Nope.

Maybe.

“Let’s order some food!” I exclaimed, a tad too loud for it to seem natural.

“What do you guys have planned after this?” Cammie asked, pouring some cream into her coffee.