Falling Down

Chapter Twenty-Six
Lucy
"Great show," Cage tells me with a huge grin. "This is going to be one hell of a tour."
The crowd is still cheering.
"Encore?"
"Oh yeah," Trace says.
We head back out and I ask them what they want to sing. We've already run through our entire album, including the song Falling Down came out to perform with us.
"I Miss The Misery by Halestorm," Trace says.
We all nod. We know this one very, very well. It's one of the songs we play a lot during practices.
"You want more of us, Vegas?!" I shout, pulling the mic off the stand. They scream back.
"We might have a little something we could sing for you. What do you say?"
They shout back. I am loving this. I can't wait until we're at the arena venues.
"All right. The woman in this song is a total masochist but when you've got the right guy--all tall, dark, and sexy, incredible stamina in bed--"
"Stop talking about Jesse," Sera tells the crowd and everyone starts laughing.
"Hey, I can't help he's all that and more." Sera makes an obscene gesture and I laugh. "Here comes a little Halestorm for you."
We all start at the same time--vocals, guitars, drums. That's the part I love about this song. I work the stage, going from one side to the other, stopping to belt out some lyrics, pointing to the audience before moving on.
The song ends and the cheers continue.
"Thank you Las Vegas! You've been incredible tonight! Our tour starts in a couple weeks and we'll be back. I hope to see you then!" I blow kisses and toss out my water bottle and hand towel. Trace throws his drumsticks. Jace, Sera, and Meggie throw out a bunch of picks. One last kiss to the crowd and we walk off stage. I can't contain the smile and Jesse picks me up and swings me around.
"That f*cking rocked."
"Hell yeah," Xander says and fist bumps us all.
"I've got to say, I'm looking forward to the larger venues now. That was so much fun."
Jesse nods. "You say that now, but the minute you set foot in the venue or do sound check, you're going to want to puke. Once you go on for real, you'll calm down fast just like tonight."
I nod. "We really did okay?"
"Jesus, Lucy," Cage says. "If you did any better, they'd have had a riot in here."
"I'd hug you, but I don't want to get your pretty suit full of my sweat."
"To hell with the suit," he says and pulls me in for a hug. "You do me proud," he whispers in my ear.
"You can't know what that means to me." Cage Nichols has worked with some of the biggest names in music and we did him proud.
"I know. You deserve this. Two weeks until the tour. Practices and PR every day until then, except for tomorrow due to travel," he tells us all. We nod our agreement.
"All right, boys and girls," Xander shouts. "Let's go party!"
We laugh. "Shower then party."
***~~~***
We walk down the strip, drinking, gambling, and being outrageously obnoxious. Amazingly Jesse and the guys only get recognized a couple times--likely due to Jesse's haircut that he hasn't shared with the world yet.
The guys are just as hammered as we are, stumbling around laughing. Around two in the morning I get the brilliant idea to scour the entire city of Las Vegas to find the real Elvis, because everybody knows Elvis isn't dead (rolls eyes at self).
I lose track of time somewhere around Caesar's Palace.
***~~~***
Oh my God, my head. Someone kill me. I crack open one eye, or try to, and it hurts like a mofo. I am never drinking that much again. Damn whipped cream Pinnacle and root beer. I take a deep breath and that hurts too. I groan. Jesus, what the hell time did we get in last night? I don't remember anything after looking for Elvis in Caesar's Palace. F*cking Elvis. That was some of the dumbest shit I've ever done. Because everyone knows Elvis is alive. Xander fist bumped me and it was on. He became my partner in crime.
I try again to open one eye to look at the clock. How the f*ck is it possible for my eyeballs to hurt? Unh. Two-fifteen in the afternoon. Wow, and I still feel this bad. I wonder how we got back to the hotel. Is Jesse even in bed with me?
I slowly and cautiously roll onto my back. One never knows if they're going to end up having a hangover accompanied by vomiting and with the queasiness I'm experiencing, I'm thinking I may be one of the unlucky pukers. I need some water and ibuprofen like yesterday. I turn my head and I see Jesse passed out cold.
I lift my hand to rub my eyes in hopes to open them both when my hand flops onto my face.
"Ow, what the f*ck," I say. Something hard and sharp hits my face. Great, as if this hangover isn't enough. Now I'll have a bruise or some scrape or something on my forehead. At least I have two weeks for it to heal, whatever damage I've done with whatever the hell is on my finger. Did I get my nails done last night? Poke my eye with the acrylic? I move my thumb to touch my fingernails. Nope. God, even doing that hurts my head. How is that possible?
I'm going to have to open my eyes and it's going to hurt. I rub my eyes again--no damage done this time. Thankfully.
I open one eye then the other. There are clothes thrown all over the hotel room, my bra is hanging from the lampshade. Damn. I bet we had some really amazing drunk sex and I don't remember it. Just then a couple flashes of hard, pounding sex with Jesse flashes through my mind. Oh, those images… oh yeah. Wild monkey sex it was.
I breathe through the headache pain. It's evil. Never again.
"Unh," I murmur, trying to wake Jesse. He doesn't even flinch. Shit, the way he's so still, I hope he's not dead. Wouldn't that be just the way shit's been going for me lately? Apparently I swear a lot when I'm hungover too.
I reach out to go and shake him when a flash blinds me. What the f*ck is that? I'm full of all kinds of questions--and right now I've got another one.
"Holy. F*cking. Shit." Is that a wedding ring? I wouldn't do something stupid like that. Besides, Sera was there to make sure I wouldn't, right? Right??
"Oh my God. Jesse!" I screech, shaking him looking at the gorgeous diamond ring on my wedding ring finger. It really is so pretty--focus. Married! WHAT!
"Jesse, get up!"
"Wha?" he murmurs, his eyes closed as he lifts his head off the pillow.
"Wake up! You… Me… We… Oh my God!" I screech and my head pounds. F*ck.
"Stop screaming, Luce. What's going on?" he asks, so calmly, as he scratches his chest and opens his eyes. I look over at his hand, the one he's using to scratch his chest and gasp.
"What is it?"
"Unh," is all I can manage.
"Luce, why are you 'unh'ing?"
"Married," I whisper.
"What?" he asks, his eyes open now, very wide I might add.
"Left hand. Ring. Married," I whisper.
He looks at his left hand and goes completely still. He bolts upright and reaches for my left hand with his.
"How did you get that? That was in my…" he breaks off like he just remembered something, something vital that he's not sharing with me.
"Tell me. What…"
"Unh," he says and I start to panic.
"That about sums it up. Do you remember what happened?" I ask taking a deep calming breath.
"Parts of it. It's coming to me slowly. How much do you remember?"
"Nothing after chasing fat Elvis through Caesar's Palace."
He chuckles. "That was f*cking awesome."
I shrug. "I only wanted to search him for drugs. It's not a good way to die, overdosing on the toilet for the world to make fun of."
Jesse snorts then moans. "God, I think we drank bottle upon bottle of liquor last night."
"Tell me about it. Why are we wearing wedding rings, Jesse?" And why, all of a sudden, am I not panicking about this? A sense of calm has come over me. Weird. I'm sure the panic will come back later, once I get my hangover under control and it sinks in--and I think about telling my mother. Shit.
"Uh," he says rubbing the back of his neck. That's never good. "We hit a couple more hotels and casinos looking for your Elvis and then we found a skinny Elvis. You insisted on telling him all about his fate. We headed to breakfast at Denny's."
"All of us, or just me and you?"
"All of us. When we got there you were so serious telling Elvis his fate. He was so grateful he asked if he could officiate our wedding."
I groan. "I don't remember any of this."
"Anyway, Elvis got permission from someone at Denny's to officiate our ceremony there. Apparently Denny's in Las Vegas also has a 24 hour wedding chapel."
"Huh. I guess that's convenient. Drunk people going for breakfast to sober up but don't quite get there before they decide to get married," I laugh. I can't help it. It's so hilarious.
Jesse laughs with me. "God, Lucy. I thought for sure you were going to be pissed off."
"I'm not pissed. Shocked, stunned, freaking out a little bit, but not pissed."
"Yeah. I was so f*cked up I'm surprised I remember any of it. We laughed through the whole thing. You licked skinny Elvis's cheek."
"What the hell?"
He shrugs. "Who knows. We were hammered."
"Hammered doesn't begin to describe it."
"F*cking skinny Elvis was a riot."
"Where did you get this gorgeous ring?"
"Ah, that ring I've had for a while now."
"What?" I whisper. Is he serious? He's been wanting to marry me?
"Yeah, I got the ring because I knew I wanted to ask you to marry me--eventually--and if I had the ring handy and inspiration struck, well, I could ask you."
"Why didn't you ask me?"
"Would you have said yes?"
I hesitate. How can I not? That's a major life decision. Would I have said yes?
"I think I would have. We'd have had to talk about a lot of things and I think I'd have wanted to have a little longer of an engagement, at least through the tour." I groan again. "Oh God. The tour. The media. Shit. Cage."
"Yeah, about Cage. He was there."
"Seriously?"
He nods and grins. "He was all for it. He kept shouting 'True love prevails'. Then he and Xander would fist bump."
"Wow. Cage Nichols?"
He nods. "Hammered. He was hilarious."
"I think I remember a little bit of that. Wow. Where did the wedding bands come from?"
"Elvis knew a jeweler down the street who opened for us to pick out bands."
"Skinny Elvis or fat Elvis?"
"Skinny Elvis. You freaked out fat Elvis so bad I thought he was going to get a restraining order."
"Oh come on. It wasn't that bad."
"Luce, you tackled him."
I rub a finger around my ring. "Well, he ran away and I didn't tackle him hard."
He chuckles.
"Anyway, the jeweler came in very handy. At least I helped pick out wedding bands. I remember that part."
"You did."
"I can't believe we got married--drunk married in Vegas with skinny Elvis at Denny's."
He nods.
"Jesus Christ, my mom is going to have a fit. Oh God. She's going to go on and on about how we don't have a prenuptial agreement and how it was irresponsible of us to get married without family there."
"Well, if you wanted to I suppose we could get the marriage annulled."
I gasp. "What?"
"I'm just saying, it's an option."
"From the looks of this room with my bra hanging from the lampshade and my panties on top of the TV, I'm pretty sure we had sex which means annulment is out of the question."
"If you wanted an annulment, we could pretend that didn't happen."
"Is that want you want?"
"Truthfully? No. I wouldn't have gotten married this quickly but really what do rings and a piece of paper change between us?"
Hmm. He's right. We live together. We work together. We're going on tour together. He's my best friend and I love him more than life itself.
"I don't want to annul the marriage, Jesse. I wouldn't have wanted to get married this soon but if you'd asked me to marry you, I'd have said yes. We could have been engaged for six months or a year. In that time we'd have gone on tour and got married after that."
"Since when do we do anything normal, Luce?"
"Valid point. I need ibuprofen and water. Then a pot of coffee."
"No prenup. You better not screw up, Mr. Rockstar."
"You either, Blush baby."
"Ugh. That nickname needs to go away."
He grunts. "Not going to happen."
"Who came up with that anyway?"
Your Vegas crowd and I guarantee that's going to catch on quick."
"Gah, The room looks like a tornado hit it."
He grins. "Not a tornado, just us. Wild drunk crazy monkey sex."
"Monkey!" I sing and he laughs. "I kinda figured with my bra on one side of the room, my panties ripped on the floor, and my jeans on the other side of the room, that it was a wild one" I giggle. "I do remember part of that." I gasp. "And I do remember you calling me "wife"."
He nods. "I love you, Lucy, more than I ever thought I could love anyone. Each time I think I couldn't love you any more than I do at that moment, my heart goes and proves me wrong, you go and prove me wrong. I'm not sure how we'll handle this with the press or your mom, but I can't say I regret it."
"You say that now. Wait until I'm old and gray with saggy boobs and arthritis."
"You'll still be beautiful to me."
I throw myself at him and hug him tight. "God, you're so amazing, Jesse. I love you so, so much--husband."
He chuckles. "I love you too, wife."
"It's kinda weird."
"We'll adjust."
"We will. If I can adjust to living in the same house with Xander who is constantly panty-checking me, I can adjust to this."
He chuckles. "I'll be honest. I kinda like that you're wearing my ring and you've got my last name. Luciana Kingston."
"Mrs. Jesse Kingston. Do you know how many times I wrote that on my notebooks in high school?" I laugh.
"That's not weird at all," he tells me, his tone dripping with sarcasm.
"What? Maybe my writing it sealed our fate. I did make a list of wishes one day."
"What did you wish for?"
"I wished I'd meet you and we'd have a special connection."
"Came true."
"I wished we'd make music together, write songs, and sing together."
"Came true."
"Wow. Yeah. I wished you'd kiss me and, uh, we'd have crazy insane sex."
"Came true, but wild drunk crazy monkey sex."
I nod. This moment is profound. "Maybe my list was magic," I whisper.
"Maybe you've got Nana Russo's mojo."
"That's not supposed to work for personal gain."
He shrugs. "Whatever it is, it brought us together. Fate, the universe, Nana Russo's mojo."
"It's been a bumpy ride already. Hopefully the road smoothes out soon."
"Don't hold your breath, Cupcake. We've got a four month tour coming up in two weeks--groupies, media, gossip--and to top that off, we've got your mom."
I sigh. "Again, why can't you bullshit me just once?"
"Because if I've got to go through all this with my eyes wide open, I'm dragging you right along with me."
"Awww. If that isn't true love, I don't know what is."
He snorts. "You grab the ibuprofen and water and I'll order us some coffee and breakfast."
"Bacon, please. And a Coke. Coke is the cure-all for hangovers."
"Who fed you that line?"
I shrug. "I don't remember."
"There is no cure-all for a hangover. See, if I were to feed you a line of bullshit, I could say wild monkey newlywed sex is the cure-all for a hangover."
"But you don't feed me lines of bullshit, you just drag me through whatever hell we've got to face."
He throws an arm around my shoulders. "At least we're facing it together, right?"
I nod. A positive thought comes to me and I almost bounce like Meggie. "That's true. That means I don't have to face my mom alone."
He groans.
"Isn't being married fun?"

The End.
Blush, Book 2 in the Rockstar series coming soon.




Acknowledgements
I'm not even sure where to begin. There are so many people to thank.

I'll start with my fantastic Betalicious Beauties: Eileen Robinson, Kerri Lofgren-Miller, Autumn Oertel, Heather Wishnia, Kim Carr, Jessica Butler, and Lisa Matheson Sylva. You ladies kept me going when I was ready to throw in the towel and pumped me up through the edits from hell. I am so very thankful for everything you've done and continue to do.

To Lisa Ravenscroft and Lydia, the HeaBook ShelfBlogger: Thank you SO much for your support and efforts for the Release Day Blitz and everything to do with Falling Down. You both are incredible and I can't tell you how much your help and support has meant to me.

A great big thank you to Jake Ingrassia, actor extraordinaire, for your help with regard to the movie and acting industry as well as technical terms I never would have known. Your character will be making an appearance in the next book... stay tuned.

To my sister and the tiny fan club of people from high school and work I'm proud to call friends: Thank you for being excited with me, supporting me, and buying the book. You all are awesome, hugs and love!

To those who I call friends in the social media community: I love you, I love you, I love you! You had no idea what the book was about or if it was any good but you jumped right on my bandwagon and pledged your support and vowed to buy my book.

To the amazing authors whom I admire and inspire me to no depths including, of course, Nora Roberts, Tijan, L.B. Simmons, Jay McLean, and R.S. Grey. Thank you for letting me fangirl all over you.
A special thank you goes out to the lovely Tijan and the beautiful Jay McLean for allowing honorable mention of themselves and their characters in Falling Down.

Family doesn't always have the same blood running through their veins or the same DNA and I can say this for certain. I would like to thank Porter Natali, Melly Burke (Trace), Raynee Mattos, Aaron McCall, Dallas, Darian, Jaime, Kyle Andrews, Brennan Di Rossi, Kenzie Otermat, Casey Burke, Jesse Andrews… I'll be naming all night if I keep going but thank ALL of you (even Jerrick) for being so amazing and welcoming me into your family. I love you guys.