I started falling for Hailey that night—the first night we met—but I didn’t realize it until weeks later. I should have spent those weeks wanting to rekindle my relationship with Danica, but all I wanted to do was talk on the phone to her cousin, play video games with her cousin, hang out with her cousin. I convinced myself that Hailey was just a really cool girl and that we were just meant to be really good friends, but I couldn’t get her out of my head. I’d lie in bed at night wishing I was with her, or that I could at least hear her voice, and the day we scouted the pond for the music video, everything finally clicked.
I knew even before we got to the clearing. The whole walk through the woods, I couldn’t stop stealing glances at her, and I felt like such an asshole. It’s not like she was trying to get my attention—she was wearing a baggy hoodie, loose jeans, and old boots—so why the hell couldn’t I stop looking at her? My hand twitched to free itself from Danica’s and latch on to Hailey’s, and the more Danica talked, the more frustrated I got. She complained the whole hike to the clearing, and then she wouldn’t shut up about being the star of our video, and the whole time, Kit just kept giving me looks like, I told you so.
She and the entire band had been on my case for weeks, and I should have listened, but when I saw Danica outside of the bus that chilly night back in September, it all came rushing back. All of it. The pain, the doubt, and even a shadow of the feelings I’d had for her in high school, the crush I’d had on her since third grade. She was the prettiest girl in our school, and she’s still beautiful—but not like Hailey. She doesn’t have Hailey’s sexy curls or Hailey’s kind heart or Hailey’s contagious spark, and when I walked into the woods with Hailey that day at the pond, I knew I was in trouble.
We’d stopped at a fallen tree, just before it started to rain, and as she sat on top of it . . . God, I wanted to kiss her. I should have felt terrible about it, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t even think—not of Danica, not of anything. All I could do was stare at Hailey’s lips and wonder how soft they’d feel against mine.
Thank God it started pouring rain, or I probably would have fucked everything up. Hailey made me laugh my ass off as she screamed about manatees and koalas and God knows what else as we raced to the cabin, and as I sat on those dusty wooden floors with her, watching the world fall apart outside, I realized I was the happiest I’d been in a long, long time.
So I stuck my hat on her head. That was my genius move. I stuck my hat on her head, walked her back to the clearing, and made a silent promise to figure out my feelings. I was pretty sure it was time to call it quits with Danica, but then Hailey fell in the pond, and then she stopped responding to my calls and texts, and then I got sick, and . . . honestly, it’s a miracle we ever figured things out.
“This next song is called ‘Ghost,’” Adam shouts from the front of the stage, and when the crowd goes wild, he chuckles. “Sounds like you’ve heard of it?”
“I think most of them were in it,” Shawn quips into his backup mic, and Adam grins at him and then the rest of us before turning back around.
“Scream if you were in it.”
A smile stretches across my face as Mayhem fills with the rafter-shaking roar of our fans, and I glance at Hailey to find her eyes wide with surprise and her lips parted in awe. As if she can feel me watching, she meets my gaze, and my smile widens as I twirl a drumstick between my fingers—showing off a little even as I try to assure her that, in spite of all the fans and fame and noise, I’m still the same guy who squeezed into her pink bunny pajama shirt last night just to see her laugh.
I know sometimes this “rock star” thing is a lot for her to process—sometimes it’s a lot for me to process—but beneath these blinding lights, I’m still me. I’m still me, and I’m still hers, and nothing is ever going to change that.
“Now sing it with me if you know the words,” Adam instructs the crowd, and I take my cue, setting a rhythm on the drums as I remember the night we shot this music video.
I knew I was going to kiss Hailey that night. I’d broken up with Danica, and I was supposed to leave on tour the next morning, but there was no way I was stepping foot on that plane until I’d kissed Hailey at least once. It was all I could think about as I watched her shoot scenes in that sexy red dress. I just wanted to steal her away, take her face in my hands, and see if I could make her feel the sparks she said she’d never felt before.
I had no idea I’d never felt them either, but as her fingers scraped over my scalp and her body moved against mine as I kissed her in the woods—as she kissed me back—I felt like I was on fire, and I was sure my heart was going to explode in my chest. My heart, my body, my mind: they were all consumed by her, and now, when I glance at her standing offstage, smiling at me like only she can, I feel the same way.
The girl is fireworks. She doesn’t even have to be doing anything special. She can just be sitting on my couch in a pair of cat pajama pants and one of my Guinness T-shirts, playing Deadzone with a pizza slice balanced on one leg and Phoenix’s front paws resting on the other, and all I want to do is drop to one knee in front of her and ask her to spend the rest of my life with me.
I might have already asked if I didn’t know that Adam is planning on proposing to Rowan in Paris in a few months. We have a show set up, we’re bringing the girls with us, and he already bought the ring months ago. I don’t want to steal his thunder, but as soon as he pops the question, I’m not waiting. I’m not planning the rest of my life based on anyone else except me and Hailey—we’ve done enough of that already.
Back in December, when I asked Hailey if she planned on spending Christmas with Danica’s family, she finally told me everything she’d been keeping from me while I was on tour. She told me about Danica’s ultimatum and how much she struggled with the decision, and she confessed it like she thought it would make me love her less, when really, it would have made me love her more, if loving her more was possible. I couldn’t believe that she had been faced with that choice—her lifelong dream or me—and she had chosen me. And when she told me about Danica punching her in the mouth, I was ready to lose my shit—right up until Hailey smiled wide and told me she punched Danica back, and that she broke her damn nose.
My girl. Badass street fighter. She never stops surprising me.
It’s one of the reasons why my grandmother’s wedding ring is currently burning a hole in the glove compartment of my truck. I asked my mom for it a few days after she met Hailey for the first time, and her eyes filled with happy tears as she removed it from her antique wooden jewelry box and slipped it into the palm of my hand. When I was in high school, I thought I’d someday give that ring to Danica, but it never felt like the right time, and I doubted my mom would give it to me anyway, considering how passionately she hated my girlfriend. Now, every day that I don’t put that ring on Hailey’s finger feels like an eternity too long.