Merry Ever After

“I gotta take this,” he yelled, holding up his phone to indicate a call from his office.

I waved him off rather than reminding him it was Christmas Freaking Eve and I’d been out of town for two weeks. Two wasted weeks. And wasn’t that exactly what I’d been doing with Mark? Wasting time.

Okay, Vonn definitely just winked at me.

I glared back at him.

“Ohmygod! He’s so hot!” squealed a young, pretty blonde next to me. She was with a posse of girlfriends.

Before I could reluctantly agree, I was jostled from behind into the security fence that separated the front row from the stage. The mosh pit behind us was getting wild as the band stirred the audience up with punk versions of their Christmas favorites.

Back in my twenties, I wouldn’t have hesitated to join them. Two decades, two now-grown children, and a middle-aged body prone to second-day soreness ruled that out. But I was forty-six, not dead. I’d at least dressed the part in skinny jeans, a ripped black tank, and a cropped leather jacket.

Garrett, the youthful lead singer with a voice so similar to his father’s it was eerie, carried them into an energetic “Run Rudolph Run.” I closed my eyes and grooved to the music.

They were a great band. Even after the tragedy. I wasn’t the only one sad that this was the end of the road for the Sonic Arcade. And if it wasn’t for the stubborn, sexy bassist, I could have been the one to tell the story of their farewell.

A pointy elbow connected with my kidney pushing me into the bubbly blonde. “Shit! Sorry. Are you okay?” I asked the girl.

I didn’t get an answer because an entire sweaty body rammed her at full speed sending her into the waist high security fence. I turned around and shoved the guy. “Back off, man!”

He had at least fifty pounds on me and was staggeringly drunk. With the momentum of my push, he careened backward into the center of the mosh pit. Everything happened at once as all hell broke loose. I saw security fighting their way forward as Drunk Guy came back at me.

My last coherent thought before he yanked me into the fray was that Vonn looked way too close to the edge of the stage.

Bouncing off bodies like a pinball, I knew I needed to stay on my feet. Going to the floor in a situation like this was asking for a trip to the hospital.

Someone stepped on my foot and I stumbled into a wall of pointy elbows and flying shoulder slams. I caught a glancing blow to the jaw and saw stars. Hands hit me high on the back, shoving me hard enough that my head snapped forward. And down I went onto the sticky floor, into the sea of boots and feet.

A scuffed Doc Martin stepped on my thigh. Someone’s stiletto—who in the hell wore stilettos to a standing room only punk concert?—caught me in the forehead. Pain was blooming everywhere. I wondered what Addison and Shane would say about their mother being trampled to death in a mosh pit.

They’d probably be embarrassed and blame a midlife crisis. But was it really a midlife crisis when I was just trying to finally live my life the way I wanted to live it?

I felt hands lifting me. Strong arms enfolding me. I wasn’t on the floor anymore. I was definitely already dead because I staring into Vonn Barlowe’s blue eyes as he cradled me in his arms, muscling his way toward the stage.

“You really don’t have to do this,” I said for the ninth time as Vonn eased up to the curb in front of urgent care. The windshield wipers whipped back and forth as fat snowflakes pelted down in the dark, the roads already boasted a thick coating.

I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten the short straw of chauffeuring me into town after the venue medical staff insisted I needed to get checked out officially. But here I was, in the passenger seat of a badass black Tahoe with Vonn Barlowe behind the wheel. The man who had both crushed a dream and starred in a few of my naughtier ones. The man who had much better things to do than drive me around my hometown in a snowstorm.

I shifted in my seat and winced.

My entire body ached, and all I wanted to do was go home and lie on the couch.

Alone. On Christmas Eve.

It was a side effect of having a healthy relationship with my ex-husband. I couldn’t blame the kids for being excited to spend Christmas Eve and morning with him, his—significantly—younger wife, and their adorable baby.

“Stay,” Vonn barked in the rough rasp typical of his post-concert voice.

“Stay,” I mimicked as he rounded the hood. After spending the last two weeks with the band, it was clear that the bassist was a man of few words. An introverted rocker. How novel.