Merry Ever After

“She’s talking about Vonn Barlowe, Mom,” Shane said.

Uh-oh.

I’d texted Michelle back, swearing her to secrecy with a promise to tell her everything—well, not everything—the following day. But no one else actually knew Vonn had spent the night.

“What about him?” I asked, trying to sound innocent. My children and I had someone traded places. Now it was me worried about evidence of misdeeds like condom wra

ppers.

“It’s all over Twitter,” Addy said, shoving her phone in my face.

It was a grainy video from the concert last night.

“I can’t believe Vonn freaking Barlowe jumped offstage, punched two guys in the face, and carried my mom backstage,” Shane said. He managed to sound only moderately ill when he said the part about me being his mother.

I snatched the phone from my daughter and pushed Play. There I was, at the bottom of the screen getting snatched into the mosh pit. What I hadn’t seen in real life, being distracted by trying not to get trampled to death, was Vonn shrugging off his guitar and vaulting off the stage after me.

The crowd went wild with him in their midst, wading toward me with security on his heels.

The camera panned over just in time to see Vonn’s fist connect with Drunk Guy #1. The guy went down hard. It was hard to tell what happened next, but I saw tattooed arm pull back and fly straight. Then there I was, cradled in Vonn’s arms as security closed around us.

I decided I was going to watch this video every day for the rest of my life.

“Where the hell was Mark?” Shane demanded. “I thought you were going with him. We’d never have let you go alone.”

“He had a work emergency,” I said lamely.

“I never liked that guy,” Addy told us over her shoulder as she marched into the kitchen.

The doorbell rang, mercifully saving me from having to answer. “I’d better get that.”

“Don’t think this is getting you out of telling us what happened backstage, young lady,” Addy called.

“It’s probably Dad and Val,” Shane said. “They wanted to make sure you were okay. They were a couple of minutes behind us.”

Christmas morning with my ex and his new—admittedly perfect—wife? I guessed the holiday couldn’t get much weirder than it already was.

I escaped to the front door and yanked it open.

Instead of Ryan and Val, I came face-to-face with a huge floral arrangement.

“Uhh…”

“Brooke Aucker?” the person behind the flowers said. I could just make out a florist van in my driveway behind Shane’s ancient Ford Escape.

“That’s me.” Or at least it had been me before I’d gotten married and taken Ryan’s name.

“Here you go. Merry Christmas.” The delivery man shifted the arrangement into my arms.

“You’re delivering on Christmas?” I said stupidly.

He grinned, then winked. “Honey, for a thousand-dollar delivery bonus I got no problem opening the shop for an hour.”

“Thanks,” I stuttered.

He tossed me a little salute and whistled his way back to his van.

“Who are those from?” my son demanded when I walked into the kitchen.