A Very Dirty Christmas Read online

  "I'm going off-script," she says, looking into the camera. "I was supposed to sing something from my most upcoming album, but I'm not going to do that. I'm going to sing something I wrote. It's not flashy, and the band isn't prepared for this, so it's just going to be me and a guitar. I hope you like it. And Hendrix, if you're watching, it's all for you. It always has been."

  My heart in my throat, I watch while Addy picks up the guitar and puts the strap around her neck. A few people standing behind me titter, and I turn around and shut them up with a look. Addy standing there in her shimmery white evening gown with a guitar around her neck is going to be one of those shots plastered all over every magazine and gossip website around.

  I stand there, holding my breath, while she plays the first few chords of a song I've never heard, her eyes closed. And then she starts to sing, and it's hypnotic, watching her. She sings about heartbreak and loss. And love.

  I'd forgotten how to breathe

  I'd forgotten how to live

  I'd forgotten how to love...until you.

  And, just like that, the night makes a hundred eighty degree turn. Just like that, it's Addy's image in my mind, instead of the horror from the past. I know it doesn't replace it permanently, but it does now. And that's enough.

  When Addy comes backstage, she's practically accosted by people – other celebrities, a few reporters – but the bodies part, and she stands there, a few feet away, looking at me. "And?" she asks.

  "Oh, did you perform already?" I ask. "I was taking a leak, so I think I missed it."

  Addy grins, walking up to me and putting her hand on my chest. I'm aware of eyes on us, the fact that this moment, what's happening between us, is the center of attention in this room, but I don't care. "Don't be a dick," she says.

  "You sure about this?" I ask, reminding her of all of the potential consequences for her, the possibility of her losing her contract. Being sued by the label.

  Addy shrugs. "Fuck it."

  "You know I love you," I tell her. I realize I've thought it a thousand times, and it feels so much like I've already said it. The words leave my mouth, sounding so familiar when I speak them to her, but I haven’t said it. Not yet. Not until now.

  "Oh, do I?" she asks. Her head is tilted up toward me, her lips parted, and I want to kiss her, but I wait, because there are things that need to be said.

  "I love you," I say. "Absolutely and completely. I've loved you since day one, Addy-girl. For seven years I've loved you."

  "Okay," she says.

  "Okay?" I ask. "That's it? I tell you I love you and you say okay?"

  A broad grin spreads across her face. "I love you, too, but you already heard me say that on stage," she says. "Now, stop giving me grief and kiss me already. You know the tabloids are going to need a good image to go with their scandal. So let's give them one."

  So I kiss her – one of those slow-motion, hands-in-the-hair, straight-out-of-the-movies kisses where everything in the world stops.

  And then I bend down, and pick her up in my arms, and I carry her the fuck out of there, grinning like the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet, because I am. Right in front of the reporters and everything.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ADDY

  My phone buzzes over and over, until I finally shut it off. That doesn't seem good enough, though, so I take out the SIM card and break it in half before turning to Hendrix, who looks at me with amusement. "I don't want to talk to anyone right now," I explain. "And there's going to be too much talking to do."

  We're in the limo, driving back to my place, until Hendrix taps on the tinted glass and asks the driver to detour, driving around for a while to lose any paparazzi, until he finally ends up a small apartment complex. "It's nothing fancy," he explains, leading me through the front door. "Okay, it's kind of a dump, so brace yourself. I just want to show you something."

  The apartment isn't a dump as much as it is bare of anything resembling Hendrix's personality. It's stark, empty except for a few pieces of furniture, some clothes, and a few boxes. "Did you live here?" I ask.

  "It worked," Hendrix says simply.

  He takes my hand and sits down on a bed, and opens a box. "I want you to know who I am, the years when I was gone. And what my father said…"

  "Hendrix," I say, holding my hand up. "You don't need to explain." But I close my mouth when he starts talking, words that seem to pour out of him, a floodgate that doesn't want to close. He tells me about the guys he was with, the rest of his squad that was killed in an IED blast in the mountains in Afghanistan. He tells me about the guilt he has for surviving, how he runs for miles at night instead of sleeping, how he couldn't think about the future because he couldn't see one for himself. He talks and talks and talks, almost without taking a breath, and I hold his hand, not saying anything until he's finished. Then he looks up at me, and says, "I've been a coward. It's the reason I never said I loved you before."

  My heart feels like it's bursting, and I'm not sure if it's more because it's broken for him, or because I finally know I love him. Then he reaches into the box and hands me a stack of letters. "This is the other reason I've been a coward, Addy-girl," he says.

  "What are…" I open the one on top, my eyes scanning over the first few lines, and if I thought my heart were going to burst with love for this man before…

  Addy-girl,

  Twenty-two days. I have twenty-two days left in this shithole. Two hundred and eighteen days of this deployment down and I'm alive. My squad's alive. Twenty-two days and we're going home, and I swear that I'm going to say the things I've wanted to say to you since I left. I'm sure you've written me off by now. But if I get home, I'll tell you that there hasn't been a day since I left that I've not thought about you, that you haven't been at the forefront of my mind.

  I look at the other letters in my hand, all addressed to me. The full impact of what I'm holding hits me and I start to cry.

  Hendrix reaches up and wipes a tear from my cheek. "I couldn't say what I wanted to say. And then after…what happened with my squad…I stopped."

  "And then you came home," I say.

  Hendrix slides his arms around me. "And then I came home." He pauses. "It's kind of lame, I know, writing you."

  I laugh, and he pulls back and looks at me. "Are you laughing at me?"

  "I'll show you later," I say. "I have a notebook full of songs, Hendrix. They're all about you. You wrote letters, I wrote songs."

  "I guess we're both lame," he says.

  "I guess we are."

  Hendrix kisses me then, and I know that regardless of what happens, the fallout from the awards show, that everything will be okay.

  EPILOGUE

  HENDRIX

  Addy snores in her sleep – not lightly, either. She's in her third trimester and she sounds like a damn freight train. She's propped up on pillows, several behind her back and one under her knees, like she's sleeping in a recliner, and I reach over and slide my hand over her rapidly-growing belly, trying not to wake her.

  I don't sleep any more now than I did before, but it's not because I'm running anymore. In fact, I've stopped running away from everything. When I told Addy I loved her, I meant it. I didn't want to let her go.

  We holed up for a week after everything happened. The day after, I thought Addy would be screwed. But her fans loved the song, and the clip of her speech and the song was replayed everywhere. Addy went out swinging, too. She hired a pit-bull of an attorney and a public relations team and she fought like hell when the record label tried to claim that our relationship was a breach of her morality clause. We did the press circuit, interviewing on talk shows, and surprisingly, the public was largely supportive.

  It wasn't all rainbows and butterflies. Addy settled with the studio and her contract was terminated. But she didn't wind up owing them anything, and she was free of all of it.

  Addy snorts a little, and moves gently, her hand covering mine, and I snuggle in next to her, breathing her in, and