Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 100441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100441 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
I know without a doubt that signing with Harley was the right thing to do now.
I get the best of both worlds, and I get to go home to a man who loves me, our child, and the work-slash-family balance my father was never able to achieve.
I have everything I’ve ever wanted.
All because of Ryder Kennedy.
We finish up the interview, and I take my time getting back to the hotel. I’ve never seen New York City, so I wander around Rockefeller Center until I’m recognized by someone on the street.
No fucking shit.
Someone stopped me for a selfie and an autograph. Me. I love it, but I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
At home, it happens, but more often than not it’s when I’m with Harley or Ryder. Very rarely on my own. I’m not that recognizable yet.
I can’t wait to get back to the hotel so I can call Ryder and tell him about it.
I’m itching to get to my room, pulling up Ryder’s number as soon as I get into the elevator.
I hit Call when I get into the hallway, and it starts ringing when I get to my door.
Fiddling with my key and juggling the phone at the same time, I don’t even register the ringtone echoing around the place.
When I open the door and see my man and Kaylee on my hotel bed, my heart melts.
“What are you guys doing here?”
Ryder holds his finger to his lips, pointing at where Kaylee is napping.
He slowly climbs off the bed and approaches me. “We missed you.”
“It’s a school night,” I whisper.
“She was going to stay with Maggie, but when she found out I was coming to see you, she put her foot down.”
I can’t help smiling. “Our five-year-old put her foot down, so you both flew five hours to come see me?”
“Yup. Because we love you.” He glances back at Kaylee. “Both of us. I know we won’t be able to do this for every show or every appearance, but this is your first time. We belong here with you.” He seals it with a kiss that makes my knees weak and my heart full.
I could live without fame.
I could live without creating and making music professionally.
I can’t live without Ryder and Kaylee.
They’re like the melodies I can’t get out of my head and the lyrics that itch to be written. They’re part of me. They consume me.
“Ryder?”
“Mm?”
“If I haven’t said it enough, you guys are my everything.”
He smiles. “Careful, Lyric. You’re sounding a hell of a lot like a boy band cliché.”
I gasp. “Never. You take that back.”
“Never,” he mimics. “Because I know, deep down, you love my boy band-ness.”
“I love everything about you,” I whisper. “Even your demons.”
Ryder bursts out laughing. “We should wake Kaylee up and go have dinner so we can watch your big interview together.”
Epiphanies and big moments are supposed to happen at monumental times in someone’s life.
Standing in the entryway of a cheap hotel room is not where I’m supposed to have a giant romantic revelation.
“I want to marry you,” I blurt.
His eyes widen.
“I mean one day. When Kaylee’s old enough to kick paparazzi in the nuts.”
“Wow. What a … romantic proposal?”
“Not a proposal. A revelation.”
“That … you want to marry me. And what exactly brought on this revelation?”
“The perfect picture of what I want my future to look like. You—” I lean in and kiss his cheek. “—me—” I kiss his other cheek. “—and Kaylee eating dinner together.”
“That sounds positively boring and unexciting.”
“But it’s my boring and unexciting. With the kind of crazy our lives are, I can’t think of anything more permanent and normal than sitting down with the two people I love most and shutting out the rest of the world so it’s just us in our bubble.”
Ryder’s face softens as his bright blue, hypnotic eyes fill with warmth and love. “Now that you put it that way, it does sound perfect.”