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Emmy
Ireadthewordson the page and I thought I might cry. Her heart, all her feelings, her worries, her deepest fears were all there, laid out for everyone to see… or hear if this became the song I believed it needed to be. It took a moment for anyone to speak.
“You wrote this, Frankie?” Tanner asked, his voice low and serious.
“I did.”
Can I see something else you’ve written?”
“If you want to. That entire book is full of them, so knock yourself out.”
Tanner lifted the book from the table. His tattooed fingers flicked through, reading each page. The smile that broke out on his face grew bigger with each song. After a few minutes, he handed it to the twins, so they could read through it as well. About ten minutes of painful silence passed before Gray spoke.
“Damn, sis, that’s one pretty amazing talent you have. Do you have others?” His voice filled with pride as he glanced over at his sister.
“Books full. Probably hundreds of them. I’ve been writing since I was a teenager. I just thought they were rubbish. Teenage angst on paper. I didn’t think you’d want to see them.”
I watched as Tanner pulled his phone from his pocket to make a call.
“Addi. Can you sort us some recording time?”
“We already have some booked in the US.”
“No, before then. I think we have a new album in the making. It needs to be done ASAP. Just find us somewhere when we have time off in each city we hit for the rest of the European leg and then we can finish it in the US.”
“Consider it done. You been writing, Tan?”
“Not me. Frankie. The girl has about five albums worth of songs, and they’re damn good. I will get her to show you when we let her off our bus.”
“Good work, Frankie. And would this realization have anything to do with the magical Emmy?”
The band smiled at me while I shook my head vehemently, even though Addi couldn’t see me, trying to deflect their belief that I had witch-like powers that made them release their deepest secrets and heal their rifts. “Hey, all I did was ask them about the band’s name. You can’t blame me for this.”
“Oh, and Addi. Can you sort a trip for Lori and Phil for our first gig in the US? Let us know the details, so we can invite them ourselves. I think it’s time we all thanked them for being awesome parents.”
“I’ll get Rylee on it now. I’ll see you all at the hotel. Is there anything you want to do when we arrive? You have a couple of days’ downtime.”
“Skiing,” Mav shouted.
“Over my dead body. Breaking your leg on the tour isn’t an option.”
“What about sledding? And Emmy’s coming, Addi, so make that happen, but we need to be super aware of Mum’s agenda. Who knows what she’ll try next?”
“Already on it. Right, let me sort somenon-dangerous snow activities for rock divas. Leave it with me.”
Tanner hung up the phone with a grin and pulled me to sit on his knee. I tried to ignore the wide-eyed stares from the twins and Frankie as he leaned in, kissing me softly on the lips.
“Right, if we’re all doing this honesty stuff, Emmy and I are a thing. It’s new, but she makes me really happy.”
Heat flooded my face as Frankie squealed and Mav slapped Tanner on the back, but I couldn’t help but notice that Gray didn’t react. He simply offered a small smile before he busied himself on his phone. Before anyone could say anything else, a voice interrupted us from the intercom as the driver announced we were forty-five minutes from the hotel and we should get ready for our departure.
Switzerland was freezing. Blue skied, beautiful, but freezing, and nothing in my wardrobe was suitable to keep me warm in this weather. My teeth chattered, and we’d only been in the underground car park for a few minutes while we moved to the elevators to take us to the penthouse.
“You okay, angel?” Tanner leaned into me from behind, his breath kissing my neck, sending a tingle across my skin, which made my heart race. Fooling about like we did seemed to have opened the floodgates and any time I was around him, my body was supercharged with need. Last night, it took every bit of bravery to climb into bed with him. I lay there for hours wondering if I should slip my hand beneath the sheets and touch him like I wanted to, but I was too scared, so I fell asleep wrapped around him and left before he woke, but now I longed for him.
I wasn’t used to these feelings, and they were all-consuming.
Something heavy draped my shoulders and when I looked, Tanner had placed his leather jacket around me, leaving him in only a t-shirt. I pulled it around me, the familiar smell of him making me smile. “You’ll freeze, Tan. Put it back on,” I said as I tried to hand it back to him.
