here.
When Jax looks up and sees me, it’s his turn to do a double take.
I shouldn’t have shown up in Dallas unannounced, but it was a good thing Jax wasn’t home when I got there. That gave me more time to get ready for what I have to say.
“Haley said I’d find you here,” I say when I pull up next to him.
“Usually Hales does party duty, but she’s still on bed rest.”
The other man takes Jax’s stare as his cue to leave, and I swallow my amusement as I look across the sprawling yard with a jungle gym, a gated-off pool, a bouncy castle, and tables with snacks and desserts. “How many kids come to these things?”
“Too many.”
It takes me a moment to spot Sophie at the top of the slide in overalls and a lime-green T-shirt, her hair in pigtails with matching green ribbons. She’s not looking for her dad. She’s focused on the ride she’s on, and her face splits with a smile as she slides down to the bottom, bumping into the last kid—who failed to clear the landing zone in time—with a little shriek.
The woman who answered the door approaches, her gaze moving between us. “Would you like a hat?”
“Love one. Jax too.”
I take two party hats from her and hold one out for Jax. He shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Please say you came to relieve me,” he states when she’s gone.
“I did come to tell you something, but it might not be a relief.” I take a breath. “I’m going to marry your daughter.”
Jax stiffens, his gaze never leaving the throng of kids on the jungle gym. Sophie chases another kid, running under the slide and lunging. “Sophie’s a little young.”
“I’m serious. I’m in love with Annie. I have been since before I knew what that meant. She fucking loves me too.”
A little boy whose shoe fell off as he tried to dash past us looks up from refastening the Velcro, eyes round with delight. Then he takes off toward his parents, hollering.
“She’ll always be yours, and I’m not trying to take her away from you,” I go on. “But she’ll always be mine too.”
Jax rubs a hand over his square jaw. “And if I don’t accept that?”
My body stiffens as I turn the paper hat in my hands.
“You’re the closest thing I’ve had to a father. You trusted me and let me into your family. But if you’re going to make me choose, Jax—I choose her.”
The truth of those words rings through me. I choose Annie over certainty, over safety, over money, over fame. No life I could lead is as full without her, and if being with her means putting everything I am, everything I’ve been, on the line? I’m ready to do it. For now and for always.
“What about your contract?” Jax asks.
“Zeke and I came to an agreement for how I’ll finish the album. I also committed to more public appearances, and paying for a PR rep on the label’s staff since I don’t do enough ‘fan engagement’, in his words.”
“I’m impressed. Did you negotiate that collaboratively or drop an ultimatum on his desk?”
“Something in between.”
Jax stares me down. “Listen to me, Tyler.”
I wait him out, my breathing steady, prepared for whatever he’s about to say.
He takes the party hat still in his hands and sets it on my head, snapping the elastic down around my chin. “If you marry my daughter, I’m not taking your kids to any fucking birthday parties.”
21
“Here we go,” I say as the woman I’ve been on the phone trying to land for the last few days takes the stage for her audition.
Jeffrey’s on one side of me, Miranda on the other. I don’t look over to see their reactions while the actress performs the song we sent her.
But I’m sitting bolt upright.
She’s good—really good.
When she wraps up, we thank her, and she heads out of the theater.
“We’re screwed.” Miranda Talbot’s blunt tone has me cutting her a look after the actress is gone.
“What do you mean? She was great.”
“She wasn’t right,” Jeffrey agrees.
My stomach flips. “Come on. She’s a household name. I bent over backward to get her”—even using one of my dad’s contacts, which I’d decided was worth it given the circumstances—“and she’ll definitely get the show attention.”
We’ve been running auditions at a small off-Broadway theater all day to cast the main roles for our show. Even Miranda refused to miss this, insisting the worst of the reaction from her most recent