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Jackson - July

T he opening chords of “Feels Like Home” by Chantal Kreviazuk play, which is the first dance song Bennett told me he and Scarlett had picked out, but what I wasn’t anticipating was the voice that begins singing the lyrics.

I’m standing at the bar with my back to the stage, but I don’t need to look to know who is singing right now.

No, not as her melodic tone floods my system and wraps around me like a warm embrace—a voice I’d know anywhere, anytime, because it’s the voice that haunts me in my dreams.

Chills unwillingly work their way down my spine as the beautiful tone sinks into my very being.

But this can’t be right. I must be imagining things as I’ve often done over the past decade. She can’t be here. Not in Paris. Not at my big brother’s wedding. She’d never do that.

She wouldn’t, would she?

Turning around as if in slow motion, I’m shocked to find her on stage beneath one of the spotlights playing the piano and singing with her eyes closed, lost in the lyrics that are currently cutting me with each line she sings.

I black out everything happening around me, my sole focus tunneled in on the woman with raven hair that spirals down her back, nearly touching the piano bench she’s sitting on .

This isn’t right. This can’t be happening. Not after all this time. Not here like this.

And then reality smacks me in the face like an uppercut to the jaw, causing my world to come to a standstill.

She opens her eyes and turns her head to the side to smile at the happy couple dancing on the dance floor only for her face to go ghostly white as she takes in the groom, or rather, as she realizes who the groom is.

Without missing a beat, she turns her focus on the ivory keys beneath her fingers as she sings the last lines of the song.

Rushing past everyone, shoving a wide-eyed Griffin and Carson out of my way, I cross the dance floor, hardly comprehending the fact that my brother is dipping his bride as the song comes to a close.

The singer stands abruptly and tries to rush off stage but I’m there before either of us can realize what’s happening.

My chest is heaving as I try to grapple the waves of emotions crashing into me.

What the actual fuck is she doing here ? This has to be some sick joke, or maybe a revenge plot by Bennett for all of the crazy shit I’ve put him through over the years. But if it is, my brother’s gone too far this time.

I look into her deep brown eyes that once looked at me with reverence as if I was her sole salvation. Those same mahogany eyes that stared back at me full of tears as the only girl I’ve ever loved broke me—broke us —without a moment’s pause so she could pursue her dreams. Without me.

Taevin Gray left me and became a household name—a country star so bright that she now sells out stadiums in order to fit the large crowds of her adoring fans.

And even standing here before her a decade later, I can’t help but fight the feelings resurfacing. My pathetic heart is at war with my head, screaming for me to walk away just like she did .

Like she tried to do once more just now.

Run. I should run. I need to run.

But I don’t have more than a moment to attempt an escape because not even seconds after our gazes lock, Taevin pales further and her eyes roll to the back of her head.

“Tae!” I shout as I move to catch her before her head hits the ground. Her limp weight feels like nothing in my arms, causing a sharp chill of fear to run down my spine.

I search the faces surrounding us, begging for someone to help. One of the wedding guests calls out that she is a doctor and comes rushing up to us, ordering me to set her down and move back so she can examine her.

Shoving people aside, a man who claims he came with her as her date kneels down beside her. I make my way over to the guy who looks oddly familiar, though I can’t place him.

“What’s the matter with her? What’d she take?” I ask, pulling him up by the lapels of his suit jacket.

He looks taken aback by my accusing tone.

“Take? What are you talking about? She doesn’t use.

” He pauses to scoff, somehow looking down his nose at me though he’s several inches shorter than me.

“She’s not an addict. You of all people should know how the media can twist a story to fit their narrative.

And you’ve played right into their hands.

” He shakes his head at me. “Such a disappointment, Jackson.”

My eyes narrow at him in confusion and anger. “Who the hell are you and how do you know who I am?”

“I’m Kyle Blackwood, Tae’s manager and one of her closest friends .” I don’t miss the emphasis he puts on their label as friends, but it doesn’t mean I have to like the guy.

There is commotion behind us as the Paris paramedics arrive and begin transferring Taevin onto a stretcher .

Pushing my way past those surrounding her, I shout, “Step aside so I can get in the ambulance with her.”

“No, I’ll go,” Kyle has the nerve to tell me.

“Over my dead fucking body,” I growl out in a lethal tone that says I’m not fucking around.

He lets out a deep sigh. “Just stop making a scene, Jackson. I can’t let you go, she’d never forgive me.”

I get in his face to show him how serious I am. “I said step aside.”

He crosses his arms, looking as if he’ll refuse to let me by him. “I can’t. And you can’t.”

“The fuck if I can’t. Step aside and let me be with my wife!”

“Your what?” Kyle’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head, and it’d be funny if I wasn’t ready to kill the fucker standing in my way. Guess he isn’t as close with Taevin as he thought.

Murmurs echo behind me at my declaration, and I hear my younger sister, Walker’s voice ring out above the rest.

“Jax, did you just refer to Tae as your wife?” she asks incredulously.

Fuck. This is not how I wanted this to go.

But I don’t have time to waste worrying about anything other than getting to Taevin right now.

“Move or I swear to god I’ll hurt everyone standing in my way,” I bite out in a chilling tone.

Bodies move out of my way, and I make it out of the back of the reception venue to where the paramedics are loading Taevin into the back of the ambulance. Taking my phone out of my pocket, I use a translating app to inform them I’m her husband.

Next thing I know, I’m sitting in the back of an ambulance, holding on to her limp hand, and praying, for the first time in over a decade, that she is okay as we race through the streets in a foreign country.

“Please be okay, Thorn,” I beg aloud while silently pleading.

Come back to me, baby. Stay so you can cut me all over again.