Wrap Party

Row, 3 weeks later

I understand now, why Riley subconsciously neglected to promote our social media when he was still running our show.

The man is smooth as butter onstage. And he knows how to run a room. He'll sing for me and talk about me for as many hours as someone will let him, but he's finding it much harder to talk about himself. He's extremely uncomfortable being in front of the camera unless he can lose himself in a musical performance. He dreads being the center of an interviewer's attention.

Makes sense, I guess. All those years behind the scenes, running the show. It feels unpredictable, not knowing the answers because he doesn't know what questions are going to be asked.

Last week, in preparation for an upcoming feature interview, Leander came over to our place and brought footage of the informal interviews we did at the Ryman post-Showcase. There were hours of footage because we killed it, and we were the artist everyone wanted to interview.

As he was opening the cartons of Thai food on our coffee table, he was also casting a compilation video onto our TV. He sat down on the chair beside us, hands on knees, giving Riley an uncomfortable grin. It was the first time he'd provided us with any constructive criticism.

"Now, brother, I'm not going to insult you by saying you need media training. It's more like I'm saying...take a look, critique yourself, and execute the changes I'm sure you'll agree you need to make once you see it from this perspective."

"The old physician heal thyself trick, eh?" Riley said dryly.

"You feel me," Leander grinned.

We watched the tape for about five minutes. During which, Riley reached for his non-existent glasses four times, diverted three-quarters of his questions about the songwriting and performing to me, pretty much said "that's private," anytime anyone asked about our reconciliation and recent remarriage. He had absolutely no answer at all to the question "What's it like to have Matt del Marco as a father-in-law?" Instead, he looked utterly terrified and jerked at his collar. It was somehow reminiscent of a man with a noose around his neck.

Seeing the playback was so much worse than being in the moment. I laughed at that last one until I cried. Riley groaned, throwing himself around me and burying his face into my neck

"Oh, God. I'm bloody awful at this."

"Not that bad," I soothed him, kissing the top of his head, rubbing his back. "Not as bad as I was. Remember?"

"Oh yeah?" Leander asked, sitting back with his pad thai, waiting for the story of my mistakes to unfold, so that it would take the pressure off Riley's deficits.

"I was a spoiled brat," I laughed. "A chip the size of Mount Rushmore on my shoulder. I went off on anyone that asked me about Trace and my dad. Worse than that, I sounded like a truck driver and a sailor had a profane baby.."

Riley kissed my temple. "You always curse when you are under stress. But she's not wrong. When Row's band got their break opening for Soundcrush, we were lucky to get a soundbite's worth of words without the f-bomb in it." Riley had propped his head on my shoulder now, and I was feeding him potstickers. "But whenever she and I were alone together for more than ninety seconds, she was kitten-shy. I almost preferred sailor-Row, because I was beginning to suspect she had a debilitating crush on me."

"I did."

"I realized. Good Christ, she was the most irresistible jailbait I'd ever seen." He squeezed my knee and gave me the indulgent smile that makes my lower belly ache.

"I was eighteen," I remind him.

"By the width of a hair," he held up his fingers to Leander in illustration. "And you were my boss's baby sister. Not to mention that I was twenty-seven. And your father threatened to end the career of anyone on tour who touched you. You were definitely off the table, darling."

"Oh is that why you took me in the shower instead?" I murmured, but not so low that Leander couldn't hear. He snickered, but Riley choked on a potsticker, before protesting to Leander that we got together much later.

Not that much later.

"That's great history," Leander said. "But not history we're gonna share, right? Still, your love story is at the heart of your band. We can't always say, "that's private" when a reporter asks a personal question about your break-up, your divorce, your reconciliation. Second-chance love is highly attractive to people. Even for people who haven't experienced it, most harbor a one-that-got-away regret, right? Your romantic chemistry is so much a part of your performance that we have to craft your love legend as part of that."

"I get that," Riley said. "So, you're saying we need to decide what the public narrative is going to be."

"Right. When you know exactly which parts and how much detail about your private lives you are willing to share—"

"We can spin the uncomfortable questions back to the love legend, without me looking like an arse saying no comment," Riley finished.

"Exactly," Leander said, and he pulled out his laptop. "So you guys reminisce, and I'll take notes, and then we'll tidy up your love story, yeah?"

"Ooh, it's like date night with a voyeur," I joked. "Yay! you know how I love public sex!"

Riley actually growled when I said that, reminding me very much of Adam, but he did participate in telling Leander our ups and downs, and we ended an evening with two pages of bullet points that summarized our relationship without mentioning the things too intimate or too painful or just too sticky to share.

That's how I know Riley is prepared for our upcoming print interviews, but today is a different challenge entirely. Today happens to be the video shoot for our first single, "I Always Will" which was rereleased by OneShot a few days ago and is climbing the charts so quickly that we are scrambling to get the video up on Vevo.

And Riley has never shot anything other than performance footage. This video involves blocking and acting. A broken-love sequence.

We have to fight, and we have to hurt, and eventually, we have to kiss and make up for the camera. And as we lay in bed last night, Riley admitted that he is nervous. He certainly looks that way now, getting airbrushed for the fight scene, where he will be shirtless because it's supposed to be a late-night moment-of-passion-gone-wrong.

I'm watching him from the stylist chair. I'm already in a bodycon tube beneath a robe, because I'll be wrapped in a sheet for the argument. It's an entirely different feel to the scene, but I wonder if he's thinking of my very last love scene with Aidan. I don't think so, because when the concept was proposed by our video team at OneStop, he showed no reservation for the scenes, only worry about his ability to perform them.

Still, there's a part of me that can't be sure the love scene-gone-wrong scheme won't trigger thoughts of Aidan and me. Writing these songs and performing them is a catharsis. Having to act out fighting with Riley about the heartbreaking lyrical content?

Yeah, I didn't really think that through.

He feels my gaze on him and glances over at me, grimaces as the makeup artist directs him to hold his hands a little higher. She's airbrushing his abs, giving a little deeper definition to his slight six-pack. It's a common photography trick, but the man doesn't need any more help. He already looks hotter than the Mojave Desert, with his newly glossed and trimmed hair, and his five o'clock shadow, and just the tiniest bit of shading to his gorgeous cheekbones. You can't tell it, but the makeup artist has put some subtle trace of gray around the base of his lashes to make his blue eyes pop.

There's a sudden ruckus at the sound-stage door. Security guards arguing with someone. "It's a closed set," one says sternly.

"That's great, Mate. Appreciate you doing your job, keeping us secure because I'm in the video. I have a feature," a familiar British Bullshitter says.

"What about her?" the guard says.

"Look at her. Obviously, she's in the video, too."

"Wait here," the security guard turns to seek someone in authority, but Dev and Mac take that as their cue to simply walk around him.

"Hey!"

"It's okay!" I call. "Leander—"

"Yep," he's already on his way over. "You heard Row. It's okay."

"It's so not okay," Riley says unhappily.

Dev stops to speak to Leander, but Mac stalks right up to Riley, still getting sprayed, arms spread wide like Jesus—and says, "Oh.My.God. Riley!!! When did you get so hot?" She turns to me, accusingly, "When did he get so hot!?!?!"

"He's always been hot."

"No. Not like this. I would have definitely noticed."

"Exactly like that," I reiterate, feeling more than a little grateful that Mac didn't notice some dozen years ago when she first met him—back when I was fifteen and as yet unknown to him. Because Riley has a type. Hell-On-Wheels. And both me and Mac are it. "Are you and Adam fighting or something?"

She's pretending to ignore me and gives him another up and down, and walks around him. He's wearing jeans. Very tight jeans. "Of course not. Preacher couldn't be more amazing. But can't I admire an Adonis when I see one? Have you been doing a lot of squats lately, Riley?"

"I feel objectified," he complains.

She slaps him hard on the ass, making him jump. "Awww, really? I know the feeling. Get used to it, hottie."

She does manage to get a laugh out of him. Which, of course, was her goal.

"So what are you guys doing here?" I ask, getting my walking papers from the stylist and going over to join Riley and Mac. Dev converges on us as well and makes a motion like he's going to pinch Riley on the nipple, which Riley instinctively blocks. His stylist complains, telling him not to lower his arms so the spray tan doesn't pool.

He sighs and raises them back into position, while Dev feints at him again. "Obviously, we came to offer our support for Riley's very first shoot."

"And just as obviously, I feel so very supported right now," he snarks back.

"Hey, you're lucky you're just getting the two of us," Mac says. " Leed and Trace and Matt all wanted to come. Marianne forbid Matt, and I forbid Leed, and Dev got Trace arrested so he couldn't come."

Riley reaches to straighten his non-existed glasses. "Arrested! Jesus, Dev! He can't afford that! He's on probation."

"Relax, he can totally afford that. It's one of those charity celebrity Jail-A-Thon events. Off-duty officers serve the warrant and take you to the real Beverly Hills Jail. Trace is there right now, calling around for his bail donations. Then he'll pay for an arrest warrant on some sad sap to take his place. I already did my stint," Dev said. "Matt sent me up for a million, so I had to raise that much in bail. I couldn't post it myself. Do you know how long that took me? All my friends are broke, they live off me! If it weren't for Mac, I'd still be behind bars. Real bars, mind you." He engulfs the petite blonde in a casual one-handed hug and looks down at her fondly. "Thank you for springing me, Madame. There was no cocktail service, can you believe that?"

Now Riley is laughing, asking to see the pictures, crowing because they put Dev in an orange jumpsuit.

As Dev begins another story of his brief incarceration—something about a prostitute legitimately jailed in the cell next to him—I wander over to Leander.

"Your doing?" I ask casually.

"DevBlu, yes. It hasn't taken me long to figure out that he's Riley's best mate," he confirms. "Didn't know he'd bring MacKenna Lawson, though."

"If Dev is blowing through Nashville, you can bet his plans will include Mac if she's available. They're good friends, but considering their relationships and far-flung lifestyles, they don't get to see each other much."

"Your sister doesn't mind? Nor Heartley?" he inquires.

"Not at all. Dev does a lot of stupid stuff, but unfaithfulness to my sister is definitely not one of his crimes. He's a closet romantic. And no one is more solid than Mac and Adam. I want to be them when I grow up," I joke.

"Got it," Leander says, pinning the strings and mental notes to his ever-expanding map of our social circle.

"If Riley's tan is dry, we're ready to shoot the first scene!" The director calls. We're on location at a historic Nashville home and the bedroom is dark-paneled, with shining windows revealing the indistinct green of old trees. We all pile into the massive bedroom already staged with lighting and equipment. I lose the robe and slip into the all-white bed in my bodycon. Riley is still barechested, in jeans, standing. He listens carefully to the director's blocking instructions one more time while ignoring Dev who is pretending to pilfer small antiques.

Eventually, Riley can ignore the Dev's distracting antics no longer and bellows, "Oh, for Christ's sake, Dev!"

Dev looks immediately contrite. "Too much? Sorry. I'll behave." He looks rather defensive. "I told Leander this wasn't my genre, you know. I only know how entourage behaves on a rap video."

Everyone on the set, including the director, laughs. Riley relaxes.

The director gives us his final instructions. "Okay, remember. This is a music video. We don't care what you say to one another, we care about blocking and the emotion coming across. Like we talked about, it's probably best to argue about something real. Something that bothers you."

Riley nods very seriously and takes his place at the end of the bed, feet on the floor, head bowed, hands on knees. I lie back on the pillows. The series of crew confirmations that is so familiar to me begins, then our song as background music, and the director calls action.

I lift up, holding the sheet to my chest, reaching out to him. "Come to bed."

He looks over his shoulders, shirks my touch. "I can't. I have to take out the bloody trash since you won't."

I break into giggles. They're contagious. Riley looks back at me and snickers, shaking his head.

"Cut!" The director calls.

"Sorry, sorry!" I can't help it. We really did rehearse this. We always bicker about the trash. But it seems so ridiculously petty now.

"Did you guys brainstorm anything a little more... weighty than trash?" the director said.

"Yeah, we did," Riley assures him. "Plan B, Row?"

"Okay."

We go again. This time Riley says, "Do you remember the fight about your nails?"

"Of course." I think about that fight and try to open my face to the hurt feelings I felt. And then I think about Faraday and Leander and Barker and our dreams coming true and flipping out in Adam's dressing room, and I'm smirking instead of hurting, and this time Riley is the one that snickers. My hand is on his shoulder and I slap him lightly. He grabs my hand and kisses my perfectly manicured fingers.

"Sorry," he apologizes to the director. "It was actually a pretty bad fight, I swear. Thought we'd be good with that one."

The director is all patience. It's only been about three minutes. "Something maybe...closer to the conflict that caused you to write this song?"

We both sober. This song is about the toxic time after I cheated before we divorced. I can pour all the emotion into the lyrics because they are carefully crafted to reveal only what we want to reveal. Much harder to talk about in words. Especially considering we've just written our "love legend" and agreed never to talk specifically about the details of my affair or the immediate aftermath.

Riley looks back at me. I smile at him, but he doesn't return the smile, and I know he's there, in that toxic time. He's remembering the echo of his anger and deep hurt. But I know he will tread lightly with what he says.

"It's okay," I tell him. "Let's go where this has to go."

His gaze goes to Leander who is within range for a private conversation immediately. "There are NDA's like we discussed?"

"Yes, for this exact scenario. In case your conversations during the scenes got candid. Well, NDA's for everyone but your friends," Leander quickly amended.

Riley dismisses the concern. He takes a deep breath. "Okay, can we go again?"

"Can we pump the music, but turn the monitors toward the crew, since we aren't recording sound?" Leander suggests, hoping to give us a little cover for our conversation.

We reset. The music begins again. I rise, clutching the sheet. My heart is pounding, but this time when I speak, I say, "Do you still think about... it?"

I reach for him. He shirks me just as he's supposed to. When he looks back at me, his eyes are pure devastation. "Not on purpose. But clips of the show always catch me off guard."

"I'm sorry," I whisper, climbing to my knees behind him. "I'm still so incredibly sorry."

He turns from me, shakes his head. "YouTube is worse. It recommends you two to me. Tried a million times to block that content. It always comes back around."

"I'm sorry. I would burn the world down to get rid of it—"

He rises quickly turns to face me, just as the blocking has been planned. "You know what the worst one is, darling? Fans who've just discovered the show to stream. Especially little old ladies that don't follow celebrity gossip, but live in their own bubbles. Twice recently, I've been stopped in the street, recognized as your husband, and asked about the show."

I tumble toward him on the bed, grasping at my sheet with one hand, his arm with the other.

"Oh god, Riley, I had no idea—"

He remembers his blocking perfectly, pushing me away from him, stabbing a finger at me. "The absolute worst was when one pitifully clueless grandmother asked me if he and I are. Such a nice man, she said. And what am I supposed to say, Rowan? 'No ma'am, he's not, and I'm definitely not friends with the piece of shit who—'" he cuts off his rage-filled words, shakes his head at the same time he raises his hands, backing away, turning sharply, grabbing his discarded shirt from the dresser, pulling it on, exiting the scene just as he was supposed to.

Except he doesn't stop when the director yells cut and the music stops. He blows through the bedroom door and I hear him beat down the grand staircase barefoot. Much too quickly. Rage has made him careless of his balance.

Terror fills me as I strain, listening for a crash. It doesn't come. His footsteps fade to the floor below. I am left in a puddle of sheets and tears.

The room is silent. Dev lets the space of one, maybe two heartbeats pass before he swings after him. Mac has already relieved a grip of my robe and she's helping me, but really she's shielding me because my tears are real.

"He loves you. He forgave you. This is just...a phantom pain," she whispers.

"I know." I do know. But phantom pain hurts, too.

"That was gorgeous! Completely genuine. Hard stuff. Good work." the director assures me, seeming unconcerned that one-half of R&R has left the set. "Row, how do you feel about going one more time? Just to be sure."

I can't even give my answer because to do so would probably create sobs to match the tears. Leander quickly says. "What if we take five while you look at the playback?"

The director gives me an assessing look, then a sympathetic smile. Between the lyrics of the song and the conversation he undoubtedly heard despite the blaring music, the implications are probably obvious to him. "Yeah. Sure. I think we got it. Let me just check."

Ten minutes later I'm in chairs getting my makeup retouched. Riley is in the backyard with Dev, walking it off. Leander and the director have decided to rearrange the shooting schedule and do the individual performance cuts next, so I put on the cap-sleeved, full-skirted black dress for that take.

The idea is for me to be seated on the landing of the grand staircase with my guitar, then walk down as I begin to sing. Wander through the beautiful but empty house singing and playing as I wait for Riley to come home. The camera will precede me to get a full-frontal performance, but there will also be cameras taping me from outside, through the wide windows as I restlessly roam the empty house.

It's not hard at all to project the longing and need in this song, because Riley does not come in to view the performance and I desperately need one brief chin tip, one small smile—anything—to let me know we're okay. But all I can do is sing and wait in pain.

His individual performance cut is exterior, from the opposite corner of the gracious, tree-lined street. He'll be singing as he faces the house, watching, thinking, working out his anger. Originally, the idea was to cut his performance with the scenes of me shot from outside the windows, but considering the tension of our fight scene, inspiration strikes the director. He wants me to stand on the upper exterior balcony of the house so that Riley can see me while he performs on the street corner.

While they reset some cameras to get both wide and close angle shots of me on the balcony, I watch Riley on the street corner, getting his lighting checked. Dev is standing with him, hands in pockets. He offers Riley a flask and Riley takes one swig. He knows I'm on the balcony I think, but he hasn't looked up here yet.

There is nothing that I want more in this world than his loving eyes on me right now. And when I hear the performance tape for him begin, and his own voice lifts into the air, I remind myself to wait patiently. No tears. Just trust. Trust in what Marley told us—that forgiveness is not a feeling, but a practice of compassion. Trust in Riley—that he's mastered that practice.

Riley's voice raises in gorgeous agony, and he lifts his eyes to me.

Ooh, I don't love you, but I always will.

Oh, I don't love you, but I always will.

I don't love you, but I always will.

I always will.

It's not supposed to happen this way, but I walk back into the house, down the stairs. The cameraman is a pro, he stays on me, moving backward down the stairs in front of me, catching the bounce of my hair, the sway of my dress as I land and stride across the foyer.

I have no idea if the cameras will catch my expression as I throw open the door and skitter out onto the porch, but Riley caught my feelings and he's driven by the same need to meet me. He's moving across the street and up the wide brick steps of the porch, still singing. I pick up at the chorus, coming to the very front of the porch. He stops two steps below me. His hands run up my sides, and I place mine on his face.

There's the old pain in the deep blue depths, but a stronger shining love radiates outward.

We are as close as we can be without kissing.

And we sing to each other's breath, the slip of our souls against one another.

Ooh, I don't love you, but I always will.

Oh, I don't love you, but I always will.

I don't love you, but I always will.

I always will.

And as the last line fades, Riley takes the last two steps, raising above me, and he smiles like an angel, the beauty in him burning away the pain. He kisses me, and I feel the forever of the love on his lips and the forgiveness in the tenderness of his touch, and the gratitude in the wetness on my face.

###

Riley smirks at me in the elevator of the OneStop offices. The door slides open to the mezzanine and I drag him out as he wraps his arms. His fingers play with the hem of my cropped floral silk top, then hook in the belt of my black skater skirt as we survey the party below in the large open foyer.

"How many, do you think?" I ask, leaning against his chest. He's counting a sample, estimating, calculating the number in the crowd.

"Eight hundred, maybe."

"And how many of them do we know personally?" I ask.

"Barker, Wills, Leander. Faraday. His wife Dru, if you count meeting her for five minutes as knowing her. The twenty or so OneStop employees we've met. Fifty of our family and friends.

"So the other seven hundred twenty-five?"

"Nashville's industry elite," Riley explains.

"And yet we don't know any of them," I say.

He takes my hand, points my finger to the large monitor on the wall. "They know us."

The monitor is showing the video for "I Always Will," beneath it a banner reading:

Congratulations to R&R

I Always Will

#1 Streaming Song in America

#1 Country Billboard Hit

It's not my first hit, but it's the sweetest one that will ever be. Our first baby. It won't be the last. I'm hoping for four, at least, from the two album we've written.

"Congratulations, Mr. Emsworth. Quite an achievement."

"Congratulations to you, Mrs. Em," he shoots back. "I still can't believe this party," he says, looking down at the floor, filled with boots and sequins and jeans and bodycon and...feathers. Cocktail waiters, three bars, a full spread, and a full stage for us to perform later. A DJ.

"You've been to what...at least a couple dozen #1 Hit parties." Most of them for Soundcrush, two for Strut, one for the punk outfit Daze Gone that he used to manage, and countless for Dev, who has continual smash hits on the hip-hop, international, dance, and pop charts in Europe.

"This is different." He turns me around, looking into my eyes. "It's us. Our song. It's the worst and best ways we love. It's about weathering forever, even when forever turns out not to be a smooth road. And it wouldn't exist if you weren't a braver, stronger, better lover than me."

My eyes fill with tears. "I still don't understand how you believe that, but I'm glad."

"You made a mistake. I made so many after that. But you fought for us. You taught me how to forgive by forgiving me. You went first. I just followed your lead, darling."

He kisses me, and the opportunistic light tech jumps his cue, spotlighting us. A few of our friends whistle and cat-call—I'd recognize my brothers' whistles anywhere—but a solid round of applause quickly overtakes them.

Down on the floor, Barker finds a microphone and introduces us as OneStop's newest artist, with the strongest debut in the company's history. Riley pulls the microphone from his back pocket, takes a breath, and together we thank Barker, OneStop, our friends and family, and the Nashville music community for celebrating with us.

When, we're done, and the spotlight has faded, and we're catching the elevator to join the party, I say, "Better get used to those."

He grins. "Thank you speeches, you mean?"

"Yeah. You might want to punch it up a bit. Have several different versions. People are going to tire of hearing us say the same thing over and over. Award after award. Year after year."

"Ah. There she is. The girl I fell so hard for so long ago. I knew that bad-ass, can't-lose, rocker-girl was still in there somewhere."

I push him against the elevator wall. "That rocker girl will rock you right here."

"Tempting, but it will have to wait until I get you back to the hotel. I'm afraid we're expected to actually speak to most of these eight hundred people, so we've no time to waste."

"There you go, keeping me on time," I roll my eyes.

He takes my hand, kisses it. "I always will, darling."

And then the doors slide open. Hand in hand, we walk into our future.

A/N: I actually can't bring myself to write those two little words, because I love these two so much I feel like a could serialize them forever, giving you little adventures and anecdotes, but  I think this is it, folks. A far as their original conflicts, there's no more story to tell. Row and Riley have conquered their demons and chosen their path. Even the roughest waters of the entertainment business aren't going to divide them, like before. They are  unstoppable now. Don't despair. Epilogue for sure. I'm thinking of a huge time jump. Like maybe the farthest into the future we've ever seen in the Soundcrush series....but I have a lot to think about, in that case...