Chapter 84: Bad Girls Honeymoon at Wal-Mart

I know. I know.  You all want TrayKat. But MADAM got married, and we can't just forget about that!!! So here's is their Honeymoon Chapter, from Mac's perspective. If you want to know what Adam felt and thought during their honeymoon, just watch the video of Thomas Rhett's Die a Happy Man, and that pretty much sums up Adam's feelings during this week.

Mac

Adam's calloused fingers lazily playing in mine would normally be heaven, but I'm a little anxious. I can tell from the terse sounds of Trace's voice—barely audible through the phone—that something is going down.

I pull at Adam's ring finger, adorned with his handsome new wedding ring, and crack the knuckle.

"Speakerphone," I mouth.

He smiles at me and kisses my fingers, but shakes his head. He puts the phone on mute for two seconds. "Trace has got something on his mind; he needs a brother, not a group discussion."

Then Adam slides the mute off and rises from the very comfortable bed in our brand new tour bus, dons his trousers, and walks to the front, closing the sleeping compartment door. I fall back into the bed. With an exasperated sound.

After about fifteen minutes, I text him, interrupting his conversation:

You're sooooo married now, dude.

Pregnant wifey with needs trumps Bro-code.

I'm staaaaaaaarving. (Imagine my whiny voice.)

He texts back immediately:

If my baby and our baby are hungry,

I got you.

Trace is winding down.

Give me five more minutes, okay?

BTW...

You never whine, Shortcake.

Except when I'm banging the bejesus out of you,

And you are begging for more.

To my surprise, the tour bus starts up. Is Adam really going to drive this thing? We are still in the parking lot of the Nashville airport, where Matt parked us, and our crazy wedding night ended with the del Marco entourage boarding their private jet, the videographer catching an Uber, and Penelope getting a room at an airport-adjacent hotel, to give us privacy in our new home on our wedding night, and preparing to fly back to Riley and the band in the morning.

I play with my wedding rings, smiling as I remember how amazing our wedding night was.

Adam and I had another first.

We made out.

I know that sounds crazy, but we have never kissed and cuddled in a bed without it ending in sex. Oh my god, Adam is the best kisser. I knew that, of course, but somehow his amazing sex skills have always overshadowed his kissing.

Not last night. That man's lips? The way they pulled and teased? The way he brushed them across my throat, side to side, sending shivers down my spine as he slowly settled them down to a perfect place to suck? The world could have ended and I wouldn't have cared.

Okay, that's not true. I really want to meet my daughter. But goddamn, that man knows how to bliss me out.

I sit up, looking down at the splotch marks on my bare chest, before hastily donning his bespoke shirt over my panties. I know some girls hate being marked, but I love when Adam does it, and he's usually pretty careful to do it in places that won't show during a performance, so it's even sexier. Like a secret between us.

Wow, he is really going to drive this bus. We are pulling out of the parking lot as I weave up the length of the interior, and plop down shotgun beside him. He smiles at me, his eyes raking from the top of my hair tousled like a fangirl in a rock star video, down my bare legs to my green painted toe nails. His eyes don't linger long. He quickly retrains on the road.

My husband, so determined to keep us safe. He's everything I always knew I wanted from the moment I heard him talking to Ainsley—kind, smart, engaging and flirtatious, unconsciously so very sexy, and at the exact same time he's everything I never knew I wanted—steady, protective, traditional.

He's still on the phone with Trace. "I don't know why you think I'm suddenly the relationship expert, but if you want my advice...your plan kinda...sucks, man. I get that you want to take Kat home to Atlanta, to her momma, for some TLC after what happened, but you...you shouldn't leave her there, no matter what Riley says about getting back to LA to see that doc. I get that you guys are in a tense spot, but you gotta hang in, man, not bail because the emotions are too tough. I don't think you are going to be able to walk this one off for the rest of the tour and act like nothing happened. You gotta stick, and start washing out that wound right now, or the whole thing is going to fester."

Suddenly I'm alarmed. I grab Adam's bicep.

"What happened?" I don't even bother to mouth it. He switches the phone to cradle it against his ear with his shoulder, and holds up a finger.

"Well, I'm just telling you what I would do. Yeah. Right. Listen, don't be an asshole, okay? Find yourself a good plastic surgeon in Atlanta, and get patched up right, and do what the fuck he tells you to do. We can't afford to have our prettiest pretty boy ruin his face out of stubborn pride."

Now I'm frantic. I pull the phone from Adam's shoulder. "Trace! What happened!?!? Are you and Kat okay?"

He chuckles. "It's okay, Macaroni. Everything's okay. Don't freak. It's bad for—"

"Goddammit Trace, telling a pregnant woman not to freak every five seconds makes us furious and makes us freak more. Now tell me what the fuck happened?" I demand.

He sighs. "Street and I got in a fight. Leed and Kat tried to break it up, and Kat fell through a glass table and cut her hand. We're both going to be okay...no permanent damage. She's got a cut-up hand, Streets got a couple of broken fingers. I was hoping I had taken out at least one of his kidneys, but bastards are apparently hard to kill."

I laugh, "Yeah but what's wrong with your face?"

"Mmmm, they think I've got a small fracture in my eye socket. Nothing they can really do about that, but it's causing a helluva lot of swelling that makes it hard to stitch me up and make sure it's not going to scar or something. The plastics guys here is an asshole and refusing to treat me, because he can't guarantee the outcome and he thinks I'm going to sue him or something. He said I might has well have Kade stitch me up because no one is going to leave me without scars. I don't even give a fuck over a few scars though..."

"Yes, you do, Gorgeous. You mind. I mind. Kat minds. We all mind. Jesus, you should punch that fucking asshole of a doctor!"

"Believe me, I came close. There's one more thing, though...remain calm...Leed—"

"Leed!?!" I yell. "What happened to Leed!?!?!?"

"He's fine. He's not hurt. Not really. My punk-ass brother accidentally punched him in the throat, and he's a little hoarse. Riley is insisting he see some big deal throat specialist, and we are rescheduling the next two tour dates to rest his voice and give my face a chance to heal."

"Put him on the damn phone!" I growl.

"No," Trace says decidedly. "He's been running his mouth non-stop ever since he got punched, and he's about to lose his voice. Riley has made him take a vow of silence. So text him, okay? We are all fine. Fight's blown over, and Kat and I...well, what the fuck can I do? She did something that hurt me, but we are no where close to even on that score, after what I did to her, so it's all good. It has to be, right? What kind of asshole would I be, if I stayed mad over a mistake she made, after what I did with Ashlynn?"

"Are you sure, TG?" I ask softly. He doesn't have to tell me what the fight was about. It was about Kat's tats, I'm sure.

He sighs. "Yes. It will all be okay. We just...need some time to get right, you know?" He doesn't mean just physically, I realize. "On the bright side," he voices changes to mirth. "We have another week off, can you believe it? This means you get an actual honeymoon. Well, as much of a honeymoon as you can have without sex," he snickers. "Actually that sounds like torture. How are you gonna get through that, anyway?"

"Text me a picture of yourself. If I get horny, a look at your ugly busted face will make me laugh so hard I'll forget all about Adam's dick."

"Jesus," Adam mutters. He shouts so that Trace can hear him, too. "In light of the first marriage in this band, I think we need some amendments to the Bro-Code. Tell Bodie and Leed, too. The first new rule--no more sex jokes with my wife, alright?"

I laugh at Trace's response, and relay it to Adam. "He says Bro-code amendments require an unanimous ratification, and that one will never pass. He says I'm the Priestess first, your wife second, and Priestesses are objects of adoration in every way-and part of that is fucking with the Priestess's mate, so he knows she's still the Priestess and not just his woman."

"I hate these fuckers in this band," Adam grumbles, but the way he's trying not to smile is adorable.

We hang up with Trace. Adam and I talk a little about the situation, and agree that it's not okay, and it won't be okay, until Trace can admit his anger. He's holding everything in, like he always does. I text with Leed, making him a third party in our worry for Trace, but both Adam and Leed feel like Trace and Kat will be okay, and Leed assures me that physically, they'll all heal up fast, so no worries there. Adam and Leed both admonish me to enjoy our week together without worrying over SCIC personal stuff, so eventually I put the phone, and the worry, down.

Adam is right. He and I deserve a little peace. I pick my phone back up and connect my music app to the soundsystem. I put on one of Adam's favorite country musicians—and an acquaintance of his—and he smiles and reaches for my hand. We ride a little further down a wide highway. I don't even feel the need to ask where we are going.

As long as I'm with Adam, I'm good.

Or so I thought, until Adam pulls into the parking lot of Wal-Mart.

"What are we doing here?" I laugh.

"I'm getting you some clothes. Unless you want to go into the Waffle House dressed in your wedding gown?" he grins.

"Wow. Wal-Mart and Waffle House. We are starting this honeymoon high class, huh?"

He smooths down my bed hair. "Just keepin' it real, Shortcake. I know what happens if I take you real shopping--we don't get to the food as quickly."

"Wal-Mart yoga pants it is!" I say cheerfully. "But..." I amend with a devilish smirk. "I want to pick them out myself. And take a few selfies for Instagram doing it. Wal-Mart in our wedding clothes? C'mon that's a perfect end to our crazy wedding."

"You right, Shorty. Let's do it," he laughs.

So Adam and I both redress in our wedding clothes, and I fix my hair as best I can, and wipe up my smeared eye make-up from last night, and we stroll into his hometown Wal-Mart hand in hand, looking like we got married and partied all night afterwards. Which of course, is what we did.

We are recognized right away. We take pictures with fans. Since we don't have security, Adam guards my personal space, always making sure he is between me and fans in the pictures. We deflect questions about whether or not we actually got married last night by saying, "The clothes were for a video we shot." Funnily enough, no one asks about my baby bump. It is Nashville, most people in the South are polite. But whenever Adam notices someone smiling at my stomach, he puts his arms around me, his protective hands landing on my slight bulge, as he smiles back,silently acknowledging our baby to them. Several people just laugh and wish us congratulations on the things we don't confirm with words.

We buy a cartful of cheap clothes and toiletries, laughing and teasing each other along the way. Adam buys a T-shirt with Jesus riding a T-rex. I don't get it, but he finds it amusing. He also buys a bunch of kitchen crap for the bus, but I scoff and warn him it's cheap and temporary, and I'm sure Wynter will appreciate the replacements I will order from Williams Sonoma.

"For a hippie, you are such a snob," he teases me.

"Okay, fine. to correct my snobbish ways, I'll just start buying all my shoes from Wal-Mart," I say breezily. I throw the ugliest pair of fake-crocs I have ever seen—a grotesque orange color—into the cart.

He takes them out and puts them back on the shelf, and replaces them with a generic pair of sparkly, more feminine flips flops for me to wear with the yoga pants. "Fuck no. Your feet are too pretty to cover up with most of these hideous choices." He's looking down at the generic eighty dollar pair on my feet, which he probably assumes cost hundred and hundreds of dollars, because he doesn't know designers, he just knows what he likes.

I smirk. "See? When it comes to some things, you get what you pay for."

"Motorcyles, cars, mansions, furniture, clothes, shoes , appliances and sound equipment, I agree," he concedes. "But a plastic measuring cup is a plastic measuring cup, Shortcake." He throws more kitchen essentials in the cart, much to my pretend exasperation.

Why is shopping at Wal-Mart with Adam such fun?

I don't know, but I'm pretty sure it's going to be like that for the rest of my life.

While Adam eats Waffles, and I eat my veggie omelet—with egg yolks, now—Adam and I post a snapshot of our wedding, complete with Johnny Cash and the del Marco's in attendance, to Instagram.

That's how we announce our marriage. Then we follow up with some funny selfies of us in Walmart and the bus, adding #honeymoon.

Before Adam even finishes his second cup of coffee,his sisters are already giving us shit, his mother has called and blessed him out for marrying legally without her in attendance, and Marcy is texting us to check our email for the wedding announcement she just drafted. Adam jokes with his sisters, apologizes to his mother, and calls Marcy and greenlights her draft, but cautions her not to confirm the pregnancy just yet.

"We don't have John with us right now. People sometimes lose their minds and think just because a woman is pregnant, that's automatic permission to pat them, rub them. I've seen it with my sisters. Strangers invading their personal space. Not having that. Wait until we hook back up with security, then you can announce the pregnancy."

When we hang up with Marcy, we retire to the bus, snuggle on the couch and plan our week off. Without even discussing it, we both know we need to stay low-key, and obviously relatively close to my specialist in Nashville. We decide to break in the new bus and head down to Charleston, SC, because I've always wanted to see it, but for some reason, have never made it past the music venues we've played there. Adam calls Kelsey out in LA, and she's happy to have something to do—renting us a house out on one of the beach islands, and booking us a bunch of personal historic tours, carriage rides, restaurant reservations. She says she will coordinate with Tam and Wynter and get us some more comfortable and fashionable clothes and food there by tomorrow morning. Adam is all excited to drive the bus—it's an eight hour trip, but he's also a little bit regretful over the trip.

"I'm sorry for the humble honeymoon," Adam murmurs into my hair, kissing down my neck.

"I'm not. It's going to be great," I promise him. "Kelsey will book us an amazing beach house, and we have beautiful weather on the radar, and Charleston is one of the romantic cities in the whole country. And do you realize—this will be the first time we've ever spent an entire week together, without the guys? It's going to be so awesome! A start to our real life together, Adam!"

Adam's ocean eyes are calm now. His gaze travels my face slowly. "You remember what you said...about us becoming best friends?"

"Yeah," I say softly, almost embarrassed that I told him that.

"There is no one else I like spending time with, more than you. There is no one I would rather talk to, than you," he says earnestly. "I know the ride has been rough, and we've fought and broken up and acted like crazy rock star kids, but I mean that, Mac. We don't have to become best friends. We are best friends. Now, we just get to learn to act like it every day, for the rest of our lives."

I bury my head against his chest and slap his arm lightly. "Don't make me cry! This cheap-ass Walmart mascara isn't even water-proof!"

He laughs, and tickles me, very lightly, and we end up making out on the couch for a little while before we start our honeymoon, and our new life.

It's a week of bliss. I get an amazing tan on the uncrowded beach in front of our southern beach mini-mansion, Adam dutifully carrying the lounge chairs from the pool down to the beach every morning to stake out our spot, just like any regular guy would do. He rubs me down with the regular old Coppertone we bought, instead of my typical high dollar sunscreen, and I recall that I like the smell of the cheap stuff better anyway, and it works just as well.

We toss a football on the beach and goof around on the guitar that we of course bought along the way, because we can't go a week without making music. I even practice my intermediate guitar skills, and Adam helps me make adjustments that really improve my chord transitions. We drink fancy "mocktails" that Adam concocts with all kinds of juices, fresh fruit and tonic water. We make lunch together—Wynter has food delivered and sends us step by step instructions for very simple recipes. It's so much fun to cook with Adam—he keeps me laughing constantly the way he plays country songs and sings them as he washes lettuce or sautes chicken.

We body surf a little in the ocean and do some paddleboarding—which is the extent of the physical exertion Adam will allow me, besides short walks on the beach or on the tours. One day I talk him into nixing the sporting activities and engaging in one of my favorite sports-- a little real shopping.

We hit Gucci and Louis Vuitton on Kings Street and buy a ton of stuff we don't need, but I like to shop, and my new husband likes to indulge me. We get a lot of decorative items for the house, too and Adam sneakily has them shipped to Brett's place, assuring me they have a large basement and she won't mind storing them for us, until our house is ready.

The next day, I indulge one of Adam's favorite recreational pastimes--fishing. He books a sea charter and we spend most of the late morning and early afternoon sunning, fishing and goofing around on a boat even larger than the one I bought Adam, while the Captain and deck-hand take care of the business.  Adam throws disgusting chunks of bait at me, and I throw shade at his fishing skills.

Some afternoons we take naps, and we learn to play backgammon, thanks to the board that the owners have in the house. Our competitive natures quickly turn it into a weeklong obsession to master the strategy and outmaneuver each other.

Every night, we get dressed to the nines in the clothes that keep arriving from Tamara's shopping, and we take the rented Jaguar into the city, sliding into the valet lane at a different amazing restaurant, as the security John arranged for us discreetly joins us and waits at the bar.

All our dinners are romantic and sweet. We talk about how our house building is going and we look at Tyler's emails and texts and makes this week's round of choices...windows and fixtures. We play a game where we have to tell each other something we don't know about each other. I learn that Adam has a secret ambition to produce in Nashville later on in life when Soundcrush goes on longer hiatuses, so although he doesn't love babysitting Arabella, he's really invested in doing a good job with her album. I tell Adam that want to make up with my Mom—like really make up with her—but I don't know how. He assures me that the baby will help with that—that he's seen all his sisters grow closer with his mom after they had kids, and I feel comforted by his assurances.

Some nights, our entire dinner conversation is about the baby—what we think she will look like, all the things we want to experience with her as she grows, and what kinds of challenges we are worried about as newbie parents. Adam is worried about travel, security, and safety, of course. I'm worried a little about breastfeeding—not the mechanics, but making sure I can keep feeding her when I start back working. So we talk through some of those worries, and even if we haven't solved them, we feel better with the ideas we've come up with.

One night, we each make a secret list of baby names on our cocktail napkins. We laugh when the style of the names is wildly different—Adam likes traditional names and I like unique names that don't sound too feminine.

Every night after our intimate, conversation filled dinners, we enjoy some kind of personal, private tour. We visit historic homes of famous people, churches, Fort Sumter and even have a carriage ride ghost tour of the historic city, which is my favorite date night activity of the whole honeymoon.

Our late nights don't include sex, but my amazing husband makes them so sweet I don't mind waiting until we get the all clear to resume that part of our love affair. We give each other massages, including hand rubs and foot rubs. We examine each other's bodies in weird, but funny ways—I learn the patterns of Adam's veins that don't fully bulge, but are prominently visible over his biceps. Adam is fascinated with my growing belly and he spends lots of time with his hand on me there, hoping to catch the first kick he can actually feel, but it's a little too soon for that. He tells me he found a stretch mark on my hip, but he was only teasing, and it was just a precursor to presenting me with a little gift—some outrageously expensive, anti-stretch mark cream that Tamara and her former model friends swear by. He applies it lovingly to my belly, boobs, hips and butt every night thereafter.

One night, Adam says he misses my pretty henna hand tats that have faded in the sun and surf, and we roam the city searching for an art store with body markers. We give each other tattoos. Some cute, some dirty, and some actually artistic—then we scrub them all off in the bath we take together.

And of course, we make out. A lot. All over the house. On the counter in the kitchen, in the beautiful seaside pool, on the couch, tossing the backgammon set aside and having to look for the pieces under the couch later. After the second night, however, the one place we agree not to make out is the bed, because we got a little too carried away, and our dry humping was getting close to orgasmic for me, and that might not be good for my uterus and our little girl who needs to stay safe and healthy in there for many months to come. So we nix our passionate making out, and even though I nearly beg him to let me, Adam refuses the blow job I offer, that he sorely needs, and tucks me closely against him as he hums the bass line for the set of our upcoming show, until he falls asleep. After that, bed becomes for cuddling and the sweetest sleep I have ever known, and the rest of the house becomes fair game for brief interludes of lavishing affection on each other.

The last night before we have to rejoin the guys and the girls—Strut and Arabella—for our first show in the Midwest, I find myself spooned blissfully against Adam, but crying real tears for the first time all week.

"I don't want this to end," I whisper to his sleepy murmurings of what's-the-matter-?

He chuckles and pulls me tighter. "Shortcake, this will never end. We're gonna love like a honeymoon for the rest of our lives."

And I believe him. I really do.

Awww. I love this chapter. Thoughts on Madam's honeymoon?

Are y'all ready to see TrayKat in Atlanta? They are going to have a lot to deal with there--Kat's parent's reaction to her injuries, Trace confronting the childhood home-next-door, which always messes with him...and of course, their as-of-yet-unresolved-issues about Kat's tats....should be, dramatic, as always...