We hit the service hallway that we’d arrived in earlier where even more men waited. We had two in front and one on each side with Tanner and Nash taking up the rear. Malone disappeared in a different direction, and men with FBI vests lined walls as we walked. Alice was right; it was all over-the-top. When we emerged from the alleyway, the fans in the street roped off from the entryway burst into screams, calling Brady’s name. Brady waved and gave them his wide smile which wound them up to an almost fevered pitch.
As we hit the red carpet, Brady put his arm through mine and turned a smile toward the press corps. He leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Smile, or they’ll think I paid you to come.”
I laughed, and I swear I could feel Nash tense up from three feet behind me.
Brady’s face was still next to my ear. “Shall we really make him go apeshit?” And before I could respond, he was placing a kiss on my cheek. The cameras flashed at such a fast pace; I was sure I was going to trip over my own feet from being blinded. When I risked a look behind us over Brady’s shoulder, Nash’s face was a deep scowl which only made him look exactly like the military man he was.
“Don’t torment him,” I said in Brady’s ear. “You’re lucky he hasn’t killed you himself just to be done with all this.”
Brady chuckled, and we stepped forward to the next stop on the long line to the door. There were certain members of the press who were allowed to ask questions and some who were just allowed to photograph. It was going to take at least thirty minutes to get to the theater entrance.
At the next mark on the carpet, Brady and I stood with his arm around my waist and my hand on his chest. “Brady, tell us why you disappeared for real. Was it to whisk your stunning PR manager off to some hideaway?”
We both smiled, and Brady just shook his head. “You know better than that, Sheila. But I do have to agree; Dani looks stunning.”
It didn’t look like Nash was watching or listening—he had his face directed at the crowd—but his eyes narrowed, and his hand clenched tighter into a fist at Brady’s words. I didn’t want him to be jealous. There was no reason for him to be, but it also hit some inner cavewoman in me that was relieved and turned on at the possessiveness of it.
As we moved down to the next stop, I said, “You have to stop torturing him. He’s here protecting you.”
“No, he’s here protecting you, and I get the benefit.”
I couldn’t argue that. I doubted Nash would have ever shown up in Florida if I hadn’t been there, and as mad as I’d been at the time, I knew now that it said something about us I hadn’t wanted to acknowledge then: we were tied together somehow. The ebb and flow of us unable to exist without the other. The moment we’d joined lips at Tristan’s, something had happened. Magic. Fate. Souls tying a knot along the weave of time.
We finally made it into the theater and were shown to our seats in the second row on an end. Brady would be up and down to sing as well as for any awards he received. Alice had given us a schedule of events with breaks listed, but for the majority of the next few hours, we would be stuck in the seats.
I’d been warned not to drink anything that wasn’t given to me by a member of the team. As I was not anxious to repeat the Tallahassee performance in front of an entire theater full of the music world’s elite, there was no way I was drinking anything unless Nash himself gave it to me, which he did, handing me a water bottle before he took his position near the stage to the side of the cameras. He could see almost the entire theater from his location, but I knew he’d taken the spot because it was as close to me as he could get.
The entire event felt surreal, almost as if that dreamlike world we’d been living in at Wellsley Place had followed us into the real world. The list of performers whom I admired and who were sitting around us was a little staggering. Touring with Brady hadn’t seemed quite this big. Sure, I’d seen the screaming fans chanting his name at the concerts and people accosting him on the street outside his apartment in NYC, but sitting next to some of the world’s music icons, I was suddenly overwhelmed with just how big Brady was. He always acted humble, an easy-to-approach, flirt of a man, and I’d never really taken in everything he’d accomplished by singing the songs he wrote with Ava, my brother’s best friend’s wife. Maybe because they were all so close to me personally, it hadn’t felt like the enormous achievement it was.
Brady was grinning when he looked over at me. “Seriously, you keep letting that smile slip, and you’ll be fighting off a whole host of rumors about you, me, and how miserable I am to be around in tomorrow’s news.”
I plastered on a smile but then said, “Brady. You. You’re kind of incredible.”
“Don’t let the Otter hear you say that.”
I laughed. “Not like he’s incredible to me. I’m just saying, stop and look around you. You’re up for five AMAs.Five!”
He smiled. “You’re my PR manager; weren’t you already supposed to know that?”
I slapped him on the shoulder. “Stop deflecting. I want you to really look around, take a breath, and then let it set in. You’ve made it. All your dreams have come true over the last three years.”
His smile lowered a level. “Three years, six months, five days.”
“What?”
“That’s how long it’s been since I signed my contract with Nick. Three years, six months, five days. Two years ago, I was here for New Artist of the Year, which I didn’t get. The next year, I was here for Video of the Year, which I won. Now, my second album is out, I’ve got my own headlining tour in major stadiums, and I’m up for five awards. It isn’t lost on me, Dani. The only thing that would have made any of this better is if I’d been able to talk Ava into doing it with me.”
“You haven’t let the fame go to your head,” I said. “After being here today, I kind of can’t understand that, and it makes me want to work even harder as your PR manager.”
I could have sworn he blushed a little. “I have parents who won’t let me forget exactly who I am.”
“Yeah? Who’s that?”
“The kid who lost the dog and his sister all in one night.”
“You did not.” I chuckled.
“I did. I’d finally earned enough money to get my guitar, and I was so lost playing it that my little sister went to walk the dog without me, made a wrong turn, and ended up three streets away. Thankfully, nothing happened to her, but I lost the guitar for another few months because my parents were so pissed at me.”
