hannah
Present day
I was freaking out. Like, big time freaking out.
He has a ring.
Jasper was hiding a ring. And not just any ring, the biggest god damn pink diamond ring I’d ever seen in my entire life.
I’d known instantly it was for me, I loved pink. I was a tall, skinny, blonde girl who was so into the colour pink it wasn’t even funny.
God damn it, I really did earn the nickname ‘Barbie’.
He was going to give me this ring. He was going to ask me to be his wife.
I could already picture it.
He wouldn’t get down on one knee. That wasn’t Jasper’s style – or mine. We weren’t known for being traditional, not in the slightest. That was Charlotte and Parker’s thing.
Not that a tattoo-covered rock star and his porcelain-doll-looking wife exactly screamed traditional, but still.
Jasper would be more likely to lob the thing across the room at me and say something like ‘so how about it?’ or ‘Barbie, can I be your Ken?’.
Holy shit.
I shoved the giant rock back into its bright pink satin box and put it back into Jasper’s junk drawer, the iPad charger I’d been searching for long forgotten.
My hands were shaking, and I couldn’t seem to get enough air.
Breathe, Hannah, breathe.
Charlotte would be here soon, she’d know what to do.
She always knew how to calm me down when I was losing my shit.
I rushed up to the bedroom I shared with J and stripped off, trying to take deep, calming breaths as I went.
I threw on a light, denim, spaghetti-strap dress with my tan-and-white sandals and glanced at myself in the mirror.
My blonde hair was longer than I usually kept it; the bob style had grown down past my shoulders now. I’d thought about cutting it off recently, but Jasper seemed to like it longer. He’d said, and I quote, that he ‘liked having something to hold onto’, so I’d decided to grow it out, like it was when I was younger.
He’d actually gone on to be really sweet and tell me that he liked me with shorter hair just as much, but he thought the slightly longer, more wild-looking hair suited me and my personality better. He’d told me hundreds of times that I didn’t need to wear so much makeup on my face, and I’d eventually learned that he preferred me without it entirely.
Looking at my reflection in the mirror right now, the strands in loose waves and my green eyes bright and wide, I had to agree with him.
“Han?” I heard Charlotte call from downstairs.
“Up here,” I hollered back.
I was doing up the buckle on my watch when Lotte appeared in the doorway.
There was silence for a few beats before she spoke.
“What the hell happened?” she demanded.
I gasped in surprise and met her eyes. I’d thought I had been doing a good job of appearing calm.
“You’re doing that whole twitchy wild animal thing you do when you’re stressed.” She narrowed her blue eyes at me.
“He’s going to propose,” I blurted out the words without a second thought.
It was only once I’d spoken them aloud that I realised how absolutely thrilled I was about this revelation.
I was freaking the hell out, but I was so excited I could hardly think straight.
I was going to marry the only man that had ever loved me the way a man should love a woman. I was going to marry the man that I truly believed was meant for me.
Charlotte shrieked in excitement and jumped up and down clapping her hands. “Oh my god! How do you know?”
She bounded over to me and pulled me in for a hug, both of us now jumping around like excited little girls.
“I found the ring.”
“That bastard bought you a ring and didn’t even take his best girlfriend to help? I’m insulted, I really am.” She pouted.
I laughed, my tone shrill and nervous.
“Did he do good?” she asked as she glanced around, presumably looking for said ring.
“I freaked out and shoved in back in the drawer,” I explained with a giggle. “But he did good, he did so good, Lotte.”
I took her downstairs and dug around for the box. I pulled it out and she whistled a long, low sound.
“That’s one hell of a ring, girl.” She brought it up closer to her face. “Jesus, would you even be able to lift your hand with that thing on it?”
“You can’t talk.” I pointed at the ring she wore on her left hand. “Parker didn’t exactly hold back.”
She shrugged and grinned. “True.”
I tucked the ring back in its hiding spot.
“I’ll be your maid of honour, right?”
“I’m not even engaged yet.” I rolled my eyes at her.
She rolled hers right back. “As if you’d ever do anything but say yes.”
Of course I’ll say yes.
The idea was so exciting, but as I thought about saying the word yes to him, panic rose in my chest again.
What if he decides I’m too crazy for him in ten years?
What will happen then?
“We gotta go.” Lotte glanced at her watch. “We’ll be late, and you don’t keep this girl waiting.”
Just calm down…
I grabbed a sheet of paper from the kitchen counter and scribbled down a note to Jasper.
I’ll find you when I get home, I love you.
Ready or not, here I come.
H x
I sat it where I knew he’d see it.
“You two are so weird.” She giggled as she glanced at the note.
“Yup,” I agreed shamelessly as I locked the front door behind us. “But we own it, so it doesn’t count.”
Charlotte just laughed at my usual defence of my wacky behaviour as we got into the tinted-out black SUV that Parker had bought Charlotte for her twenty-seventh birthday.
“No Sammy today?” I quizzed. Normally the guys insisted that we have Sammy drive us everywhere we went, or at the very least, have a member of the security team with us.
“Nope.” She grinned. “This place has been added to the ‘safe list’.” She shook her head in bewilderment.
Charlotte dealt incredibly well with Parker’s life, but any opportunity she got to live a normal life, she took it.
And I don’t blame her.
I’d witnessed numerous disagreements between Park and Lotte, usually about things that Lotte insisted on doing for herself – mundane things, like the grocery shopping. Parker wanted them to use a service. He wanted to do anything and everything that kept Charlotte out of the public eye – safe and protected.
I was beginning to gather that Charlotte was usually the winner of these types of arguments. Not only had she gone to the store herself last time, but Parker and three of his security guards had gone too.
I’d held up the glass of wine I was drinking on my balcony to toast to them when they had arrived back from the store. Charlotte had given me a victorious grin and a double thumbs up. Parker had flipped me the bird.
I glanced over at my best friend as we pulled into a street I’d never visited. I might have been a total fruit loop, but she was sassy as hell – she didn’t put up with any shit from anybody these days.
Parker and Jasper might have been two of the most successful recording artists on the planet right now, but Charlotte didn’t give them an inch if she didn’t want to.
I knew why she did it, Parker did too. She’d been so severely controlled by her last boyfriend that she needed to feel like she still had control over some part of her life.
I knew she didn’t feel suffocated or controlled by Parker, it was actually quite the opposite. She almost didn’t function quite right when they were apart.
But old habits die hard I guess.
Parker never wanted Lotte to feel that way ever again, and the cunning woman used that to her advantage; that’s how she won so many battles.
Jasper wasn’t quite as bad as Parker, I’d had a few lectures about keeping myself safe; I had a team of bodyguards I could call on whenever I needed to, and Sammy was always skulking around somewhere, doing his best to follow Parker’s orders and keep Charlotte protected.
Truthfully though, I rarely went anywhere without either Jasper, Charlotte or Parker anyway.
In fact, I couldn’t remember the last time I was somewhere, other than home, on my own.
The thought actually made me feel kind of claustrophobic.
I decided that when I got home tonight, I was going for a run. Alone.
“Where the hell are you taking me?” I demanded as Charlotte pulled her flash-ass car up and stopped in a dodgy-looking side street.
“You’ll see,” she replied, her eyes twinkling as she swung her door open.
I climbed out and glanced around sceptically. “This place is considered safe?”
“You’ll see,” she repeated, indicating that we were going to go through a grimy-looking door on the side of this shitty little street.
She raised a brow at me, daring me not to follow.
Charlotte had rarely steered me wrong in life, but I had a feeling that that was about to change.
Ninety-five percent of me hoped she was.
“Finally, something exciting is happening around here.” I grinned as I followed her through the door and into a dark hallway.
* * *
“You’re really going to let me ink up this virgin skin?” Asha, asked Lotte with a grin.
“Just do it already,” Charlotte groaned, her free hand covering her eyes.
I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I’d tried to get this little wuss to get tattooed with me all three times that I’d visited a studio.
My tattoos were all small. I had a star – I got that when my grandmother passed away. She was an amazing lady and I liked to think that she was up there in the stars watching over me. I had a daisy chain around my ankle – there was no reason for that one other than the fact that I like daisies and tattoos were addictive, and my third one was a tiny pair of scissors that I’d got when I’d become regarded as one of the best hair stylists in the industry.
I may not have been able to hold a flame to the tattoo collection of my boyfriend, but I was no ink virgin.
“Let me see what you’re getting.”
Charlotte pointed with the hand that Asha didn’t have pinned down on the wrap-covered bench. There was a sheet of paper resting on the seat next to her.
It was a small design, a music note and a heart intertwined together.
It was simple, but beautiful.
It suddenly all made sense. Charlotte had organised for Parker and Jasper to go to some interview across town that they’d be at all morning. Since we’d declined that particular request four times previously, I didn’t understand why she’d accepted this time… but now I did.
She needed Parker out of the way so she could get a gorgeous tattoo as a tribute to their love, just like Parker had done when they’d been first starting out.
“I love it... he’s going to love it, Lotte.”
“He better,” she grumbled as Asha made a start on the outline on Charlotte’s wrist.
The buzzing of the tattoo gun gave me tingles. It really was so damn addictive.
“Asha, babe, you didn’t tell me we had beautiful guests,” a cheery voice came from behind me.
Asha laughed lightly without taking her eyes off her work. She moved the needle like a pro – I could see why she was the only person that Parker let ink him anymore.
“Charlotte, Hannah, that’s Hawke,” she offered without breaking stride on her work.
I held my hand out to the forty-something-year-old guy that had appeared from out back. He wore a pair of faded jean shorts and a plain back singlet. And if I thought that Jasper was covered in tattoos, I was wrong. This guy was covered.
“Jesus, do you have any bare skin left at all?” I blurted out without thinking as he took my hand in his.
“Han!” Charlotte scolded me like a parent would a rude child.
Hawke just laughed deep and loud.
“Well actually… I’ll show you.”
He turned around and Asha laughed. “You’ve done it now, girl.”
I didn’t know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for him to drop his pants and show me his bare, totally un-tattooed ass. Even still, it wasn’t quite enough to shock a girl like me.
“Touché, sir, touché,” I drawled.
He laughed again.
He buckled his belt back up and then rubbed his hands together excitedly. “So, what am I giving you, blondie?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “I’m just here for moral support.” I grinned at Charlotte’s grimace.
“Oh c’mon… I can’t tempt you into anything? On the house? Since you took looking at my hairy ass like a real trooper and all,” he offered.
Now that was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
I strolled over to look at the wall of tattoo photos and recognised one almost instantly.
“Hey, I know that wolf.”
I looked back over my shoulder at him and he came over to see.
“I know that wolf well.” I smirked.
Hawke looked at me sideways. “You and Jones, huh?” he asked with eyebrows raised in surprise.
I nodded as I traced my finger over the image that sat low on my boyfriend’s hip. “Oooooh yeah.”
“You’ll be familiar with a lot of my work then.” He pointed out a few more images that adorned Jasper’s body.
So this is where he comes…
I was familiar alright.
I could tell you exactly where on his body all those images were placed.
I’d spent countless hours studying his art, finding out why he got it, what it meant to him…
Hearing him talk about them was nearly as addictive as getting the tattoos myself.
I turned to the big man next to me. “I know what I want to get.”