Page 18 of Rock Candy

But the world beneath my feet shifted, and everything was suddenly right again because as Henry hugged me, he leaned in and took a deep whiff of my hair. And instantly, I knew for certain that one day soon he’d be mine.

SUMMER

HENRY

We were back in Martha’s Vineyard. And I was all sappy about it, excited to be in the place where my love affair with Eddy began. The Martha’s Vineyard Music Festival was the first stop on our official tour together. Literally, hours after Eddy and I performed in New Mexico, video of us singing together went viral.

We remained blissfully unaware of my second and more lasting catapult into internet infamy because we were locked in my hotel room, learning to trust each other again. Naked. Alice didn’t even try to interrupt us. When we finally emerged, she and Eddy’s manager, Marcus, had already cooked up a future that sounded just fine to me. Two months in the studio writing songs and then a weird new kind of hybrid performance where I opened for Eddy, and then Eddy performed, and then we performed together.

Honestly, if I was with her, it was all fine with me, but Eddy said, “I want to take turns opening. I don’t want to be the headliner. I want it to be Eddy Meyer and Henry Davis.”

I smirked and teased, “I want it to be Eddy and Henry Davis.”

Eddy blushed and giggled, and Alice and Marcus literally both gagged.

“Gross,” Marcus chided.

“Like my stomach is actually curdling,” Alice concurred.

Those two were so alike it was scary. Anyway, that was how it went, and when they came to us with a tour schedule, I insisted we start where we began.

Playing a festival isn’t like giving a full-blown concert; it’s not hours onstage, it’s minutes, so they all count. But somehow, Eddy and I easily found a balance between new songs and old, her songs and mine. When I was singing, she played, and when she was singing, I played. Sometimes we both played; it was just easy. Everything about Eddy and me was easy.

I’d never been so happy in my life.

That was why I was taking it to the next level in front of an audience of adoring fans. We always ended with “Keeping Tomorrow.” It was our signature song. It was the song that people knew us for—the hit that made me a household name overnight, so I waited for that one. I waited until we gave the fans what they came to see, and then when Eddy was taking her bow, I dropped down on one knee and held out a little black box.

The crowd gasped. Audiences are insanely responsive—and somehow when people come together to watch something they all love, there is this instant sense of community that makes them function like a hive mind. Responding to the collective aw, Eddy turned to me to see what was happening. Immediately, her hand floated up to cover her mouth and her eyes welled up. She cried at the drop of a hat lately, and honestly, that felt healthy to me.

I let her catch her breath for just a second before I said, “You’re trouble.” She laughed through her tears. “You’ve been trouble for me since the first minute I laid eyes on you, twisting my heart in knots, pushing me to be stronger and braver and bolder. You dance like a madwoman trying to find sanity, and you make jokes when you should be serious. Honestly, your devotion toThe Golden Girlsis not normal, but despite all the trouble, you are spectacular, Eddy Meyer. I am certain that I will never love another woman the way I love you.”

I was supposed to move on to thewill you be my wifepart, but Eddy had other plans.

She kneeled too. She let the audience explode and grow calm again before she said, “I’m not trouble. You’re trouble.” The sea of fans laughed with me. I had grown to love performing because I loved the joyful energy the audience fed me as a performer. “You constantly make me leave important networking events. You respect my decisions when you know I’m being stupid. You know the foxtrot and the Macarena as if you were born dancing and you’re downright haughty about it. You’re so bossy sometimes it hurts and you steal all my ChapSticks, even the girly-flavored ones. But the truth is I can’t breathe without you.”

She smiled at me so big that I felt like I could feel her handing me her heart. My Eddy trusted me completely. She would never let me go again.

“So, I guess you’ll be my wife then?” I teased.

“Fuck yes, I’ll be your wife, you goddamn beautiful man.”

Needless to say, we brought the house down.