We’ve only had two sessions, but I don’t see any of that. I think he’s just misunderstood. Smart but doesn’t like to apply himself. Motivated but only to learn music. Here because he has to be or else his dad will lose his shit. Moody but with a crooked smile that flusters me when he graces me with it.

  And hot. In that mysterious, sexy, aloof way that has me stealing glances every now and again.

  He shakes his head and sighs. “It doesn’t matter how many times I read them, I’m never going to remember these. Mr. Johnson’s going to fail me. I’ll drop out. You’ll never see me again. End of story.”

  “You’re not going to fail. You’re not going to drop out. And if you didn’t come back, I’d come looking for you.”

  “You would?” There’s something about the way he says it that has me setting my pencil down and studying him.

  “Of course, I would,” I say when he just nods and averts his eyes. “Now, come on. Let’s concentrate so we can get this done. The first compound you need to know is for sugar. C12H22O11.”

  “Like that’s easy.” He rolls his eyes.

  “Then let’s try and associate it with something. Something you’ll remember that—”

  “Like you.”

  “Like me?” I laugh.

  He nods and angles his head to the side as he stares at me. “You’re sweet. Like sugar.”

  “Thanks. I think.” Heat creeps up my cheeks. “The question is how exactly is me being sweet going to make you remember the compound?”

  “I don’t know, Shug, but I guess we better figure it out.”

  He tattooed my nickname on him. He wears something I gave him years ago. He carries me with him everywhere he goes. Every country he travels to. The different beds he sleeps in every night. Even with the other women he sleeps with.

  He loves me in his own way but won’t allow the love to be returned.

  I thought I could do this. Sleep with him again. Be with him again. Enjoy him without needing closure or tomorrows or everything in between, but truth be told, I love him. I love him and it only seems to end up hurting me.

  There’s a reason we can’t be together. Why that is, I have no clue . . . but it just is and it’s time for me to accept it.

  I’ve been chasing the impossible for eleven years. Maybe it’s time to stop chasing. Maybe it’s time to start figuring out how to live without him.

  I lean forward and press the slightest of kisses to his lips.

  I get dressed.

  I gather my things.

  I stand and stare at him lying in the bed, and for the first time ever, I understand why Vince left me how he did that last time. Without a word. Without a goodbye. Without closure.

  It’s probably best if I’m not here when he wakes up. Call me a chicken. Call my actions chickenshit. But it will save us from pretending that there might be more to this than meets the eye. From making promises we don’t intend to keep. From holding each other back from the people we were meant to be.

  At least I know the truth. He does love me. But not enough.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever settle. I’m a selfish bastard, you know that. People come and go, are forgotten and buried when the next big thing comes. I just want to take the ride as long as I can, as far as I can.”

  If only Vince realized that he’s already the next big thing.

  He can love me all he wants, but he said it himself.

  I’ve always loved you,

  But could never keep you.

  You won’t forgive.

  And I can’t forget.

  You’ve always been my sweet regret.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Vince

  I know she’s gone before I even open my eyes to look.

  The only trace of her is her perfume that rubbed off on me last night and her lipstick left on the wine glass next to the bed.

  “Fuck.” It’s a groan. It’s resignation. It’s resistance.

  I’m not sure which one I want it to be more. Nor how I feel about them as a whole.

  I reach for my phone, not expecting a text from her to be there but looking anyway.

  Nothing.

  As if on cue, my cell rings, but it’s the last person I want to talk to.

  “Yep,” I answer.

  “Have you seen social media?” Xavier asks.

  “I was busy seeing the backs of my eyelids.”

  “I thought you weren’t feeling good last night.”

  Shit. I scrub a hand over my face. Screwed that lie up. “I felt better. Got a little restless and ended up at Bottom of the Hill.” I yawn. “What’s up?”

  “That song you sang. That new material? It’s going viral. Fucking apeshit. You need to lay that track down and get it released ASAP.”

  “Yeah. Sure. I’ll talk with Sony.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Vince. It’s all over the place. I’ve got my people online pushing it too. It’s like it’s all coming together at the right time. It’s fucking gold.”

  I sit up, the foil of a condom wrapper from last night floating off the bed. I can’t drum up any more excitement than this. “Gold is good. Platinum is better.”

  “That might be in the cards. Look, man, you wrote that song. You spoke your words. The public is hearing them loud and clear.”

  “Humph,” I say. By the empty bed beside me, I guess someone else heard the words loud and clear too. “Great.”

  I need a fucking drink already.

  “You should have had Jasmine and Will there last night. Would’ve been great for the documentary.”

  Fuck the documentary.

  “Apparently there’s enough footage on social media already. I’m sure they’ll find a way to use that.”

  “Agreed.” He clears his throat. “So we’re still on for an eleven o’clock lunch, and then we’ll hop on the jet and get back. We’ll discuss strategy on how to keep this momentum going during the flight.”

  “Sure.” I’m still in a fog. “Will Bristol be at the meeting today?”

  “She left about an hour ago. Commercial flight back. Something about an emergency at home. Don’t worry though. We’ll get her up to speed once we figure everything out. Good?”

  “Good.”

  I end the call and toss my cell on the floor where I can’t reach it.

  This is what I’ve been working for, right? Solo success? Charting my own territory? I should be ecstatic. I should be surfing the Internet and soaking it all in.

  Then why does it feel so goddamn fucking empty?

  An emergency, my ass.

  Walking away is something I’ve seemed to have mastered and mastered well.

  Seems you have too, Bristol.

  Tou-fucking-ché.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Bristol

  Seven Years Ago

  “You tried to call him again?” My mom stares at me, arms over her chest, concern etched in every damn line of her face.

  She looks old. No doubt these past two weeks are the culprit enhancing that.

  “I have. A ton of times. I’ve left messages. I’ve sent texts.”

  “He hasn’t responded?”

  “Kind of hard when he blocked my number.”

  “How do you know that?” she asks, her cup of tea growing cold in front of her.

  “Because now when I text, they don’t go through. When I call, it says the number isn’t available.” Coming to that realization didn’t hurt at all or anything.

  “Huh,” she says. “What about his dad? You called him before—”

  “No. Absolutely not. The man is a prick, and he’s only going to give me the same number that’s now blocked me.”

  “What if we called your dad to—”

  “No. Please.” I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. “Dad can’t know who the father is. I hate saying that because he’s Dad, and I love him, but he’s also Dad. The man who can’t keep a secret to save his life. If I do this—”

  “Then no one can know,” she says quietly.

  “For the baby’s sake. Yes. He or she needs to know they come from a place of love, not from one of abandonment.”

  “This doesn’t sit right with me, Bristol.”

  I reach across the table and grab her hands. Tears well and I blink them away. My emotions are all over the fucking place with these hormones. “I know, but this is my decision, and I need you to respect it. I confided in you because I value your opinion. I told you because I can’t do this alone. I know you think I’m jumping the gun and don’t know the half of it when it comes to parenting. And you’re right. I don’t. But neither does anyone else. Isn’t that the beauty and the pain in it? All I know is that this baby was made out of a love that I’ve never felt with anyone else.”

  “You’re young. You have a life ahead of you to find a love that’s even better. That’s even sweeter.”

  She doesn’t understand. I saw the love between her and my father. It was subtle and understated. I know the love I felt with Vince, even at a young age. It was unrelenting and unique.

  “I can’t explain it. You just have to respect it.”

  “Vince has a right to know.”

  “He does.” I blink away more tears and ignore the burning in my chest. The same burning that I felt when I imagined a life together with him and our child. The same damn burning that turned to utter heartbreak when he refused to call me back. When he refused to take my calls. “He’s the one who has blocked my number. He’s the one who gave that interview I just played for you saying he has no desire to have kids ever.”

  “Saying it and meaning it are two different things.”

  “You weren’t the one the road manager humiliated when he offered to give me a thousand dollars to use as I please—okayed by Vince himself.”

  “You don’t have to keep the baby. There’s no shame in admitting you’re not ready. In making a choice for you and your own future.”

  I close my eyes and quiet the tears. “I’m not being naïve in this. I know it’ll be tough. I know it’ll derail my plans for a while, but this is my decision. I’m keeping it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Vince

  Seven Years Ago

  “Does it hurt being so popular?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask Mick, our road manager.

  “Chicks calling me to get to you. To get with you. To—”

  “Tell them he’s a lousy fuck and that the drummer is better,” Gizmo says.

  I raise a middle finger at the same time I empty the rest of my beer. “You’re just jealous, man.”

  “That girl you were with in . . . Jesus, what city was that?” Mick asks.

  “Which fucking girl?” Hawke asks and chuckles.

  “Shit, I think she said her name was . . . Crystal.”

  We all burst out laughing. “The fucker calls everyone Crystal,” Rocket says and then downs the rest of his beer.

  “Yeah, well. Crystal called,” Mick says, grabbing the bottle of Jack and pouring himself some.

  “What fucking city was it again?” Hawkin asks. “Vince has been on a doozy of a pussy bender since . . .” He leans back and looks at me. “Since what city was it, Vin?”

  Since Los Angeles. Since Shug. I’ve been trying to fuck her out of my system, so that all the women blur together, and I can try to forget her.

  Call me the asshole. Call me a hell of a lot worse. Especially when I made Hawkin take my cell, block her number so it’d get lost in the fray of the hundreds I’ve already blocked, before erasing every goddamn trace of her from my contacts so I can’t call her back.

  That’s what Bristol fucking Matthews does to me.

  I scrub a hand over my face. “City? Fuck if I remember.”

  “Perfectly said, my brother,” Rocket says and fist-bumps me with a laugh. “Fuck if you remember.”

  “So what did Crystal want?” Gizmo asks.

  “For you to be her baby daddy,” Mick says followed by a collective groan from all of us.

  “What number is that this month?” I ask. It’s becoming a fucking weekly occurrence. And since I have a no glove, no love policy, I’m not worried in the least.

  “Five. Is that five?” Gizmo asks.

  “I think it’s five,” Rocket answers. “Collectively. Not just for Vin. We don’t want to give him a big head or anything.”

  “Fuck off,” I say.

  “That sounds like a ‘please take care of it for us’ if ever I’ve heard one,” Mick says.

  “Perfect.” I rest my head back on the couch as the dressing room begins to spin.

  “Maybe we leave all the Crystals alone for a few days,” Hawkin says.

  “Only if you leave all your Cherrys alone for a while,” I say, referring to the name he uses collectively.

  “Welcome to fame, gentlemen,” Mick says, holding up his glass. “Now you know you’ve officially made it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Bristol

  “Dino nuggets for the win,” I mutter to myself, taking any victory I can while Jagger goes through his picky eater phase—and a clean plate left behind is definitely a win.

  I wash the plate, put it in the drying rack, and contemplate what I want to do with my night now that Jagg is asleep and the house has been tidied up.

  I should finish going through the rest of my current LSAT study guide.

  I should answer all the emails I haven’t gotten to yet.

  I should text Vince . . . and say what? It’s not like he’s tried to reach out to me since I left.

  But my open bottle of wine and a true crime documentary I’ve been wanting to see are winning out over everything.

  A glass is poured and the remote is in hand when a knock comes at the door. It’s not unusual to have someone knocking at the door—the cottages in my complex look the same so people often get them confused—but not at this time of night.

  I tiptoe to the door and look through the peephole only to jump back. Vince. What the hell is he doing here? How does he know where I live?

  JAGGER.

  My heart leaps in my throat, and I freeze momentarily as my body takes a second to catch up with my brain’s thoughts of simply pretending not to be home.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  “I know you’re in there, Shug. You were just standing in the window. I’m more than ready to stand here and knock all night until you answer the door.”

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Ignoring him is a more than valid option, but that means he’ll knock and knocking will wake Jagger, and then Vince will hear him and who knows what will happen . . .

  I grab my phone that has the room monitor on it just in case he wakes, open the door, self-preservation my only thought, and step outside, closing it and my secret life behind me. “What are you doing here?”

  I don’t ask how he knows where I live. I’m truly afraid of how much digging he can do.

  “Hi.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes as he holds up a twelve-pack of beer, two of them already missing.

  “Hi. Is everything okay?”

  “That’s subjective.” He helps himself to a seat on the concrete like a little kid with his back against the wall and his face to the sky. “Join me?”

  Our eyes hold for a beat before I take up a similar position beside him. We sit like this in silence, the crickets around us and half a moon above us.

  “Your car running okay?” He finally breaks the silence.

  “It is. Thank you again for helping. I wish you’d let me repay you.”

  “You haven’t been at work,” he finally says. “Everything okay?”

  I nod, a motion I’m sure he can see in his periphery. “Had a few projects to do offsite. Ones I was on before you came on, that I had to finish.” I take a beer he hands me and take a sip simply for something to do. “I hear congratulations are in order. The song is huge, and it hasn’t even been released yet.”

  He shrugs and gives a noncommittal sound. “It’s all relative.”

  A car drives by. A few dogs bark somewhere down the street. A stink bug crawls oh so slowly up the side of the stucco.

  “You want to tell me why you’re outside of my place at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night?”

  He brings a beer to his lips and takes a long pull on it before placing the empty back in the box and grabbing another one. The pop of the cap has the stink bug freezing. “For a lot of reasons, I guess.”

  “Like?”

  “Like why you told me you lived a few blocks away when you really live here.”

  My sigh is heavy. My heart even more so because something about this whole situation feels so final. Somber.

  “Truth?”

  “Always.”

  I take a sip for courage. “Because I’m embarrassed that you’re you and I’m me, and this is all I have to show for it.”

  “Christ, Bristol. Do you think that really fucking matters to me?”

  “You wanted the truth.”

  “I did. Doesn’t mean I have to like it. But why is the question. What happened to set you back? That’s what you’re not telling me.”

  The beautiful part of you who’s asleep inside, fifteen feet away. The little boy who tilts his head the same as you. The one who got his first guitar from his grandpa yesterday and spent hours pretending to play it.

  “Vince . . .” Tell him. Say it. The words are there but the finality in his tone, the regret woven in it, have me hesitating.

  “It’s okay. You don’t owe it to me. I understand that.”

  I close my eyes momentarily, uncertain if I’m relieved or upset when he doesn’t press. Probably a little of both. “Thank you.”

  His head still against the wall, he turns to meet my eyes. “We all have secrets we don’t want to tell, Shug. It’s okay.”

  Emotion lumps in my throat. “Is one of yours why you’re here?”

  He shrugs and then starts playing with the label on his bottle. He looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. “I’ve fucked up in so many ways that I don’t know how to see my way out of it.”

  I try to piece things together, try to understand what he’s talking about. “I doubt that.” His chuckle is a low rumble that has my heart hurting for him. “Is this about Bent? About—”