Well, a willing participant.

  But things were a whole lot different now. She’d walked out on me right after that and I’d spent the last five months trying not to remember how she’d made me feel. We were on a tour together and I’d already been warned not to touch her.

  We couldn’t share a bed. I mean we could, but it felt like opening a whole vat of complications.

  “I’ll sleep on the floor,” I said quickly.

  “I’ll take the couch,” she said at the same moment.

  We stopped and stared at each other, a million and one unsaid things passing between us, and I gave her a hesitant smile.

  “You take the bed. I know how tired you are.”

  She huffed. “And I know how tired you are. I’m not going to let you sleep on the floor, Connor. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  I glanced again at the bed and shook my head. “Well we can’t both sleep there.”

  She looked over as well, her gaze considering. “Sure we could. I’m small.”

  “And I’m big.”

  She smirked. “That’s what they all say.”

  I laughed, surprised at the bawdy comment from the always-in-control Olivia Johns. “I mean,” I said pointedly, “that I take up a lot of space.”

  She turned the considering look on me. “I’ve noticed,” she said softly. And before I could figure out what the hell that was supposed to mean, she was walking over to the bed. “It’s not a big deal, Connor. We sleep next to each other every night. This time we’re just going to do it in a bed. Keep your clothes on and it won’t bother either of us.”

  I bit my cheek and watched her, trying to figure out whether she was being serious. She patted at the bed, checking it, and turned to me, her eyes still serious and so, so beautiful. God, I couldn’t sleep next to her. I couldn’t sleep in the same bed with her and not touch her.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I might be big, but I was not big enough to keep my hands to myself if she was within reach.

  And yet, a bed. A bed for the first time in over a week.

  A bed with Olivia Johns laying next to me.

  I sighed and closed my eyes, trying very hard to talk myself into some form of self control. And then I stepped forward, slipped out of my boots, and nodded. “No big deal,” I agreed. “You’re right. And boy am I ready for a real mattress.”

  Not that I’d be sleeping.

  Sleeping would mean I might accidentally turn and take her in my arms, and something told me that if I did that, it would lead to a whole lot more than either of us was ready for.

  CHAPTER 19

  Colin

  ARE THEY OR AREN’T THEY? That’s the question of the moment, isn’t it?

  And yes, I’m talking about Olivia Johns and Connor Wheating. You might find it hard to believe this, but Olivia has, up to this point, resisted my charms, and I’m starting to think I might know why. After playing their best show yet, in my esteemed opinion, they were seen last night heading upstairs together. Sure, the bar in Wolf Creek has several rooms up there.

  I stayed in one myself.

  Which means I was at the top of the stairs and in full view of them when they went into the same room and didn’t come back out again.

  Now I know what you’re thinking. They’re on tour together and all appearances seem to indicate that they’re the best of friends. But hear me out. They’re on tour alone. They’re sharing a small van and sleeping next to each other every night. I know because I’m getting hotel rooms. They’re not. They’re playing together every day. I’ve been here from the start and I can tell you that their chemistry on stage is getting really, really good.

  Like, too good.

  Folks, I might be jumping the gun here, but something tells me there’s more than music going on between those two. My heart is crushed, of course, but anyone with eyes could see that they’re meant to be together. I’m cheering for those two crazy kids—and for more than just them getting their music contract.

  Check back tomorrow for more! I’m off to do research!

  See you on the road!

  -C

  PS I can’t believe I forgot this BUT my little blog has been picked up by a major magazine! You might have heard of it. It’s a little rag called Country Music, and they’ve taken an interest in me following along with the band and documenting their adventures! Their first feature on me comes out TOMORROW and if you love me, you’ll all go right out and buy a copy, because who knows if I’ll ever do anything this big again!

  CHAPTER 20

  Olivia

  Getting my first bed in a week hadn’t been as restful as I hoped.

  When I opened my eyes the next morning to the sun streaming through the window, my first thought was a memory of how much time I’d spent awake over the night, my body tense with awareness at how close Connor was and that we were in bed together. I’d laid down in bed and told myself firmly to stick to my side rather than turning and using him for warmth against the chilly night. I’d told myself that he wasn’t there for me and that I had to stick to the plan.

  I told myself I wasn’t allowed to think there was more between us than there actually was, despite the long looks and hugs and constant tension.

  Of course, I’d been telling myself that since we launched this tour, and so far the self I was talking to had been refusing to listen.

  The rest of the night had been one long mess of angst and confusion, muddled even more by the fatigue weighing me down and the additional worry over what was going to happen to us. I wanted to be able to turn to the one person who’d been there since we hit the road, and it wasn’t just because he was the only one physically available to me. I mean that was part of it, yeah, but in the same breath…

  I’d realized that the thing we’d built over Christmas wasn’t gone. Not even remotely. And I wanted it back. I wanted him to look at me the way he’d looked at me the night we spent together. I wanted to be able to look back at him with the same emotion shining in my eyes.

  I turned over, trying to get comfortable enough to go back to sleep, and instead saw Connor sitting by the window, his eyes on his phone and his brow creased in worry.

  “Awfully early to be wearing an expression that serious,” I noted, sitting up. “What?”

  When he glanced up at me, I could see that he was even more worried than I’d realized. The line between his eyebrows was deep and his eyes, which were usually laughing, were clouded. “We’re in trouble.”

  I slid quickly out of bed, wrapped the quilt around me, and made my way toward him. “More trouble than we were in before?”

  We had, after all, been homeless and without real income for the last week.

  His answer was short. “Yes.”

  He handed me his phone and I took it, stomach sinking. When I looked down, expecting to see Colin’s blog—our usual source of news—I saw instead an article in a magazine.

  A big magazine.

  And as I read through it, I started to understand what Connor was talking about. This magazine, it turned out, had picked up Colin’s little blog and given him a column. Or rather… No, they hadn’t given him a column. This wasn’t fresh writing from him. It was a collection of his blogs.

  His blogs about us.

  Last night, it seemed, had been big enough to get some real press. And the press was focused on our little tour.

  They’d written around Colin’s blogs to fill in some blanks and were calling our adventure ‘Olivia and Connor’s Road Trip’ and talking about how we’d been hitting the smallest venues around. The places no other musicians hit. They were saying that fans—we had fans now?—were guessing at where we’d play next and building maps of where we’d been. They were taking bets on whether we’d be back next year.

  And whether we were together or not.

  This… This was a major magazine talking about us and our little tour. They were running through our songs and critiquing them, talking about the impact we were having on the state. Calling us the blue collar workers of the music industry.

  There was an entire paragraph detailing our road-side shows for cash, because our label wasn’t providing any. The shows we were doing outside the label’s prescribed tour.

  “Oh my God,” I breathed.

  If Atomic read about those, our contracts were dead. We were breaking the agreement we had with them, and we wouldn’t have any recourse.

  All of this would have been for nothing.

  Another contract down the drain, and I didn’t think my career would recover from another failure like that.

  When I looked up at Connor, my eyes were wet with tears.

  “I notice they’re refusing to call it the Mystery Tour like we wanted,” I said quietly.

  He huffed and took his phone back. “That’s probably something to do with the fact that we didn’t actually tell anyone we were calling it that. We have a problem, Liv.”

  “Yes. You get dressed. I’ll call Taylor.”

  Parker might have been a better choice—she had an even stronger personality than Taylor did—but at the end of the day this contract was between Atomic on one side and me and Taylor on the other. Taylor was the one they knew.

  I hoped she was the one they’d listen to.

  “Okay, well I’ve got good news and bad news,” Taylor said when she called me back. “Which do you want first?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Bad.”

  “Atomic has seen the article. They’ve read it. They know everything.”

  The world around me exploded. And then it pieced itself back together, with a lot less color. Because I didn’t have time to break down right now. “Okay. I was afraid of that. What did they say? Are they actually going to send help now that they’ve been publicly shamed for not supporting us?”

  “No.”

  I frowned. “I thought you already gave me the bad news.”

  “This is the good news, Liv. They’ve read it. They’re not dropping you immediately, but you’re on thin ice. They aren’t sending help because they think this is amazing publicity. They want you guys to carry on. Keep on your tour, keep signing autographs and making fans. Keep your funny van and all that. They’re not going to penalize you. Yet.”

  “Why do I feel like that’s not the whole answer?”

  I could almost hear her doing that thing where she narrowed her eyes and bit her lip, trying to decide whether to tell me the rest. In the end, though, I guessed she had to tell me. After all, I was the one with the contract on the line.

  “No more appearances outside the bounds of the contract. They think the roadside stuff was great, but they aren’t going to allow any more of it.”

  “And yet they’re not going to send money.”

  “I’ll have Danny deposit more money in Connor’s account.”

  That wasn’t really an answer. But I was starting to think it was the best I was going to get.

  “Okay, got it. We’ll learn to live on air and grass or something. Anything else?”

  Another quick pause, and then: “Kill the rumors about you and Connor hooking up.”

  I jerked in surprise. I’d been so overwhelmed by the news about the studio finding out about the extra appearances that I’d completely forgotten that part of the article. Colin had been guessing that we were actually together. And evidently the label was upset with that.

  Why?

  “Taylor, we’re not hooking up.”

  “I don’t care if you are or aren’t. I care about you making the label happy, and they want assurances.”

  Okay, that pissed me off. It was one thing for them not to want us to play additional shows and an entirely different thing for them to be poking their noses into my personal life like that. Sure, nothing was actually going on, but that was beside the point. They were the ones who’d saddled me with Connor freaking Wheating, and now they were upset that we’d become friends?

  Maybe that wouldn’t have happened if they’d sent me out on the road by myself in the first place. Trusted me enough to do a tour on my own.

  “And how do you suggest I do that?” I asked through a tight throat.

  “You’ve got that blogger with you, right? Flirt with him or something. Make it clear you don’t have a thing for Connor.”

  My throat got even tighter at the thought of flirting with Colin and ignoring Connor. We were already in a tricky situation and not talking about it. The idea of making it even worse by ignoring him…

  I couldn’t do it.

  I wouldn’t do it.

  “Right. Call me if you hear anything else. I’ll get with Connor and figure out what we’re going to do.”

  I hung up without waiting for an answer from her and turned to Connor, who was sitting across from me at the breakfast table. The bar had given us breakfast too, and though I should have been excited about that, I was way more concerned about what we were going to do once we left this haven.

  “We’ve got problems,” I told him. “And I think we need to disappear for a couple days while we figure out how we’re going to solve it.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Connor

  I drove 10 miles over the speed limit, hauling butt for the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest and the campground we’d marked as our destination. Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles was on and Olivia and I were singing it at the top of our lungs.

  Not because we were excited to be heading into the middle of a forest to camp with nothing but our beat-up old van and a bag full of supplies. But because we were forcing ourselves to be optimistic.

  Magical Mystery Tour had become our theme song over the last week, partially because we both loved the Beatles and partially because of what Olivia had named the van, and it was the song we played when we needed to hype ourselves up.

  Now was one of those times.

  When the song ended, I turned the volume down and looked over at her.

  “When you’re going this fast, Connor, you keep your eyes on the road,” she said sharply.

  “Thanks for the driving lesson, Auntie,” I smirked. “Let’s talk about our plan.”

  “The plan is get to the campground, get set up, and lay low for a couple days,” she said, reciting what we’d already been through multiple times. “Disappear so the buzz dies down. Then hit the road and try to stay on track from here on out.”

  I bit my lip. Stay on track from here on out. That was going to be the problem. Atomic didn’t want us playing outside of our scheduled stops but they also hadn’t sent us any money, and though Taylor had promised that Danny was going to get us a deposit I knew funds had to be running short for that sort of thing. Danny wasn’t a hugely successful agent yet and he didn’t have a lot of extra money. Avery could have loaned us money but I was guessing both Atomic and Drive In were tying her hands, just like they were with Parker.

  And we still had three weeks left on the road.

  Three weeks without any money.

  The rest of the plan was good, though. We needed to get out of sight—without Colin tagging along and updating the world about our doings—and hope everyone forgot what Colin himself had written. We needed the label to stop watching us.

  So if we decided to make appearances for additional money—I wasn’t saying we were going to, but if—the label might not notice it.

  I didn’t want to lose those contracts. But I also didn’t want Olivia or me to starve.

  Not that she was being much help on that point. I’d thought last night that she’d finally opened up and let herself start to enjoy what we were doing, but the news this morning had put her right back into her box. She’d been cold and businesslike all morning, reciting only the facts and refusing to give me her opinion.

  In short, she’d gone back to the Olivia I’d known from high school. Distant and uninvolved, like she was busy solving the problem inside her head and didn’t want to involve me. Up to this point I’d felt like we were at least partners in this whole thing. In this predicament together.

  Now I felt like I was the only one taking action.

  I really wanted to get out of the public eye, and we were driving out of our way to do that. But my biggest goal during this time in the forest—the thing that was even more important than getting away from the buzz—was giving Olivia some time away from it all. Maybe if we got to where trouble couldn’t find us, she’d open up to me again.

  Because I wasn’t going to be able to do this on my own. I needed her help.

  Olivia was looking doubtfully at the hookups for things like water and air, which each camp site seemed to have. “I’m guessing we can’t use any of this stuff.”

  “Definitely not,” I said. “We don’t have the right equipment for that. We’re going to have to use the showers and bathrooms down the road.”

  She groaned and made a face. “Public showers have never really been my thing.”

  “And yet you’ve been doing just fine for the past week,” I pointed out, forcing a smile onto my face. So far, my idea of her coming back to me once we got out of the public eye wasn’t happening. If anything, she’d become even more stand-offish.

  Or stressed, I told myself. This could be a reaction to the worry. I had to give her at least that much credit.

  I lifted the cooler out of the van and walked it toward the picnic table attached to the site. We might not have the right hookups for water or air, but we had plenty of food. The bartender had given us $500 for playing—our share of the house, he said—and had wrapped up meals, so we more food than we’d had all week. We’d also stopped on the way out of town to buy some junk food for the road, which I’d shoved into the cooler.

  “Don’t you think you’d better put that in the bear box?” Olivia asked.

  I looked up. “What the heck is a bear box?”

  She pointed at a box off to the side of the site. “I’m guessing it’s that thing labeled as a ‘bear box.’ Probably to keep bears out of your food, if I’m guessing.”