And I was walking in the other direction with Danny, knowing that I’d just walked away from the most important person I’d ever meet.

  CHAPTER 28

  Connor

  I didn’t see Olivia again until two days later.

  Let me be clear. It wasn’t for lack of trying. I got home from the airport, put my bag down, kicked Danny and all his words out—he’d been talking nonstop since I arrived—and called her immediately. I wanted to talk about everything I’d heard from Danny. The fact that Barry and his antics were all due to some stunt from her ex. The fact that Atomic hadn’t given us an immediate meeting but were making us wait for two days. I wanted her thoughts on what was going on. I wanted to hear what had actually happened between her and her ex that had made him so salty he went out of his way to try to undermine our first tour together.

  Honestly, I just wanted to hear her voice. I felt like I had the worst hangover in the world. Or an addiction. Yeah, maybe that was more accurate. I needed to hear her voice like I needed oxygen in my air. I’d grown used to having her right next to me for a month, and now that she was gone I felt like I was only half here.

  She must not have felt the same though because my call went straight to voicemail.

  Every call after that did the same.

  So when I walked into the Atomic office with Danny at my side, ready to negotiate a couple contracts, I did so with the fear that she’d already cut me back out of her life. Though I was more than willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe she’d been busy or Parker or Avery had needed her for something. Hell, maybe she’d gotten into her own bed and just slept for two days.

  Given how much she’d missed real beds, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility.

  The moment I saw her in the room, I realized that I was wrong about that, though. Her eyes were puffy and surrounded by dark circles, her skin pale under her freckles. Her mouth was tight and stressed.

  She looked like she hadn’t slept since we got home.

  I wanted to go to her, take her in my arms, and ask if she was okay. Tuck her into my pocket and keep her safe fro whatever was going on. Was it her ex? If he’d messed with us on the road, he might be messing with her now that she was home. I’d kill him. Kill him dead, with my own bare hands. And then bring him back to life and kill him again.

  I glanced around the room, like he was going to somewhere be in there with us, and when I looked at her again, her eyes were on me.

  Warm and gray/blue and looking as desperate for me as I was for her.

  There she was.

  “Hi,” I mouthed.

  Her mouth curved into the ghost of a smile. “Hey,” she mouthed back. Then she slid her gaze over to the execs in the room and came back to me with her eyes even bigger. “Contract time.”

  There was the girl I’d spent a month with. The one who could make a joke even in the most serious situations and yet keep her face straight and businesslike. The girl I’d connected to in something that was nothing like any other relationship I’d ever had.

  She wasn’t gone. She hadn’t left me behind. She’d just been…

  Well, not sleeping, evidently. But something.

  The thing with Olivia was, if she was busy with something, I was betting it was important. She didn’t do things that didn’t matter.

  My hand fisted at my side, wanting her touch, but I sat down next to Danny, across from Parker, Taylor, and Olivia. My eyes never left hers. This was it. This was the moment when we found out what our contracts would be like.

  This was what we’d been working toward for years.

  God, I hoped they gave us a contract together. I hoped they said they wanted us, but they wanted us together and our contracts were going to depend on that. I wanted to go back to Montana with her, find our van, and go back out on the road. I wanted Olivia at my side and no one else.

  Montana had been heaven, with its long, empty roads and its wildflowers and Olivia’s laugh around every corner, and I wanted to go back there.

  “Welcome home,” one of the execs suddenly said, looking from me to Olivia. “From the sounds of it, you two put on one hell of a tour out there.”

  “Sounds to me like it was more than a tour,” Parker broke in, her voice steady and confident. Almost an attack. “From what I’ve read, it was a whole experience. Something to be built on. The people who saw them are already screaming for them to come back.” She looked right at the exec in question, her eyes sharp and her mouth set.

  That girl. I’d known her since we were in school and I’d always thought she was quiet and reserved. Happy to just play the popular girl. I hadn’t known at the time that she was surviving things no kid should have had to survive. But it had made her into the woman she was, and that woman…

  I couldn’t lie. She could be terrifying sometimes. I was glad she was on my side right now.

  The exec nodded but didn’t respond to her statements. Instead, he carried on with what must have been a prepared speech. “A great tour. The people who saw you were all very impressed. And your music! Well, it left quite an impression.” Here his voice actually got excited and he smiled at us.

  And I started to see how pleased they actually were.

  “The amount of press you two garnered, well… Let’s just say it’s not something we expect from first-timers. The bloggers and the papers there, they loved you! Being out there on your own, taking care of business and getting personal with the fans… It was so successful that we thought about trying it with other artists, I can tell you. Of course we can’t really do that, can we? You two have already done it well enough to make it your trademark. Besides—” He shared a sneaky smile with the two other execs in the room. “—It wasn’t exactly a huge money maker.”

  “I thought you put them out there for publicity, not money,” Parker snapped. “This wasn’t a money-making tour. This was a tour to see how they’d fit together.”

  God, she was defensive. What was going on here?

  The lead exec nodded. “True, true. And it turns out, you two are brilliant together. You’re a successful duo in the making.”

  My heart shot up to the ceiling. We were a duo in the making. This was it. They were going to offer us a contract together. They were more excited than I’d ever heard execs sound, full of complements about how the tour had gone. And they were going to sign us together.

  All of my dreams were about to come true.

  The exec slid a stack of papers over to Danny and smiled.

  Parker and Taylor didn’t get anything.

  “We’re extremely excited to be offering you a contract, Connor,” he said directly to me. “We’ve seen the footage and read the reports and we think you’re going to be a big star. We have huge plans for you. Records, stadiums, signings. The publicity department is already lining up their contacts and we’ve got a recording studio with your name on it. All we need is a signature.”

  Danny coughed, evidently caught off-guard by how quickly this was happening. “I’ll have to have our lawyers go through this.”

  “Of course, of course,” the exec said, nodding. “We’ll give you three days.”

  I stared at him, then at the papers on the table, which Danny had his hand on. I had my contract. I couldn’t believe it had happened that fast. Sure, there would be some negations, but that was my contract right there under Danny’s hand.

  This was actually happening.

  But only to me. The room had gone silent now, and there were no other contracts forthcoming. My eyes went to Olivia and I saw that she wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking down at her hands, a single tear trickling its way down her cheek.

  What the hell was going on here?

  “What about Olivia?” I asked sharply. My eyes went to Parker’s and then Taylor’s, and I saw twin looks of anger… but no surprise.

  What the hell?

  “We have decided,” the exec said, “that Olivia is one very talented individual. She’s got great potential in the market and we would have loved to have signed her. But she’s a wildcard and a liability. The two of you broke contract while you were out there on the road by performing outside of your assigned schedule. You did charity shows and shows where you collected money personally, and that was expressly forbidden in the agreement we had with you. It was grounds to terminate both your contracts. But Olivia’s guilt for that is well-publicized. The reports all called her out for seeking those opportunities and dragging you into them. She stepped up and took the blame for that, as was right, and that made our decision easy. In the end, Olivia Johns needs a partner in her career, and we can’t offer that. We’ve chosen to let her find another way to the spotlight.”

  Everything stopped. The sound in the room, my ability to see, my heart… It all froze in time.

  They were blaming Olivia for what had happened out there.

  And she was letting them. They were all letting them. Parker and Taylor both had their mouths shut like there was nothing they could do about this, while Olivia…

  Olivia…

  She looked up at me, her eyes clear and gray and luminous… and completely closed off.

  I opened my mouth, ready to tell then the truth—about the roadie stealing the bus and them not sending us any backup and no one giving us money. And me being involved in every one of those decisions. Hell, some of that stuff had been my idea in the first place! It wasn’t Olivia’s fault and I wouldn’t sign a contract without her name on it. Hard stop.

  But Olivia put a hand up, interrupting me. “I understand,” she said quietly. “Thank you for the opportunity. Connor, I know you have big dreams. I want to see you find them. Don’t let me down.”

  Her eyes warmed for a moment, just a moment, and I knew.

  She’d known they were going to call us out for violating the agreement.

  And she’d arranged to take the fall so I didn’t lose my contract.

  She got up and started toward the door, Parker and Taylor following her and talking a million miles an hour about what they were going to do next and how they were going to call Drive In and get her another meeting. And I was betting they would, too. Parker had ties to one of Drive In’s biggest stars and they’d get her on another Avery tour, if nothing else.

  She’d be fine.

  But she wouldn’t be with me. She was walking away from me again.

  Letting me have the contract. Again.

  Only I didn’t want it this way. Not even a little bit.

  CHAPTER 29

  Olivia

  Three Months Later

  I sat back and stared at the paper in front of me, humming the melody I had and trying to fit the words into it. The lyrics weren’t quite what I wanted, though, and I knew it wasn’t going to work. The melody was solid.

  The lyrics…

  They weren’t coming as easy as they should be.

  Probably because I was on deadline. I had another meeting with Drive In in a couple of days and they wanted to hear some new music. I hadn’t thought that would be a problem—writing music was what I did—but I’d sat down to write something new and found myself blank. It was like all the words had fled from my mind. All the poetry that usually lived there? Gone. Vanished in the wind.

  I thought it probably had a lot to do with what I was trying not to write about. I didn’t want to write a love song, and I didn’t want to write a song about heartbreak. Friendship was off the table, as were road trips, vans, small-town happenings, and life experiences.

  Also, bears. Not that I’d written songs about bears before, but these days they were definitely on the ‘do not touch’ list.

  I missed Connor. I missed him like I’d lost a piece of myself and was never going to get it back. And that was partially my own fault. He’d called me several times a day for weeks, trying to get in touch with me. When that hadn’t worked, he’d started showing up at the gigs I was playing, standing in the back of the room and staring at me, waiting for me to get off stage.

  I’d started sneaking out the moment I stopped playing, just to avoid him.

  So he’d begun stalking Parker and Taylor. Asking about me and asking if they could get a message to me. They’d carried those messages, but it hadn’t made any difference. My path was settled, my mind made up. Atomic had declared me persona non grata, and I knew how record companies worked. Now that he was signed with them, he needed to follow their rules until he was big enough that they couldn’t make him. Until then, any step over the line would be grounds for cancellation of his contract.

  And I was guessing dating the girl they’d deemed not good enough would count as stepping over the line.

  It wasn’t like I wanted him out of my life. I was miserable. Dreamed about him every night and thought about him every day. I’d picked up the phone a million times to call him and try to explain. Try to apologize. But I couldn’t exactly change anything now. What was done was done, and there was no going back.

  My heart was well and truly broken and my head felt empty of any emotion, but he had his contract and was starting a big tour of his own. And that made it worth it. Connor would have stuck his foot right in his mouth in that meeting and told Atomic everything. He would have played hero to keep me from taking the fall.

  And we both would have lost our contracts.

  At least this way he got his.

  Besides, he’d probably moved on with his life. I bet he didn’t even remember what it was like to play with me at this point.

  I reached over and turned on the radio, needing a distraction.

  “Shows going on tonight! The first is a big one, folks. Connor Wheating, new star on Atomic Records, is making his debut as a solo artist right here in Nashville. You might remember hearing about the road trip tour he did with Olivia Johns in Montana. Well, now it’s your turn to see him! He’ll be at Ole Red tonight. Curtain is at 7. You know how it works: that’s first come, first serve, and I’m betting you’ll need to get there early if you want a spot. Connor’s fixing to be a big star and this is his smallest performance on the tour. Get there and have some chicken, and enjoy the show!”

  I reached out and turned the radio off again.

  Connor was performing in Nashville tonight. At a bar where we would have performed together on the road. He was going to be here. Okay sure, I knew he’d been in town this entire time, but still…

  I hadn’t really known where he was the last three months.

  And now I did.

  I looked at the clock and saw that it was already 7:30. The jock was right: That place was going to fill up quickly. It always did. And he’d already been playing for half an hour, which meant his show was almost halfway done.

  I might not even get in. I definitely wouldn’t get a seat, and I might not get there in time to hear anything more than his encore.

  I’d kill to see him perform again.

  I was out of my chair and moving again before I could think twice, grabbing my keys on my way out the door and then a coat as well, and darting down the steps of the house seconds later. I shoved the keys—which had a keychain featuring a van matching the one we’d driven in Montana—in my pocket and headed for my car.

  It sounded like I had a show to see tonight, and I wanted to make sure I got to hear at least one song.

  CHAPTER 30

  Olivia

  By the time I got to the bar it was already 8 and I was terrified he was going to leave the stage before I even got into the bar. Wouldn’t that just be my luck. The one show he was playing in Nashville and I was going to miss it because I hadn’t known about it.

  That was what I got for trying to ignore all the press about him.

  I parked the car in an illegal spot, Future Me hating the thought of the ticket I was going to get, and ran for the door. I could see that the place was packed, but I was a small person.

  I could still fit.

  I shoved my way past the two burly bouncers and started ducking and weaving, working the way any small person has to work to make progress through a crowd. Finally I found myself at the bar itself, and there was an empty seat.

  Wonder of wonders.

  I boosted myself up onto it so I could see over the heads of everyone else in the bar. And then I took a chance and actually stood up on the seat for an even better view.

  There he was. Connor was up on the stage by himself, just him and his guitar. Loose jeans and a tight t-shirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat on his head. It was a small venue, so though there were lights on him he was still close to the crowd. Close enough to see and talk to them, laugh when they made a joke.

  God, he looked good. Nothing had changed about him over the last three months. He still had those broad shoulders for carrying the world and those rough rancher’s hands. His smile was quick and his stance casual. He looked natural up there. He looked happy.

  He probably was, I realized. He had everything he wanted and he was staring at a bright, successful future. He didn’t need me hanging around his neck.

  I thought about getting down off the barstool and leaving right then, before he could see me. I didn’t want to rain on his parade or make him feel bad. Maybe I didn’t have to see him perform after all.

  “Thanks for coming out tonight,” he said suddenly, like he was speaking right to me.

  I looked up at his eyes, terrified that he’d seen me, but he was looking across the audience, not stopping on anyone in particular. And his eyes were… shadowed. He looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, and if he had, it hadn’t been good sleep. He didn’t look happy. He looked haunted.

  “I know I’m supposed to end each show with a loud, rocking piece so y’all can get your money’s worth,” he said, and stopped for the crowd to cheer and laugh. “But I’ve been saving this song for a special occasion, and this feels like it might be the right night. What do you think? Do you want to hear a song only other one person in this world has ever really heard before?”