Another pause, and then: “That’s two questions, not one.”

  “So it is. Now answer them.”

  He was quiet for so long that I didn’t think he was going to answer me. In fact, I was waiting for him to shove me off his lap and tell me we were finished playing this game.

  Instead, he cleared his throat, pulled me back against him, and started swinging gently. “I’m out here all by myself because I needed the space to hear myself think. Or rather... No, I guess it’s more that I thought I could quiet the voices out here.”

  Okay, this got serious quick. “What voices?”

  “The ones that tell me things I don’t like to hear.”

  Right.

  “We all have those voices. You know that, right? It doesn’t mean they’re telling the truth.”

  “I’m afraid these ones are.”

  “Why?” My voice cracked on the word, but I didn’t apologize for that. I hadn’t come out here to have this sort of conversation, and the sudden tension in the air—the emotion charging the man underneath me—felt like it was going to crack me in half.

  He stood up so suddenly that I slipped right off his lap, his hands catching me before I could fall and twirling me around to face him.

  “Because I grew up not far from here and it’s bringing back a whole lot of memories that remind me of exactly who I am. Memories that make me think I’m not good. But that’s not your problem, Sunshine Girl. Let’s get you inside before all that sunshine in you dims.”

  He started to walk forward but I put a hand on his chest to stop him. “At some point, Rivers, I’m going to make you tell me who hurt you so badly.”

  He stared into my eyes, his own eyes so fathomless I could hardly look into them. But instead of answering immediately, he leaned forward and pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my mouth. I melted into him, wanting to slide my hands up around his neck and hold him there. Wanting this to be the moment when we finally reconnected.

  But he pinned my hands to his chest and drew back a moment later.

  “Someday, Lila, I will. But not tonight. Come on. It’s past your bedtime and I’m guessing Anna will skin me alive if she finds out I had you out so late on a school night.”

  He started walking back toward the hotel, dragging me after him, and after a moment of hesitation I followed him.

  Partially because I was cold.

  And partially because he’d just promised that at some point, he’d tell me what was going on. Which meant I just needed to figure out how to make that happen. Hopefully before he succeeded in destroying himself over whatever darkness he thought he had in his soul.

  Because that part? The idea that he wasn’t any good, or that he deserved to be alone?

  Yeah, I wasn’t buying it. And I wasn’t going to let him buy it, either.

  RIVERS

  I returned Lila to her bedroom like the gentleman I had definitely never been, apologized to Anna when she opened the door glaring at me like she knew exactly who I was—a devil in human clothing—and then turned and went to my room without looking to the left or right. I didn’t want to see anyone else. I definitely didn’t want to spend any time talking to another person.

  I wanted to get back to my room with my hand still warm from Lila’s and her memory coloring all of my thoughts. I wanted to climb into my bed with the teddy bear no one in the entire world knew about and spread her through my brain like honey butter, letting her coat every thought and dream in my head.

  I mean if you want the absolute truth, I wanted her in my bed with me, her skin pressed against mine and her moans in my ear as I slid into her and showed her exactly how much I adored her. I wanted to hear her laughter at one of my jokes, see that shy smile when I made her feel too much, watch her blush when I got too close to the truth with one of my guesses. I wanted to drink her sunshine down until I was glowing with it.

  But I wasn’t the kind of man who got to glow. And I definitely couldn’t take her to bed with me right now. Not when Taylor was trying so hard to make Lila her new pet project. The last thing Lila—or Taylor—needed was me muddying the waters in that regard. Lila and I were pretending to be a couple and that was all there was to it. Anything more was dangerous.

  And I wasn’t going to put Lila in danger.

  I also wasn’t going to lead her on in regard to my intentions. She deserved someone who would be there for her every step of the way, supporting her on the bad days and celebrating with her on the days when she did something amazing. I wanted to be that man. I would have sold my pathetic, black soul to be that man.

  But I wasn’t, and my soul probably wasn’t worth more than five measly pennies at this point.

  So for tonight, I’d use the memory of her smile as a balm to my soul. I’d fall asleep to the echo of her laughter and the brush of her lips across my own. I’d let myself have the much, at least.

  And tomorrow I’d put myself back into the box I was learning to live in and focus on the things I knew I needed to do to save her from herself.

  The next night, of course, we were back on stage, Anna and Lila once again standing front and center and looking like a couple of deer in the headlights.

  Lila turned wide, nervous eyes toward the side of the stage like she was looking for a way out, and I looked that way as well. What was she looking for over there? An exit plan?

  If so, she wasn’t going to find one. Taylor was standing there like a fully armed Greek goddess, glowering at the girl like she’d actually kill her on the spot if she even thought about leaving the stage.

  I smirked, recognizing the look. I’d been getting that exact same look from Taylor since the day I signed with her and started making her life a living hell. She didn’t take well to nonsense, and she liked it even less when someone dared to question her authority. If Lila wanted the contract Taylor was offering, she was going to get in line and do what she was told.

  Which meant, I guessed, that she had to perform tonight the way Taylor wanted her to.

  I glanced at the girl in question, wondering if she’d figured that out yet, and found that she’d turned those big eyes from Taylor to me like she was looking for a lifeline. The corner of my mouth twitched at that—what can I say, I didn’t hate the idea of being her hero—and I lifted one eyebrow in question. She caught the movement and narrowed her eyes slightly like she was suddenly annoyed that I’d noticed she was staring at me.

  Or maybe she was just annoyed because she thought I was laughing at her.

  News flash: I was. But not for the reasons she thought. I didn’t give a single damn that Taylor was making her do something she didn’t want to do, and I cared even less than that about what else Taylor was making her do when it came to her relationship with me. I wasn’t going to get upset that she was up here with my band taking all my face time and cutting into our actual set time. Her music was great and the audience loved her. The guys in the band also liked playing with her and Anna. It gave us all a break from going through the same songs we’d been playing for way too long.

  I didn’t give a damn about any of that.

  But I did find it endearing and sort of hilarious to see her so flustered, her skin flushing red with frustration and her fingers tapping along the wood of her guitar as she tried to figure out what the fuck she was doing. I didn’t think Lila was the sort of girl who doubted herself easily. She’d probably been born with that instinctive belief that everyone would love her if she just smiled often enough. And I was betting she’d never run into a single person who didn’t respond to her the way she wanted them to.

  So yeah, it made me smile to see her getting flustered about being shoved onstage without any choice in the matter.

  That didn’t change the fact that I wanted to save her.

  Hey, I said I knew I wasn’t any good for her. That didn’t mean I wasn’t going to step in for her when the occasion called for it.

  I lifted my eyebrows high, gave her a pointed look, and strummed a cord from the song they’d played last night. Then I moved my fingers and strummed another. And another. The glare on her face turned even darker, until she looked like she might actually stick her tongue out at me. But then I broke into a fuller version of the song, the cords moving quickly from my head into my fingers and then to the guitar, and before long I’d started the song without her and she was scrambling to catch up, her fingers dancing across the strings of her own guitar and her cheeks flushing even brighter.

  Beyond her, I could see Anna glaring at me like she wanted to strike me dead on the spot for needling her friend.

  So you know, nothing new there. Anna had never liked me much.

  That just made me smile even more broadly.

  I turned my cheeky grin from Anna back to Lila, and found the start of a smile on her lips, too. She’d seen me making faces at Anna, then, and unless I was very much mistaken, she thought it was funny. This time when her eyes met mine they were sparkling with laughter, and when she sang the first words of the song they were muffled and hard to understand.

  By the time she hit the second line, though, she’d found her stride and her voice was ringing clearly through the bar, all her nerves forgotten and her focus back where it should be.

  We played through three songs, the guys learning Anna and Lila’s songs as we went and letting them take center stage. The girls had a great sound, half pop and half country, and the combination of guitar and keyboard was truly unique. Lila’s voice was both husky and somehow angelic at the same time, and when she combined it with Anna’s sultry alto, the sound made you feel like your heart was actually melting.

  I was having more fun onstage than I’d had in years, and it was because we had Anna and Lila adding to our sound. Matt was practically beside himself with excitement about Anna—I had to figure out what was going on between the two of them at some point—and Noah and Hudson were looking at Lila like they thought she could actually walk on water or something.

  Hell, for all I knew, she could. She’d walked into my life and given me a sense of joy I’d never had before. She managed to glow with something otherworldly and then did the impossible, casting that same glow over the people around her. She’d even made the press think I might be reforming myself into something happy and respectable.

  For a week.

  The song we were playing ended and Lila cast me a quick, teasing glance that immediately told me I was in trouble.

  “Thank you!” she shouted into the audience. “But I’m pretty sure you didn’t come here to hear songs that Anna and I wrote. In fact, I’m guessing you’re actually here to see Global Authors and hear their music, am I right?”

  The cheering was rather lackluster if you asked me, but she acted like they’d just confirmed exactly what she’d already thought.

  “Right! In that case, I say we start out with one of my favorite songs by this rock band. I’ve been working hard to learn it over the last week just so I could play it with them, because I think it’s one of their best. What do you think, can Anna and I stay on stage for one more song?”

  This time, the applause tried to shatter the windows in the place.

  “Yes!” she shouted, smiling so hard I thought her cheeks must hurt. “In that case...”

  She cast me one more teasing look, lifted an eyebrow of her own, and strummed a chord. A chord, I realized, that I knew quite well.

  The first notes of our one and only love song.

  Well, shit. Global Authors had just started singing the tune on this tour because it had turned out to be so popular with the audience. The problem was, playing it always reminded me of Lila herself. And I’d always managed to find her in the audience and sing it right to her, even when I didn’t want to.

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to take the risk of singing it with her on the stage with me.

  But the guys were already jumping into it and she was playing it like she knew exactly what she was doing—she must have actually gone out of her way to learn it—and before I knew what I was doing, my fingers were finding the right notes on my own guitar and I was joining in.

  When I started singing, Lila was right there with me, her voice blending seamlessly with mine and lifting me up in a way I’d never dreamed possible, and we soared together, flying through the space like we’d somehow sprouted wings. My heart was feeling both elated and broken at the same time. I looked over to find her staring at me, her eyes wide and open, showing me all her emotions, and God, if I hadn’t already been split in half that would have done it to me.

  This girl. This beautiful, sunny, happy girl, who’d come into my life and tried to show me that there were animals in the clouds and sunshine no matter how dark the day was...

  Only I couldn’t be the man she thought I was. I wished I could. I wished everything was different. If only I knew how to fix myself. Turn myself into the man she needed. Make myself whole, make myself worthy of someone like that.

  If only I was anything like what she needed.

  Because if I was—if I thought I could live up to her dreams—I’d take her in my arms and never, ever let her go. I’d laugh and cry with her and let myself fall for her charms and bright, shining light.

  I’d let myself fall in love for the first time in my life, and I’d never look back.

  But that wasn’t part of the plan, and it sure as hell wasn’t within my capabilities. I’d never been able to love anyone before and I didn’t know if it was even in my DNA.

  Given the fact that my own mother hadn’t bothered to stick around for me, though, I was sort of doubting it.

  So I turned away from Lila and her open face and back toward the audience. And for the first time on this tour, I sang the love song to them rather than to the girl who was breaking me down, piece by piece, by loving me too fucking much when I knew I couldn’t love her back.

  RIVERS

  Once the show was over I did what I’d been doing for the last week.

  Namely get off the stage as quickly as I could and make for the exit. I didn’t want to talk to the band, or Taylor, or Lila.

  Especially after what had just happened onstage. I mean the girl had basically taken the one love song I’d ever written and then sung to her far too many times and weaponized it against me. She’d learned the whole fucking thing and played it better than I ever had, and instead of watching her in awe as she sang my words, which was what I should have been doing, I’d turned to the audience and watched them watch her instead.

  Like a fucking coward.

  No way was I sticking around now, for her to come running after me. She’d corner me and look at me with those green of eyes hers and do what she always did: Stare right through me and see all the things no one else had ever bothered to look for.

  And yeah, sure, it should have been nice to be seen. I should have been reveling in someone actually taking the time to try to figure out who I actually was and then love that person rather than the image I projected.

  The truth was, though, it was fucking scary. I’d spent most of my life hiding the soft spots inside me and I didn’t know how I felt about someone else finding them and poking at them. What if she didn’t like what she saw in there? What if she poked too hard and hurt me? What if she turned her head just a bit and realized that those weren’t actually soft spots but gaping holes where I was missing the things any normal human being should have?

  I already knew I was. I didn’t think I could stand for Lila to realize it, too.

  Which was exactly why I’d decided to run. Way better to be out there in the night on my own, without her probing gaze and questions about why I was doing what I was doing. Sure, it was lonely.

  But it was also safe. For both of us.

  I spotted the exit ahead and increased my pace, counting the steps until I was through that door and into the dark courtyard behind the place. I was going to make it. I was. And once I was out there I’d put some serious thought into the plan I’d been developing and how I was going to pull it off. Then, once an hour or two had passed and Olivia and Connor were well into their set and everyone was distracted, I’d head to my room in the hotel next door and⁠—

  A body slammed into me and pushed me against the wall, turning me in the process so that I was facing out into the hallway rather than toward the door I’d been aiming for.

  I gasped at the impact and looked up, ready to shout at whoever was manhandling me like this. No, I didn’t have security back here but anyone in their right mind should know that you don’t throw the lead singer of one of the bands around like they were a sack of fucking potatoes.

  Then I saw who’d done it and changed my mind. Because when you were one of that lead singer’s best friends in the whole world, I guessed it gave you some leeway.

  “Matt,” I ground out. “What the fuck?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” he said quietly. “Where are you running off to? The audience is calling for an encore and when I looked over to see whether my lead singer was willing to do another song or two, all I could make out was your footprints in the dust.”

  I pushed him off, realizing that he wasn’t going to step back unless I made him do it. Matt Lawson had never been the most aggressive guy—actually, he was way too nice for his own good—but when he got an idea in his head he was like a dog with a bone. It was nearly impossible to sidetrack him.

  Which didn’t bode well for the escape I’d been planning.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no dust back here.”

  He made a face. “And yet I’m sure you know exactly what I mean. Where were you going in such a hurry, Shine?”

  “Don’t call me that,” I snapped. “You know I hate when you call me that. I always have.”

  He shrugged like he didn’t care, and the shitty thing was he probably didn’t. He didn’t have to care. Matt was my oldest friend in the world, and that meant he got away with stuff no one else did. We’d been at the same orphanage, which meant I’d known him since I was just a kid named Rivers, not the music phenom the rest of the world knew. The same was true of all the guys—Hudson and Noah had both been in and out of that group home for our entire childhoods—but those two were older than us. They’d been our protectors.