I ended the song on the last note and let the music fade from my guitar. Then I took the microphone in hand, looked right at her, and said, “I don’t know if you guys have seen the news but while we’ve been on this tour I’ve met someone pretty special. And right now, I’d like to bring her to the stage. Lila Potter, you want to get your cute little butt up here and say hello?”

  I saw her tip her head in surprise and meet my eyes, then narrow her own in suspicion.

  Moments later, though, she was leaving that guy behind and walking toward me again.

  And that was all I needed to see.

  LILA

  I walked up to the stage with exactly zero idea of what Rivers wanted from me. We’d hustled our asses down here from the hotel—which was, weirdly, right upstairs—and hadn’t really had time to discuss where we stood after our little road trip. I didn’t know what we were telling other people, or if we were telling them anything.

  Hell, I didn’t know how he even felt about what had happened between us. I didn’t know how I felt. I’d gone into the drive thinking he was nothing more than a delinquent who believed in calling car theft ‘borrowing,’ and had come out of it thinking we’d created some sort of magic that I’d never before known existed.

  And don’t even get me started on the physical chemistry between us.

  As usual, everything I was thinking must have shown on my face, because when I got onto the stage I found River giving me a knowing look and the rest of his band raising their eyebrows in my direction.

  Terrific. Evidently I didn’t even need to open my mouth for people to figure out what had happened between Rivers and me.

  Though I didn’t think he’d called me up onstage to discuss it.

  At least I hoped not.

  When I came to a stop in front of him and waited for him to announce his intentions, though, he just stared at me. Opened his mouth, closed it again, and continued staring. His eyes flitted to the audience and back like he was looking for some sort of inspiration, and I felt a surge of affection bubbling up for him. What was he doing? Did he even know?

  Wasn’t he supposed to be a pro at this whole performing thing?

  “Um, what’s up?” I finally asked, looking from Rivers to the audience and back.

  His eyes came to mine and got wide, but then slid to the side, and his brows suddenly drew down in a frown. Confused, I followed the direction of his gaze, trying to figure out who he was scowling at... and saw the guy I’d been talking to before I came up here. I didn’t even know him, honestly. He was a local who’d found his way in without knowing who he was seeing and had been asking me about the band on stage. I’d been running through the usual stuff—who the band was, what they were known for, and the fact that they were opening for Olivia and Connor—when Rivers had suddenly called me up on stage.

  And based on the way he was now scowling at the guy, I thought I knew exactly why he’d called me up.

  He hadn’t had a plan. He hadn’t actually needed me for anything. He’d been upset that I was talking to a guy he didn’t know. He’d called me up here to get me away from the stranger.

  Oh my God.

  Look, I knew how it looked. That was not only jealous but also possessive and definitely not appropriate when it came to a girl he’d only known for a few days. Not only that, but I was allowed to talk to whoever the fuck I wanted to talk to, and he didn’t get to say a damn thing about it. I wasn’t actually his girlfriend. I wasn’t actually anything to him.

  And yet.

  And yet we’d shared something special from the moment we met, and the afternoon in the meadow had shifted something between us. This guy had spent the first couple days on the road blowing me off and trying to prove that I didn’t mean anything to him, but he’d also saved me from a stack of speakers he’d thought were falling down and found shapes in the clouds with me. He’d shared his secrets and kept me company for a full night in a closed-down cafe.

  He’d just gone out of his way to call me to him when I was talking to someone else.

  Half of me was offended that he thought he had the right.

  The other half was highly amused and more than a little bit touched. I found, to my surprise, that I didn’t hate him having the idea that he had a claim on my affections.

  Maybe because he sort of did.

  Not that I was going to let this opportunity for teasing him pass me by.

  I turned to the audience and let my grin grow. “Hey folks, looks like Rivers has called me up here for no real reason. Unless any of you knows something I don’t.”

  I turned my ear and put my hand up to it, inviting the audience to chime in on the question, and they immediately did so.

  “He’s afraid to be up there by himself!” someone shouted.

  “Because he’s in love with you!” someone else added.

  “Doesn’t want you down here talking to anyone else!” someone said, their voice full of laughter.

  I widened my eyes, trying my best for innocence, and put a hand to my chest. “You think he doesn’t know how to be up here by himself? But he’s been doing it for years!”

  The crowd laughed and shouted more options, each of them more unlikely than the last, and finally I turned to Rivers and lifted an eyebrow. “What about it, Rivers? They seem to think you’re either afraid to be up here by yourself or afraid to leave me down there on my own. Which is it?”

  He opened his mouth to answer but frowned at the same time, and I didn’t have to ask to know that this was probably the biggest response he’d ever had from an audience. The guy had gone out of his way to keep everyone at arm’s length and had probably never invited their opinions up on stage with him. Now they were suddenly cheering for him in a way they never had.

  And he didn’t know how to deal with it.

  I grinned at him and grabbed one of his spare guitars off the stand.

  “Well as far as I’m concerned, the best reason to be onstage is to sing a song. And since you’re not going to invite me, I guess I’ll just have to invite myself. Chime in if you feel the need.”

  I turned back to the audience, who were all grinning and laughing now, and started playing the same song I’d played that first morning at breakfast. It didn’t need backup and I could certainly do it by myself.

  But when Noah picked up the beat with his drums and Matt started adding bass, I gave them quick grins. Moments later, Hudson and Rivers had joined in as well, each of them adding a layer I hadn’t written, and before long we were playing like we were a whole band, the boys improvising while I sang, and I didn’t know if anything had ever felt so right before.

  Except, of course, having been in Rivers’ arms that afternoon under a bright sky dotted with fluffy clouds that looked like dragons.

  RIVERS

  I stumbled up the last few stairs and basically fell through the door onto my floor, chuckling to myself. God, I was drunk. Way more drunk than I’d realized when I left the bar downstairs. I hadn’t really felt it until I was climbing the stairs but once I started trying to use my legs for something more complicated than just walking, it had become a problem.

  I tried to remember how much whiskey I’d had to drink... but failed.

  The problem was, I hadn’t been drinking it by myself. There had been a least three other people at the bar with me and we’d been splitting bottles. I thought I’d had roughly ten shots, but I couldn’t even be sure of that.

  Hell, I couldn’t even remember the names of the girls I’d been drinking with. Or, come to think of it, what they’d looked like.

  That was mostly because they weren’t important. I’d found them in the bar and joined their party without an invitation, and when they realized who I was, they’d let me right in. No arguments. Just plenty of flirty looks and that general adjusting of the hems of skirts and neckline of blouses that always came with groupies realizing there was a rock star among them. I’d noticed it and laughed under my breath, half sickened and half thankful for it.

  I was there, after all, for distraction.

  The problem was, I’d been on that stage with Lila Potter. I’d been on that stage before she even got up there, when she’d been talking to some other guy. It had nearly torn my heart out to see her laughing at whatever he said, and I’d reacted so quickly—overreacted so quickly—that she’d gotten to the stage before I knew what I’d done.

  When she asked me what I wanted, I hadn’t been able to answer her. I wanted her all to myself. I wanted her in my life, in my pocket, for as long as she’d have me. For the first time in my life, I wanted someone there with me rather than wishing they’d leave me alone. I wanted her sunshine and her laugh and her ability to believe the best of the world.

  And I’d known in the same breath that I couldn’t have it. I’d never been able to keep anything like that, and I wasn’t going to drag her down into my rocky, drunken underworld. Lila needed the sun and air, and I lived in the darkness of lonely hotel rooms.

  Then she’d laughed and started playing her music and my band had gone along with her like it was all a plan, and I’d known two things at once: that I was having the best time of my life... and that it couldn’t last. I’d left the stage without looking back and had gone right to the bar to figure out how to forget about Lila Potter and what she made me feel.

  So you can imagine how I felt when I stumbled onto the floor that held my hotel room, looked up, and found her standing in the hallway in something that looked like a t-shirt several sizes too big for her. Her hair was mussed and tangled and she didn’t have a speck of makeup on her face.

  She was wearing slippers.

  Banging on a hotel room door.

  What in the hell was going on here?

  I started forward without thinking about it, my only thought that I needed to figure out what was wrong and fix it for her, and she turned to me, her eyes large and her mouth caught in an ‘o’ of surprise.

  “Lila,” I breathed. “What are you doing in the hallway? In...” I gestured toward her outfit, realizing now that it might very well be what she’d been sleeping in.

  Her mouth snapped shut and she stared at me like she’d just been caught doing something she definitely shouldn’t be doing. Then she followed my own gaze down her body. When she looked up again, a bright flush was making its way over her cheekbones.

  “Um,” she started. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “So you decided to wander around the hallway in your...” I glanced down again, still not sure what to call whatever she was wearing.

  Her blush deepened. “I didn’t want to wake Anna up. So yeah, I came out into the hallway. It’s so late that I didn’t think anyone would mind, and then...” She turned a hopeless look back at the door. “I didn’t bring my key,” she said ruefully. “I didn’t think it would lock behind me.”

  When she glanced at me again, she looked both miserable and sort of hopeful. Like I somehow had a key that would let her back into the room she was sharing with Anna.

  Newsflash: I didn’t.

  Additional newsflash: All that shit I said about forgetting her and not wanting to get close to her? All that drinking I’d done at the bar, trying to get my heart to forget she existed? Every single thought I’d had that I couldn’t have her all to myself because I was no good for anyone?

  Yeah, that was all bullshit.

  I moved forward and put my hands on the wall on either side of her, pinning her in. “You’re trapped out here in nothing but a big t-shirt and slippers, hoping Anna will wake up and let you back into the room?” I asked, my voice tinged with something that walked a fine line between amusement and lust.

  “Um, yeah,” she whispered.

  God, this girl. She was too sweet for this world. Too good for the likes of anyone in this life.

  And I was utterly, hopelessly in love with her.

  I moved toward her at the same moment she moved toward me, her arms coming around my neck and my lips claiming hers like it was meant to be. I pushed her against the wall and held her there with my body, our tongues clashing as we went right back to the place we’d found together in that meadow this afternoon. Only this wasn’t sweet and smooth like that had been. This was a fight to get closer, all teeth and nails and grinding hips. Her legs came up around my waist and I slipped my hands under her ass, then shoved her harder against the wall. I was so hard already I could barely stand up and she was right here, open and ready for me.

  And God, she wanted me. Her skin was on fire and her kisses were like molten lava, her body telling me in every way it could how ready it was. I pushed against her, rocking my hips mindlessly and on the verge of letting my instincts take us away.

  When I realized I was more than half-drunk and in a very public place.

  The hallway of our hotel, to be exact. Right outside her room and across the hall from mine.

  Oh my God, what was I doing? Lila wasn’t the kind of girl you did this with in a hotel hallway where anyone might see you. She wasn’t the sort of girl you just took without thinking about the consequences.

  Fuck.

  I put her down and moved backward, my mouth dry and my mind reeling. I turned and stumbled into my room, my phone out and the reception desk already picking up. I gave them Lila’s room number and told them she’d been locked out and to please send someone up.

  And then I closed the door behind me, knowing that someone far more responsible than me was on their way to take care of her.

  I needed to get sober and get my head in order. I felt way too much for the girl, and I needed to get a handle on that before I could face her again—and before I did anything else with her.

  LILA

  I stared into the mirror, wondering whether I had enough makeup in my bag to fix the problem. I hadn’t slept all night, and I definitely looked like it. Dark circles ringed my eyes and I was even more pale than usual, my freckles standing out against my skin as the only source of color. I dabbed on some concealer, patting it into the hollows beneath my eyes and then sighed.

  Mascara and some lip gloss, I decided. That would be the best I could do.

  Maybe tonight I’d actually get to sleep. Although that depended on Rivers Shine not attacking me in the hallway, pinning me to the wall and letting me know exactly how much he wanted me... and then walking away and leaving me there. I didn’t know what that had been about—I didn’t know why he’d left the stage in a rush when we finished singing—but at some point I was going to make him tell me. The guy wasn’t great at communication, true, but he obviously knew enough to know how he was feeling. He’d gone from ignoring me to basically kidnapping me and making love to me to ignoring me again and then mauling me in the hallway.

  The guy owed me an explanation. And an apology.

  A knock on the door jerked me out of my thoughts and I heard Anna making her way to answer it. There was a pause and a sharp laugh.

  “Lila,” she called. “Tattoos himself is here!”

  I closed my eyes in horror. We’d taken to calling him that when we were alone, thinking it was the perfect nickname for him, but I couldn’t believe she’d have said it if he was actually at the door.

  Of course I also hadn’t thought she’d drive away in my car and leave me in a hotel room with him, cursed to finding our own way to the next town. She still hadn’t given me a satisfactory reason for her actions on that point. She’d said it had been Taylor’s idea, which I believed, and that Anna had only gone along with it when Taylor had promised her that if we didn’t find a ride by a specific point she’d send someone back for us.

  I hadn’t sorted out how I felt about Anna going along with it.

  Or how I felt about the time Rivers and I had spent together.

  Because it had been one of the most wonderful afternoons of my life—and I hated that it had only happened because his agent had played a trick on him. I also didn’t know how much good it had done either of us. We’d both come back to the world before we could talk about what had changed, and that left me feeling both unsteady and out of sorts. I liked to know where I stood with people. I liked when people told me they cared about me.

  I didn’t know what Rivers thought of me or if he cared at all, and given what he’d done last night, I was feeling even more confused.

  I hated that.

  “Lila!” Anna called again.

  Shit. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I’d forgotten about her.

  And Rivers standing at the door waiting for me.

  I rushed out of the bathroom and to the door, trying to figure out what he might want and what I might say to whatever it was he wanted. Of course I didn’t have a clue. I didn’t know what he was thinking or feeling, as I’d just realized, and that meant I didn’t know how I was going to react to it.

  I hated being unprepared.

  When I got to the door, passing a smirking Anna on my way, I found him leaning against the door frame, his hands in his pockets and his face looking unexpectedly ashamed.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “I owe you an apology,” he replied. “Can I take you to an apology breakfast?”

  My heart stopped beating. “An apology breakfast? Is that an actual thing?”

  He reached out, took my hand, and pulled me through the door and into the hall. “It is now. Let’s go.”

  RIVERS

  i didn’t know what an apology breakfast was. I didn’t know if it was even a thing. But I knew I owed Lila something after the way I’d been acting, and by God, I was going to give it to her. I was going to explain exactly why I’d done the things I’d done—besides agreeing to this stupid deal in the first place, because that part, I trusted was obvious—and I was going to tell her exactly who I was.

  Or something.

  She glanced over the menu and then looked up at me, her face full of questions. “Is this a full breakfast sort of apology or an orange-juice-only sort of thing?”

  “Full breakfast, definitely,” I said quickly.