Not that I would know. I’d never even been on tour before, and certainly not with a band like Global Authors. They seemed like they got everything they wanted—including their own microphones, if that situation with Rivers was to be believed—and they didn’t even have to ask for it.

  I could only dream of a career like that. Although Noah was right about one thing: I was right at home on the bigger stage, in front of a bigger audience. I hadn’t even thought twice about performing tonight, and when Rivers had insisted that we play the whole set with them, Anna and I making it up as we went along, I hadn’t argued with him. When we finished up on the song that he and I had written together...

  It had been perfect.

  At that moment I finally found Anna, and I started laughing. She was backed up against a wall with Matt standing over her, one hand leaning on the wall behind her and the other tucked behind his back like he was trying to keep himself from touching her. She had her face tipped up to his and I could see from the look she was wearing that he’d been teasing her. She looked half furious and half amused, but like she was definitely going to give him some trouble for whatever he’d just said, and I wondered—not for the first time—when those two had started this thing between them. And then I felt guilty for having to wonder. I’d been spending every night in the same room as Anna but hadn’t exactly been asking how she was spending her days.

  I’d been too busy watching Rivers and trying to figure out what he was up to.

  Speaking of...

  I looked from my best friend and the guy who looked like he’d stolen her heart around the room, trying to find a certain brooding figure. The place was packed, though, with roadies and agents and the band members from The Leathers, plus Olivia and Connor and their band, and I realized pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to see Rivers if I just stood here and looked. He might be tall but I was short and there were too many people.

  No quick, stolen glances of amusement about Anna and Matt right now. I had to actually go find him if I wanted to talk to him.

  It didn’t take me long to do just that. He was standing against the wall with a tumbler of whisky in his hand, looking so dark and dangerous that he was practically pulling the light out of the space around him. His face was covered in a scowl, his eyes on the floor, his lips turned down. The shadows under his eyes were deeper now, like he’d been carrying exhaustion around for days, and I tried to remember whether he’d looked that way earlier in his room. God, I’d been right next to him. I’d kissed him. Had he looked so devastated then?

  I didn’t think so. He’d looked wide-eyed and excited about the song we’d just written, and like he was floating on good feelings.

  Now he looked like heartbreak would look if it was a person.

  What the hell was wrong with him? We’d just had a terrific show where the audience had gone wild for the newest song and I knew both Taylor and the record company were happy with the way the tour was going. Sure, he had that problem with Taylor and his reputation but we were in the midst of fixing that, right? We were still mugging for the press every time we had a chance and they were eating it up, thinking that Rivers had landed a good girl and was going to turn it all around.

  Right, so we hadn’t been doing as much of that lately. And Taylor had straight up told me that she wanted me to step in and be her biggest project. But that didn’t actually mean anything. Rivers just had to try a little bit harder if he wanted to save the day. Put some effort in.

  Maybe stop drinking so much.

  I took one step toward him, thinking that it had to be more than that. When I first met him, he’d acted like the whole thing with Taylor didn’t matter, and honestly speaking, it probably didn’t. He was famous—and talented—enough that he could get a new agent in moments, plus anything else he wanted. He’d never had trouble getting attention in the music industry.

  So what the hell was wrong with him?

  Was it this whole Missouri thing? He’d started getting weird as soon as we got close to the border, and the other night he’d said that being in this area had made him realize that he wasn’t worth anything. Or words to that effect. What the hell did that even mean? What had happened to him in Missouri that was so bad it could take him from brooding to something that looked a whole lot more like suicidal? None of my research—okay, stalking—had told me anything about Missouri when it came to him, and he’d first shown up in Nashville. Home of blues and country. No one ever talked about where he’d actually come from, but surely if there was baggage in his past someone would have dug it up by now and put it into a story. The press loved to dig up old news and make it new again. Particularly if it was dramatic.

  Come to that, how the hell had Rivers kept his past so private?

  And what was he keeping there that he didn’t want anyone else to see? I didn’t remember anything about any family, so it couldn’t be that he’d left someone behind to make it big.

  At that moment he stepped forward and cleared his throat, like he’d just been waiting for me to get close to him to make his move. He looked up and glanced around the room, his eyes resting on me for one hot, intense moment before they moved on to someone else. The crowd noticed his movement and grew quiet, and before long the whole place sounded like a tomb, like Rivers had cast a spell over the party. I could see why. He almost never spoke in public, and certainly never to big groups like this. Seeing him standing in front of us, evidently ready to make a speech, was odd at best.

  Dangerous at worst.

  “Good show tonight, kids,” he said, giving his trademark smirk. “Though I think we have to thank Lila for writing that last song. The audience really does love her, don’t they?”

  There was a smattering of cheers at that, but no one really put their heart into it, and when it died down, he continued.

  “Look, I’m not going to beat around the bush, here. Tonight was a great show, and every show for the last week has been great. There’s one reason for that, and it’s Anna and Lila. Well, I guess those are two reasons. But the point is the same: Those people out there are responding to these girls, and I think I know why. They have a spark. They have magic. They’re all sunshine.”

  His eyes darted to mine and I nearly sobbed at the use of his nickname for me. What was he doing? Why did he look like he was walking to his own funeral?

  “They don’t want the tattoos and heartbreak anymore,” he said quietly. “They want the sunshine and excitement. And I don’t blame them for it. That’s why I’m going to be stepping aside as lead singer of The Global Authors. I want Lila and Anna to take my place. I think it’ll be in everyone’s best interests. And I’m not really willing to discuss the matter, so if anyone thinks they’re going to come after me and talk me out of it, do yourselves a favor and don’t.”

  He turned and left through the door behind him before I could fully understand what he’d just said, and by the time I’d processed it all the door had closed behind him, shutting him off from the party—and for all I knew, the only people who cared about him—and leaving us all staring after him, our tongues tied and our hearts breaking.

  LILA

  I didn’t follow him.

  I know, the mind boggles. I’d spent most of the time I’d known Rivers Shine chasing after him and basically throwing my heart at him. Any time he left, I ran after him to try to figure out what was wrong with him—or to see if there was anything I could do. I’d taken one look at this guy and known that he needed someone to actually see who he was rather than who he was presenting to the world. I’d seen a lost boy who needed love rather than the tattooed, brooding rock star that the world loved to fear.

  And it hadn’t done me any good. He might have welcomed me into his arms but he’d pushed me out again almost as quickly, and though he’d given me a glimpse or two of what lay behind his mask he’d never actually let me all the way in.

  He might have just made the most insane announcement ever and essentially thrown his whole career to the wolves. Everyone in here was reeling from what he’d said. But I didn’t think running after him was going to fix any of that.

  I had a better idea.

  I whirled from the door, my eyes jumping through the crowd until I found Matt. I knew enough to know that Rivers called his band mates his best friends and that they’d known each other forever. I also knew that of everyone in his band, Matt was the one who scared me the least. He was a cinnamon roll in human clothing and was already in love with my best friend. He didn’t look like he might chew on nails in his spare time. He had a couple of tattoos but nothing like what Noah and Hudson had.

  He was the one I could go to for help.

  I found him quickly, his dark hair standing out from a crowd of blondies, and I started for him. He’d left Anna alone and was now at the drinks table pouring himself something, his eyes on the door Rivers had just gone through. He looked thoughtful and concerned, but like he wasn’t going to go after Rivers anytime soon. In fact, he looked like a guy who’d seen this before and was trying to figure out the best way to handle it.

  “Matt,” I said the moment I drew even with him.

  His eyes dropped to me and widened. “Lila,” he said hesitantly.

  I put a hand in the middle of his chest and pushed, backing him right up to the wall on the other side of the table. This increased the surprise on his face, but he didn’t fight me. Instead, I saw his mouth relaxing, like he already knew what this was going to be about and wasn’t surprised.

  “What the fuck is going on with your friend?” I asked, refusing to mince words.

  At that, the surprise jumped back onto his face. He’d probably never realized that I knew how to cuss, I thought with a flash of humor. Hell, maybe he thought I’d never cussed before in my life.

  But that was because he’d never heard me fighting for someone I cared about.

  “What do you mean?”

  I narrowed my eyes and shoved him a bit. “You know exactly what I mean. What’s going on with Rivers? Why was he all smirks and flirting last week and now suddenly he’s in full on heartbreak mode? What happened to him? And what does it have to do with Missouri?”

  His own eyes narrowed then and I knew I had his attention.

  “He told you about Missouri?”

  “He told me his mood had something to do with Missouri. And something that reminded him that he wasn’t worth anyone’s time. He made it sound like this was the worst place on Earth. I want to know what’s going on.”

  “Why do you care?”

  I got as close to him as I could and stared up into his eyes. “Because I care about him. I want to know how to fix whatever’s wrong.”

  It was a bold, very blunt statement, and the moment I made it I wondered if it was the wrong thing to say. I’d only known Rivers for a couple weeks and he’d spent a lot of that time pushing me away or proving that he didn’t think he deserved to have people who cared about him. He’d spent even more time pretending that he didn’t like me as much as I liked him. Pulling me close and then throwing me out.

  Wanting me and then pushing me away again.

  And I didn’t care. I mean, I did. I cared a lot. I felt like my heart had been through a freaking war since I met Rivers. But that didn’t mean I was ready to stop fighting for him. I’d seen something deep and wounded inside those eyes and I’d never been able to turn away from a wounded animal. I wanted to know what—or who—had hurt him so badly, and I wanted to know whether I could pull him back up again.

  And no, it didn’t have anything to do with the contract Taylor was holding over my head or the fake relationship. The publicity or the idea that I might have a career on the horizon. It didn’t have a single thing to do with any of that.

  It was only about Rivers. It was about the glimpses I’d seen of who I thought he might actually be, and the idea that I might be the only one who could see that.

  Rivers Shine deserved to be saved. Even if I had to tie him up and force him to let me do it.

  But first, I needed to know what I was saving him from.

  “Matt,” I said, my voice full of warning. “Don’t make me get mean.”

  He smirked at that, at least partially calling my bluff, and shook his head. “I don’t think you have it in you, Lila, but I don’t want to push you. I’ve seen the way you look at him. Yes, it’s about Missouri. Yes, it’s about what happened to him there. And he’d kill me if he knew I was about to tell you what I’m about to tell you.”

  “I won’t tell him if you don’t. Now talk.”

  And he did. He started with how he, Rivers, Noah, and Hudson knew each other. They’d all been in the same orphanage as kids, though each of them had landed there in a different way. Matt’s parents were killed in a car crash and he hadn’t had any other family to take him. Hudson’s mother had also died. Noah had been taken away from his mother, who was a drug addict.

  Rivers’ mother had taken him to the orphanage and turned him over. Deserted him with only the clothes he was wearing and pair of shoes that were three sizes too small for him. He was dirty and underfed and had burns on his arms that made it into his permanent records as signs of abuse.

  Matt and Rivers had been younger than Noah and Hudson, who had taken the boys under their wings and sought to protect them. But the kids had been cycled through foster families throughout their time in the orphanage and those foster families hadn’t always been good. Rivers had been in some of the worst, according to Matt, and had always come back to the orphanage with haunted eyes and hollowed-out cheeks.

  Eventually he’d started setting fires to guarantee that he didn’t have to stay at those homes very long.

  “What did they do to him?” I whispered, horrified.

  Matt gave me a long, searching look that said he wasn’t going to tell me, even if he knew. “Those aren’t the sorts of things we talked about,” he said quietly. “It didn’t happen to all the boys. Some of us had easier paths. I never got into a foster family that did that, and when I was ten I was adopted by a family that loved me and treated me right. Rivers, Noah, and Hudson, though...”

  “They didn’t have an easy path,” I guessed. “And they...”

  He cast a look at Noah, who was standing against the wall and scowling like someone had just insulted him. “They’re carrying a lot of that with them still.”

  Right.

  I guessed you probably would.

  I tried to understand what he was saying—starting with the idea of your mother actually turning you over to strangers—but it didn’t make sense to me. It was like he was speaking Greek. My parents had been so loving, so supportive of everything we did. They’d made sure I had whatever I wanted—within reason—and that I was always safe and well-fed. I’d never doubted that they loved me or wanted the best for me.

  I couldn’t fathom not having that.

  Even worse was the thought of doubting that the people who were supposed to take care of me loved me enough to do their jobs.

  But Rivers...

  God, he’d been deserted. His mom had left him there, and according to Matt he’d been old enough to remember it happening. Then he’d been passed from home to home, being mistreated in ways so horrible Matt wouldn’t even tell me what they were. The people whose job it had been to care for him had proven to him that they didn’t.

  Again and again.

  No wonder he had so much trouble accepting love when it presented itself to him. He’d been trained to believe he didn’t deserve it. People had been telling him since he was three that he didn’t deserve the good things in life.

  My heart cracked clean down the center at the thought and I wished with everything in me that I could fly back in time to that little boy. Find him and hold him to me and tell him that everything was going to be okay and that I’d love him so much that it didn’t matter what anyone else did.

  Which was insane, obviously. I was smart but I had never even thought about building a time machine.

  Still.

  Maybe I could still prove to him that he deserved better than he was giving himself.

  I turned without saying anything else to Matt and ran from the room, my brain darting ahead of me to my room and already making plans. I didn’t know where Anna was but I was guessing she’d be at the party for much of the night, and that was perfect. It would mean I had the room to myself and plenty of peace and quiet.

  Hopefully I’d also have plenty of luck.

  Because I had some research to do, and given Rivers’ current mood I didn’t think I had a whole lot of time to do it.

  RIVERS

  The first thing I remembered the next morning when I woke up was what I’d done at the party.

  The second thing I remembered was the look on Lila’s face after I finished my announcement. She’d looked both shocked and resigned, like she’d suspected I might do exactly this and couldn’t believe I was actually going through with it. Her cheeks had flushed, her eyes going from deep and sad to something a whole lot more determined. Like she wasn’t going to let me get away with what I’d already decided on doing.

  Though I noticed she hadn’t come after me when I left.

  I breathed out slowly at that, letting it hit me right in the heart. I hadn’t wanted the company—not when I’d already made up my mind to leave the tour and everything included in the music industry behind—but I had to admit that I’d thought she’d follow me. It was just so her to see a problem and be certain she could fix it. She’d been that way from the moment I met her, and though I hadn’t thought she could ever actually fix me, there was a small part of me that had evidently been hoping she’d keep trying.

  Maybe even that she’d succeed.

  That part had died last night, though, when it waited around outside for an hour before finally realizing that she wasn’t going to show up. I didn’t know why she’d stayed inside. Maybe she’d realized that she couldn’t save me no matter how much she tried. Or maybe she’d just come to the conclusion that I didn’t want to be saved—that I was on my way to the bottom, where I’d always known I’d end up, and that I wasn’t going to accept anyone trying to stop me.