Behind them is the third member who wildly pounds her drum set. Curly golden locks bounce wildly as she plays. Bronson would like her, I think.

  But they’re the enemy.

  You don’t sleep with the enemy.

  You don’t casually watch them on TV, either.

  “Hey, Doc,” I say. “Will you turn that shit off, please?”

  Doc walks over and picks up the remote from beneath the bar. “Not a fan, huh?”

  “This is a Botsford Plaza. It’s illegal to play that crap in here.”

  He chuckles as he changes the channel. “You wanna talk about it?”

  “No.”

  The TV lands on a sports talk show instead where they’re discussing highlights from this week’s baseball games — coincidentally, the latest game between Hayden Botsford’s team in Los Angeles and their rivals from San Francisco.

  “Better?” Doc asks.

  “Much.” I give him a friendly, apologetic nod. “Thank you.”

  Doc bobs his head, then goes back to finishing our drinks. He helps me walk them over to the table. After setting them down, he offers to get Bronson a refill before heading back to serve a group of ladies who just came in through the lobby, one of them dressed in white. Never a dull night in Las Vegas.

  A hand touches my thigh beneath the table. I jolt in surprise, nearly spilling my drink.

  Harmony sighs. “Okay, you have got to relax around me,” she says from the seat next to mine.

  “I’m fine,” I say stiffly.

  “No, you’re not.” She glances around, then moves to push me off the bench. “Get up.”

  “Why?”

  “Get up. We need to rip this bandage off.”

  “Rip what bandage off?” I ask, not liking the sound of it.

  She gives me a shove and I stand up to get out of her way. Harmony slides out of the booth and makes sure I’m following her before going forward.

  I’m not.

  I sit back down.

  “Come on,” she says, waving me out.

  “No,” I say.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t wanna.”

  She rolls her eyes, and she grabs my sleeve. “Knox, come on.”

  I let her pull me out this time, wincing as I bang my knee against the table’s edge. I ignore the probing stares from the others as Harmony drags me across the room, heading toward the bar itself.

  When we reach it, Harmony marches us directly past it and through the door behind it marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

  Doc spots us. “Hey!”

  Harmony flashes him a smile without stopping. “We only need a minute, Doc. Please and thank you.”

  I stumble into the storage room, the gentle hum of air conditioning and refrigerators replacing the mild chatter of the bar. Harmony charges forward, walking us to a flat table in the far corner.

  There, she pushes aside a few boxes of peanuts and pretzel snacks and hops up onto the table, her legs spread wide enough for me to stand between.

  I plant myself a good arm’s length away. “What are we doing back here, Harmony?” I ask.

  She sits up tall. “Kiss me,” she says.

  13

  KNOX

  Kiss me.

  “What?” I ask. “Why?”

  “Because we are in the throes of a rekindled love affair and we can’t keep our hands off each other,” Harmony says.

  “No, we’re not.”

  “And that’s exactly what everyone is going to think if you keep flinching every time I touch you!”

  “I don’t flinch every time⁠—”

  She reaches out. I jerk away from her hand with an audible yelp.

  “See?” she says.

  I readjust myself. “You startled me!”

  “Knox, if we want this to be believable, then we have to get used to each other again. Now, touch my breast.”

  I really flinch this time. “What?”

  “Touch me!”

  “Why?”

  She pinches the bridge of her nose as she sighs. “Knox, stop being such a baby and grab my boob!”

  “I thought you wanted me to kiss you!”

  “Kiss me. Feel me up. Stick your tongue down my throat. I don’t care! Do whatever you have to do right now to get past this block you have or we call this whole thing off. I’ll call Paul tonight and let him know this isn’t working⁠—”

  “No.” I take a breath, holding it in tight. “Don’t do that. Just… give me a second here, all right?”

  Harmony goes quiet.

  I have to make this work. I have to climb over the walls I erected deep inside of me just to get over the last time she wrecking balled through my life. If I don’t, I risk losing everything I’ve fought so hard for. Everything that keeps me safe. My little sister, too.

  “Knox?”

  I don’t respond. Fear rumbles deep in my gut and a growing sense of dread takes over my chest. I’d tell myself that it’s all because of Paul’s threat, but I know better.

  I know that fear comes from somewhere else.

  It comes from wondering what will happen if I touch her. If I kiss her. If I let myself pretend that I’m in the throes of a passionate love affair with Harmony all over again, I won’t be able to fake it.

  It’ll be real.

  I touch her hand, letting my fingertips linger on her smooth skin. She turns her palm up in response and I feel the gentle tickle of her fingers against my wrist, firing shocks throughout my forearm. It’s almost like my nerves are awakening, filling with warmth, somehow remembering her touch.

  Slowly, I move my hand up her arm. Goosebumps flourish across my skin, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  Harmony smiles, her breath trembling as my fingers reach her collarbone. She raises her other hand, stopping it an inch away from mine on her shoulder, making eye contact with me for a second to make sure I know it’s coming.

  Then she touches the back of my hand. I don’t flinch this time, but another rumble of nerves threatens to tip me over as she guides her hand up my arm. It continues past my shoulder, gliding across my chest.

  I step forward, the movement involuntary, my body drawn to hers like a moth to a very dangerous flame. Before I can stop myself, I feel the warmth of her open thighs against my legs and the caress of her hand on the side of my neck. I tilt my head to the side and⁠—

  “What are you guys doing?”

  We startle, jolting away from each other as the three of them pile into the room.

  Katrina glares at us with her arms tightly crossed while Addison and Bronson stand behind her, though they seem far more amused than my sister does.

  I clear my throat. “Nothing,” I say. “What are you guys doing?”

  “Doc told us to come back here and save his job,” Katrina says.

  “You guys making out?” Addison asks, grinning from ear-to-ear.

  “No,” Harmony answers. “We’re not.”

  “Right. We’re just… trying to,” I say.

  “Trying to?” Katrina asks.

  Bronson arches a silent brow.

  Harmony hops off the table. “Knox keeps flinching when I touch him, so I brought him back here to get him used to me touching him again.”

  “Oh, right.” Addison nods. “That makes sense.”

  “It does?” I ask.

  “Dude, that kiss before was weak.”

  I scoff. “No, it wasn’t.” I look at Bronson, who offers a grimace chock full of secondhand embarrassment. “Was it?”

  Even Katrina nods. “It wasn’t great.”

  “And don’t even get us started on whatever the hell that was at the Sin and Sand,” Addison says.

  “See?” Harmony says to me.

  “But it’s easily fixable.” Addison shifts forward a step. “Nothing a little workshop can’t fix.” She gestures at me. “Kiss her.”

  “What? Now?” I ask.

  “Why not? You were literally just going to before we came in here.”

  “Yeah, but now you’re literally here.”

  “So? We’ve all seen you guys make out before. It’s not a big deal. Just give Harmony a kiss, and we’ll tell you what you’re doing wrong.”

  Bronson smirks over Katrina’s shoulder.

  I sneer. “Okay, first of all, I do not kiss wrong.”

  Addison chortles. “Well, you ain’t exactly doing it right, either.”

  “That was a fluke! I was caught by surprise. That’s all.”

  “Okay, then. Prove it.” Addison shrugs. “Kiss her.”

  “Yeah, kiss her,” Bronson says.

  I glare at him. Of course, he’d speak up for this.

  “Uh…” Katrina hums with reluctance. Thank you, little sister. “Maybe we should get Jonah first.”

  “Jonah is spending his last night home before his wedding with his fiancée,” Addison says, stating the obvious. “We are not interrupting them.”

  “Jordan, then?” Katrina says, the last possible rope within reach.

  “Oh, Jordan is off doing Jordan things.” Addison brushes it off, her smile stretching. “Kiss her!”

  Katrina sighs, but argues no more.

  I look at Harmony. The moment — if you can even call it that — is very much over, but the problem has yet to be solved. This is fake, but real things have to happen to make it look real. And, hell, maybe a little outside perspective is warranted here. It’ll certainly put some guard rails on us, keep us from taking it too far — as unlikely as that is.

  I shift to face her. Harmony. My muse. The woman who broke my life and left me to pick up the pieces of my shattered soul.

  Just one little kiss.

  Won’t hurt, right?

  She stands tall with her shoulders rolled back and her face tilted upward just so… waiting to see what I’ll do.

  I move closer.

  The others lean forward.

  I glare and they pull back a step.

  With a sigh, I lean down and kiss her.

  The moment our lips touch, I know it’s wrong. It’s stiff and dry. The angle of our faces is off. Our eyes are fucking open.

  Easily fixable.

  I close my eyes. I wet my lips and try again. This time, our mouths connect, our lips parted and soft. I cup her face with one hand, allowing my head to tilt a little further while keeping hers just right.

  The room goes impossibly quiet. Or maybe my pulse pounds loud enough to deafen me. Either way, I hear nothing. I see nothing. All I can do is feel her smooth lips cradled in mine. I smell her fresh scent in my nostrils, taste her sweet lipgloss on my tongue.

  I kiss her again. And she kisses me back.

  Her hands come to my hips, sending sparks of heat down my spine as I curl my other hand around her back. We’re so close together, yet so far apart in every other way. It’s a sensation so achingly familiar, it nearly brings me to my knees.

  Still, something feels… wrong.

  The door opens again. Harmony and I break apart, our hands falling to our sides as a man steps into the storage room. The others slink away from his shadowed form, then relax when they see his face.

  It’s just Ira Botsford.

  Jonah’s older brother and the head of security.

  He’s tall and military-built, with a trimmed dark beard and no nonsense brown eyes. He looks us over with a mixture of annoyance and… nope, just annoyance.

  “Yo, Ira!” I greet. “What’s up?”

  “Ira,” Katrina says, her little face pinched in that adorable just-got-caught-without-a-hall-pass kind of way. Girl just isn’t cut out for being a rebel. “We were just leaving.”

  Addison gives him a wave.

  Bronson says nothing, as usual.

  Ira’s glare lingers on each of us as he silently raises his phone, the speakerphone already on. A ring fills the silence as he waits for whoever he called to answer.

  “Hello?”

  “Jordan, it’s Ira,” he says. “You wanna tell me why your band is having an orgy in my storage room?”

  “They’re what?”

  I laugh. Harmony does, too.

  Ira silences us with a glare. “You can meet them in the lobby,” he says before hanging up. He slides the phone back into the inner pocket of his suit as he steps aside to clear the path to the door. “Get out.”

  Katrina bolts, keeping her head bowed and muttering apologies as she passes him. Addison follows with a normal stride, her smile permanently etched onto her face.

  “This isn’t what it looks like, Ira,” I say.

  “Get out,” he repeats.

  Bronson offers a brotherly head bob and makes his way out.

  I step forward, feeling Harmony sticking close to me as we head toward the door. “Ira, we were just⁠—”

  “Practicing for the cameras?” he says.

  Not surprising. Ira is always up on the latest gossip. That’s his job. Technically.

  “Well… yeah, actually,” I say. “It’s kind of a funny story⁠—”

  “Don’t care. Beat it.”

  I walk out, turning to keep an eye on Harmony behind me. I catch Ira smile, his golden brown Botsford eyes showing their first hint of softness as he looks at her. “Welcome back, Ms. Max,” he says. “Good to see you.”

  “Thanks,” she says. “It’s good to see you, too.”

  “Out.”

  She startles and hops forward to catch up with me.

  Ira follows us out of the bar and into the lobby where Jordan stands beneath the golden chandelier.

  Jordan throws up her hands as she spots us. “An orgy?” she asks far too loudly.

  “It wasn’t an orgy,” I tell her, joining the others alongside her.

  She doesn’t bother to hear more. “Sorry, Ira,” she says, looking over my shoulder at his tallness behind me. “I left them alone for five minutes.”

  “Don’t let it happen again,” he says as he continues toward the front desk, letting a little of that softness seep into his voice now, too. He ain’t even mad.

  “Oh, I’ll surely try,” Jordan says, sighing at us.

  “It wasn’t an orgy,” I repeat. “We were just kissing.”

  “Kissing?”

  “Yeah. It was perfect.” Addison nudges me with her elbow. “Just do it like that from now on and you’ll be just fine.”

  Katrina says nothing, but the blush on her cheeks says everything it needs to.

  Bronson just smirks.

  “Okay, then,” Harmony says, giving me a nod. “We’ll do it like that, then.”

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Just like that.”

  Jordan blinks twice. “What is happening?”

  “I’ll explain it to her.” Addison hooks her arm and tugs her toward the elevators. “Nighty-night, folks.”

  “I’ll go, too,” Katrina says, eager to get away. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” we say as they leave.

  I look at Harmony. And then there were two.

  Plus Bronson.

  He grins at us, his eyes shiny beneath the chandelier.

  “What?” I ask.

  He shrugs.

  Harmony takes a step back. “I guess I’ll try to catch that elevator, too.” She nods politely, her cheek still bright pink. “See you guys in LA?”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We’ll see you in LA.”

  She walks awkwardly away, the edge of her shoe still digging into her ankle.

  I glare at Bronson’s grin. “What?” I ask again.

  This time, he pats my shoulder and says, “Boom boom.”

  I exhale hard. “Yeah, buddy,” I say, her flavor still present on my lips. “Boom boom.”

  14

  HARMONY

  Then

  The funny thing is, I didn’t even want to enter this pageant.

  I told my mother I was done. I was too old for this. I was tired of losing, tired of being told I wasn’t pretty enough. Tired of chasing the ever-shifting goal posts of feminine perfection.

  I just wanted to sing. I wanted to write music. I wanted a life of my own.

  But Mama wanted a crown.

  So I did the pageant. I tried my best. I sang my heart out until I couldn’t feel my face anymore. It still wasn’t enough for her. Or anyone else.

  Except Knox.

  Except this stranger who took one look at me and wanted me all to himself.

  How has it only been one day?

  How am I already so comfortable being naked in front of him?

  How will I ever look my mother in the eye again?

  “What are you thinking about?” Knox says, his warm lips moving against my brow.

  I take a deep breath, tingling all over. I’m tired, but I don’t want to sleep. Sleeping makes the sun come up and the rockstar go away.

  “Nothing,” I say, smiling on his chest.

  “Nothing?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s nothing going on in that pretty little brain of yours?” he asks playfully as he runs his fingers through my hair.

  I almost purr, this feeling so sweet. So comforting. So... foreign.

  No one has ever touched me like this.

  My throat tightens. I almost don’t say it, but I’ve given so much of myself to Knox already. After tonight, I may never get this chance again.

  “I want just thinking,” I say, swallowing around the lump in my throat, “that no one’s ever touched me like this before.”

  “Really?” he says, his voice sad. Pitying.

  “I mean... well, you know I’ve never... but I meant this.” I prop my chin on his chest and look at him. His face is relaxed, but his eyes are bright and full of warmth. “No one’s ever held me like this before.”

  Knox pushes the hair out of my eyes. “How does it feel?” he asks, tucking it behind my ear.

  “Like… love.” My cheeks burn as I realize what I said. “Oh, god. That’s so stupid! Forget I even said that.”

  “No.” Knox chuckles. “It’s not stupid.” He kisses me softly on the lips. “This feels like love to me, too.”

  I kiss him back. The latest kiss of so many today. The first of the last kisses we’ll ever have.

  He’s leaving in the morning, heading up the coast to Portland and beyond. Maybe we’ll see each other again. San Francisco and Las Vegas aren’t… that far away from each other.