And he’d leave for months, possibly a year.

The thought didn’t make him feel like puking anymore, like it had for months after his overdose. But now . . . he had other things to consider.

Someone else to consider.

Christ, he could be completely jumping the gun on this, but the thought of not seeing Tru for months on end made him want to hit something. Something that might hit back.

For the past couple of months he’d seen her almost every day. He’d gotten used to it. To talking to her every morning. Until their conversation devolved into sniping and griping.

And he’d enjoyed that, too.

But the past couple of days had been amazing, not including her date last night, which he really didn’t want to think about.

No, he’d rather think about what she’d done with him after her date. That phone call last night . . . Christ.

He couldn’t fucking wait for tonight. Couldn’t wait to show her part of his world. And hope like hell she didn’t run screaming.

Amazingly, his phone didn’t ring the rest of the day. Apparently everyone else had their own lives to live. He got a few texts, but mostly he spent the day working on music, just him and his guitar.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this and not been climbing the walls or wishing he could take something to make him calm the fuck down.

Even better, by the time he needed to stop to get ready to pick up Tru, he had a complete song.

A ballad. An actual, honest-to-freaking-god love song. Something he’d never had any desire to write before.

Ever.

The song stuck with him through his shower and while he dressed, keeping him from being a girl and worrying about what to wear. He already knew where he was taking her to dinner and hoped like hell she didn’t have an objection to cheesesteaks, fries, and soda.

He had a feeling her date last night had been somewhere she had to wear a dress and that just wasn’t him. Not that he wouldn’t mind seeing her in a dress again. Something soft and feminine and maybe a little slinky. Not that she didn’t looked amazing in a pair of tight jeans and a t-shirt.

Like she did right now.

“Whoa, Tru. You look fucking hot.”

Her lopsided smile and the slight shake of her head as she waved him inside made him wonder if he’d said something wrong.

“Thank you. Let me just grab my purse and we can leave. Are we walking over to South Street?”

“Yeah. I figured since it’s only a couple of blocks . . .”

“No problem.” She pointed at her feet, and he smiled at the slightly worn, bright blue Converse Chucks on her feet. “I planned on it.”

After she grabbed her purse, slung it across her chest, and checked to make sure she had her phone, they headed toward South Street.

The air temperature still hovered in the mid-sixties, a beautiful early-May night. South Street buzzed with people. Tourists with their heads on a swivel as they poked in and out of shops. City dwellers on their way to dinner. Teenagers yelling and laughing as they rushed to be somewhere. Older couples strolling along as if they had all the time in the world.

With a ball cap on, no one looked at him twice as they waited for a table at Jim’s, talking about the crowd, the beautiful weather, and the fact that neither of them had gotten out all day to enjoy it.

Once they were seated, he took off his cap and ran his fingers through his hair before he realized she was watching him.

“What? Do I have hat head?”

Her smile made him want to lean over and kiss her, but he didn’t want to draw any attention. Not that he really expected anyone to recognize him, but he knew the possibility was always there and sometimes people weren’t as polite about it as he wished they would be.

Tonight, he just wanted to be a guy on a date with a girl and shut out the rest of the world.

“No. You just look so different when you wear a hat. I don’t know why that is.”

“Probably because I only wear one when I don’t want anyone to notice me.”

“So tonight you’re incognito?”

“Yeah. Because I don’t want to share my time with you with anyone else.”

She blushed, just a faint pink color in her cheeks that let him know he’d said the right thing. Good. He wanted to keep that up.

The waitress showed up to take their orders and returned in seconds with their drinks: sodas for them both. Maybe he’d have a beer later. Then again, maybe he’d want to be stone-cold sober when he got her into bed tonight.

Yeah, probably shouldn’t think about that now. He’d only make himself too damn horny and try to get her back to her house before they even got to the concert.

And he really did want her to see the concert. Wanted to share this part of his life with her.

They kept the conversation focused on innocuous stuff after that. The food, the music they were playing, the movies they liked. They spent at least fifteen minutes discussing Greg’s first film, The Virgin and the Terror. He’d loved it. She pretty much didn’t.

“If you ever tell Greg this, I will cut out your heart, but I just don’t get it.”

“What’s to get?” He set aside his empty plate and dragged his soda closer. She still had half a cheesesteak and he’d have been happy to just sit here and talk to her while she finished. “It’s epic.”

She rolled her eyes. “No, it is totally not epic. I mean, it’s a decent first film. There are worse, I guess, but oh my god, the script is so childish and the acting is kind of horrendous.”

“You know you’re dissing your boss right now?”

She waved away his words with a hand. “He’s heard me say this before so it’s no surprise. Honestly, sometimes I think he’s just as surprised by all the love that film gets.”

“I guess you’ve got to be a teenage boy to get it. It’s speaks to that geeky kid who wants to believe in dragons and slay one for a girl who’ll give her virginity for it.”

“I guess I gave up my virginity too easily, then. I should have waited for a dragonslayer to come along.”

He laughed at her wry tone. “I gave up mine to a former babysitter who had a thing for guitarists. She was only three years older than me, but I didn’t lose my cherry until I was almost seventeen.”

“Wow, a late bloomer.” She shook her head in mock dismay. “And you a rock star and all.”

“Yeah, well, don’t tell anyone. I’ll lose my street cred.”

“You started touring not too long after that, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. We had a song that took off and we were lucky that we had enough material for a full-length album that we cut in, like, three weeks. Then we went out on tour and didn’t stop for almost five years.”

“That must’ve been tough. You guys were so young.”

“Hell, no. It was fucking amazing. On the road with my four best friends, playing music almost every night, partying the rest of the time. The guys we’re gonna see tonight, Silence Divided, they were the headliners on our first tour. They pretty much took us under their wings. They actually met with our parents before we left and told them they’d make sure we were okay. We were five kids from the Coal Region, and we could’ve been the biggest fuckups ever. Hell, every other day, any one of us could’ve died from alcohol poisoning or dehydration. We were teenagers, for chrissake. We thought we had it made. We didn’t have a clue.

“Johnny and Mac made sure we didn’t kill ourselves those first few months. They’d already been through the drugs and the alcohol and the women and were married with kids by that time. We got lucky with them. They taught us how to survive on the road and how to keep our friendships from falling apart.”

“Have you seen them since you overdosed?”

She said it so matter-of-factly, it wasn’t as jarring as if she’d fumbled around and tried to find another word for what’d happened.

“Yeah, they both came to visit after I got out of rehab. I hid out at my parents for a while, and then I got an apartment and I hid there. They helped convince me I needed to get out and that’s when I moved down to Haven.”