“We’re not going inside with you looking like that.” I motioned to her skimpy stage outfit. No way I could contain the situation by myself. “What do you want?”

She snorted. “I can’t eat McDonald’s food.” When I didn’t respond, she held up the almost empty bottle. “Do you know how many calories I just drank? Eli would have a heart attack if he knew I’d consumed the whole bottle, let alone was coming here.”

We moved ahead a car length, just enough to see the menu. “Good thing you fired Eli then, huh?”

Molly laughed once. “Ha. You’re right, I did. Good point.” She nodded, leaning over me to read the menu. “I’ll take an Asian salad with grilled chicken.”

We sat in silence as we waited for the line to creep forward. When it was finally my turn to order, I asked for two Big Mac’s, a small fry, and two sweet teas. Then I pulled up to the window and passed the woman a twenty.

“Um, you forgot my food.”

“You can’t come to McDonald’s and get a fucking salad.”

She crossed her arms over her chest as we pulled up to the last window. “I can, too! What the fuck am I supposed to eat?”

The kid working the food window handed me the drinks first, and I slid each into the cup holders between Molly and me. Then I put the bag he gave me on the center console before I merged back into traffic. We’d made it about a mile down the road when I plucked a boxed sandwich out of the bag and shoved it into her hands.

“Do you know how many calories are in this? Probably more than I’m supposed to consume in an entire day.”

I unwrapped my own meal and took a chunk out of the burger. “Do you know how many calories you just burned on stage?”

“Mikey,” she scolded, “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but this body sells tickets to my shows. Not as many as Nate’s does, but it does sell some. This”—she motioned her hand up and down, indicating her body—“doesn’t look like this naturally. It takes hours of torture every day. If I eat shit like this, I’m going have to torture myself even longer.”

I took another bite, looking over as we stopped at a red light. “That body doesn’t sell as many tickets as you think it does.”

“Fuck off,” she snapped before I could finish.

“You’re practically skin and bones. Woman, you need to put some meat on your bones.” She’d been dropping weight steadily all spring, but the change from just two months ago was dramatic. She must have lost at least twenty pounds—weight she didn’t have to lose. “Now eat.”

She glared at me before sighing and picking up the burger that was practically bigger than she was. I tried not to smile when I heard the moan she made after she bit into it, and bit my bottom lip to keep her from seeing it. Reaching for the radio, I found a top 40 station and cranked the tunes as I popped the last bite of my burger into my mouth and reached for the fries.

It only took her a few minutes to demolish it. “Where are we going?” she asked, as if just realizing for the first time that we weren’t headed back to the venue.

“We’re on the way to Ohio.”

“Ohio?” she squeaked, grabbing the door handle dramatically and staring out the window. “Why?”

“Because that’s where the next show is. We’re going to meet everyone in the morning.”

I moved my eyes to her as she whirled her body toward mine. “What?” The tone was cool, full of warning. “You kidnapped me?”

I chuckled. “Sweetheart, you came willingly.”

“What about the party?”

“There’ll be more; it’s a long fucking tour.”

“Did Nate make you do this? Goddamn fucking asshole. This is all because I told him I was going to get laid tonight, isn’t it?” She growled.

I choked on the sip of sweet tea I’d just taken. “Uh…” I shook my head slightly, not sure how in the hell I was supposed to respond. Or if I was supposed respond.

“He fucking promised.” She slammed one of her tiny fists into the dashboard. “He said he’d stop interfering.”

“You’re right,” I told her sarcastically. “This was all some giant ploy to keep you from getting head tonight.”

“Cock sucking clam jam.” That did cause me to spit out my tea, all over the windshield.

“What?” I asked, coughing. She didn’t hear me though, flailing her arms out and cussing out my best friend in colorful terms I’d rarely, if ever, heard.

She reached down to the floor and then threw herself back against the seat. “I don’t even have my fucking phone, so I can’t call him. Which means I don’t have my wallet, so I have no money, no ID. And these shoes are fucking cutting into my toes!”

I waited a couple of beats, just to make sure she was done. “You can take off your shoes—it’s a long drive. You don’t need money, ‘cause you’re with me. And if you really want to call him, you can use my phone. But,” I added when she held out her palm expectantly, “he has no idea that you aren’t waiting for him backstage. I made an executive decision, one your manager agreed on, and pulled you out so I could get you to the hotel early and you could get some rest. You’ve been stuck on that bus, and I thought you’d want some freedom for a little while.”

She didn’t answer, but she did pull her hand away.

“I didn’t realize you were meeting someone at the party. Sorry.”

She sighed and turned her back to me. “I wasn’t meeting anyone. I was hoping to meet someone and pull him back to the bus for a few hours.”

My grip tightened on the steering wheel. Fucking hell. This girl was hell-bent on self-destruction. “Tim let you do that?”

I saw her shrug in my peripheral. “He didn’t have a problem with it. He was young, knew what it was like to need some freedoms. Nate seemed to always be there, though, stopping anything before it got to that point.” She sighed again. “He promised he wouldn’t do it anymore.”

I chewed on the side of my bottom lip, contemplating how I should answer. “That’s because he knew you’d have me.” It was my turn to sigh. “Listen, Molls, the next few months, you and I are going to be together non-stop. I’ll be living on your bus, sleeping in your hotel room, sharing every meal. Sex is just going to have to wait until we have breaks.”

She let out an annoyed groan.

“I know it sounds horrible, but just think of it this way—if I’m with you nonstop, that means you’re with me twenty-four/seven, which means I’m not fucking anyone, either. So let’s try to make the best of it, yeah?”

A few miles of silence passed between us, and my fingers had just lessened their white-knuckle grip when she angled her body toward me. “They have sex all the time.” Her voice was sad, and I assumed she meant the boys. I was about to explain that it didn’t matter, they were only a stepping stone to the star, someone being used, and I didn’t have to worry that someone would hurt them, when she continued. “You’re on the goddamn honeymoon tour, Mikey. They think they hide it well, but they’re fucking like rabbits. Every single chance they get. Or at least they were.”

My heart seized, realizing she was talking about Nate and Lia. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known that. Fuck, I’d lived with them on a bus all last summer. A bus with really thin walls, where everyone in the bunks could hear exactly what they were doing in their bedroom. They were married now, and one perk to having that ring on your finger was knowing who you were going home with at the end of the night. But the knowledge that Lee would be screaming his name for the rest of her life, and not mine, still got to me.

Then I realized what Molly had said. “Were?”

She nodded, her fingers fidgeting with the bottom of her halter top. “I think having me around all the time is a problem. The tabloids won’t let this ridiculous affair idea go, and it makes me wonder if it’s causing issues for them. I think Lia hired you to get me out of their way.”

I hated how sad she sounded, but forced myself to laugh at that ridiculousness. “Brat, I can promise you that is not the case. She’s worried about you. And if anything, it’s worse to have me around than you.”