“I should go find him now.” Throat dry and stomach jumpy, she forced herself to sit up. “Some photographer’s probably got a camera trained on this bus, and while a short visit to say hi to you won’t look odd, they’ll start to wonder if I stay too long.”

“I can open Noah’s door for you if he’s out.” Molly got off the bed. “We all decided we should be able to get into each other’s buses.”

Rising herself, Kit said, “Abe?” She knew everyone was still worried about the keyboard player’s mental state, though he appeared to have gone stone-cold sober after his dangerous on-tour binge.

“That’s part of it, but it just makes sense.” Molly led her to the front of the bus. “We’re family on the road, and we keep an eye on each other. Maxwell can also get in, because seriously, the idea of Maxwell selling us out is so ludicrous it’s not even funny.”

“Did you meet his wife?” Kit stepped out of the bus in front of Molly. “I adore her already.”

“She visited during the tour,” Molly said with a smile as she pulled the door shut so it’d lock. “They’re so sweetly in love it makes me happy each time I think about it.” Her face lit up without warning. “Fox, I thought you and David were working on those lyrics you wanted to get right.”

“Done.” Fox drew Molly into a luscious invitation of a kiss, one hand cupping her face, before he turned to hug Kit. “Have a good drive down?”

Kit had just begun to reply when she heard someone calling Molly. The other woman looked over her shoulder. “It’s Maxwell. I think he wants me to play intern for a minute.”

Leaving Kit with Fox, Molly ran over to help Maxwell grab a bunch of cables out of the back of a truck. “How is he?” Kit asked Fox in a soft murmur.

The lead singer’s expression turned grim, his dark green eyes close to obsidian. “Bad. He isn’t sleeping, Kit. I don’t think he’s slept the past two, maybe more, nights.”

Hands fisting by her sides, Kit fought off images of the motel room lit by a garish neon glow. “Because of me?”

“Far as I can figure out, he uses those random fucks as sleeping pills,” Fox said bluntly. “He hasn’t had that outlet. He finally crashed just after eleven this morning, and I told everyone not to wake him. We don’t need him until right before we go onstage, and he can grab energy drinks prior to performing.”

“What do you mean he uses the groupies as sleeping pills?” Kit said, still stuck on the first part of his sentence.

Fox ran a hand through the chocolate brown of his hair. “Not my story to tell, sweetheart. But you need to know enough to understand that you have to make sure he sleeps. Otherwise he’ll have a fucking heart attack or something from sleep deprivation.” He glanced over at Noah’s bus… just as it opened.

A tousled blond head stuck out, sleepy eyes landing on Kit. “Hey.” Noah’s real smile was a thing of beauty.

Walking over, his feet bare and his body clad only in a pair of disreputable ripped jeans she recognized from the other day, he drew her into his arms, nuzzling his chin over her hair. She knew it was just for show… except maybe it wasn’t, not this time. He was all warm from sleep, drowsy eyed and yawning against her.

Giving in to temptation, she slid her own arm around his waist and, Fox’s warning strong in her mind, said, “Let’s go back to the bus so you can grab some more shut-eye.”

“I’ll catch you both later.” Fox walked over to Molly and Maxwell after bumping fists with Noah.

Not far off, Butch gave her a salute, waiting until she was at Noah’s door before he faded off into the crowd. She knew he’d be back as soon as he’d checked out the area, but for now she didn’t need the protection. Noah nudged her up into his bus, then came up behind her, pulling the door shut.

Kicking something accidentally, Kit found they were his boots. They’d been abandoned not far from the door, along with a crumpled black T-shirt. She leaned down and picked up the tee, had to fight the urge to bury her nose in it; she loved the way Noah smelled, and that hug outside had only made her need worse.

Stomach tensed against the stupid butterflies that refused to get the memo that she was over Noah, she tried for a stern tone. “This is not going to work if you throw your clothes around on the floor.”

Still smiling that lazy, sleepy smile, he grabbed the tee and chucked it onto the sofa, the layout of his bus the same as Molly and Fox’s except there was no desk tucked into the corner. “There, now it’s not on the floor.”

She tried not to smile. “You’re dopey with sleep deprivation. Go get some more rest.”

Jaw cracking in a yawn, he took her hand and tugged her to the bedroom. “I can’t sleep, but I’ll lie down if you sit with me and tell me stuff.”

“What stuff?”

“Any stuff.”

Pushing him down onto the bed, she slipped off her heels, then climbed on beside him. He was lying on his back, his arms folded under his head and his eyes, those so often unreadable eyes, turned toward her.

Unable to look into the storm gray lest she betray too much, she busied herself getting into a seated position with her back to the wall that acted as the headboard. The idiotic butterflies dipped and dived at being so close to him, his gorgeous body laid out in front of her.

Noah was built beautiful, his chest bare of hair except for a thin trail that began below his belly button and disappeared into jeans that hung sexily low, exposing the lickable vee of the muscles on either side. There wasn’t a lot of ink on the front of his body. Lyrics down his left side in vertical lines, a quote that spoke to him across his ribs on the other side, and a small, stylized sun on his left shoulder.

She couldn’t see his back in this position, but she knew it bore a finely detailed phoenix so stunning the artist in question had asked Noah to pose for a photograph that adorned the front of the artist’s book. That phoenix rose from the flames, defiant and glorious, and after guessing just how deep Noah’s scars went, Kit had come to realize the phoenix was Noah.

Only he hadn’t quite escaped the forces trying to haul him back down.

I can’t save him, she reminded the heart that still ached for him. Not if he won’t help save himself.

Swallowing the lump in her throat, she said, “I had a one-on-one meeting with Esra Dali.” She’d held the news inside all day because Noah was the only one with whom she wanted to share it.

“No shit?” A smile that just destroyed her. “You got the part?”

“Not yet. But he asked me to come in next week and read for him again, this time with Garrison opposite me.” The Abigail-Garrison show was now on the road, and they were doing better than Thea had predicted, so things weren’t yet in the bag.

“Kit, that’s amazing.”

Noah’s excitement was genuine, she knew that. He’d always been her biggest champion, right back from when they’d first become friends. The fact he’d broken her heart didn’t alter that, didn’t erase all the things he’d once been to her… still was to her. “Thanks,” she said, wanting to shake him and kiss him at the same time. “I’m cautiously excited.”

“So,” Noah said after a short pause, “what did Gates say when you told him about us?”

Chapter 20

Kit rubbed a hand over her face. “Terrence and I aren’t an item anymore. I wanted to tell him the truth about everything, but… I didn’t.”

She’d still been on the sofa the morning after the gala, staring at the muted TV, when Terrence had called her. He’d said he was watching the same report, asked her if the rumors were true, if she’d ended up in Noah’s bed the previous night.

Kit had gone to deny it, to reassure Terrence that it was all media hoopla, when he’d continued on to ask if she’d “dumped” him for “that manwhore,” if she’d “lowered herself to the gutter.” He’d added that he hadn’t thought her so “cheap.”