“But I need this job.” She’d only been working for three weeks. She didn’t have enough saved up for school yet. Not by a long shot. “It’s just for the summer.”

“Sorry, babe. I don’t need your kind of trouble. You’re beautiful and sexy, but I’ve got a long line of applicants who want your job and they don’t bring their thugs into my club.”

“They’re not thugs.”

“I thought you didn’t know them.”

“I don’t.”

He slid an envelope across his desk toward her. “Your pay.”

She snatched the envelope off the desk and stormed from Roy’s office.

Sed never ceased to fuck up her life.

Jessica burst into the dressing room and tossed all of her crap into a bag. She almost ran into Aggie on her way out. The black-haired beauty grabbed her by both arms to steady her.

“Hey, kitten, what’s the rush?”

“Roy just fired me.” She needed to get out of the place. Her throat ached with unshed tears and she didn’t want anyone to know how upset she was. It was just a stupid job. Just another failure.

“What? How could he fire you? You’re already a local favorite.”

“This is all Sed’s fault,” she said. “When I see him, I’m going to rip him a new asshole.”

“I think he’s already got a corner on the asshole market, sugar.”

Jessica tried not to smile. Failed at that, too.

“You said he was in the band Sinners, right?” Aggie asked.

“Yeah, so?”

“So they’re opening for Exodus End tonight at Mandalay Bay.”

“How do you know that?”

Aggie shrugged. “I saw a flyer tacked up somewhere.”

“Perfect,” Jessica said, starting to feel marginally better. “Now I can tell him where he can stuff his money. Better yet, I can show him where he can stuff his money.”

“If you happen to run into that blond guy who was with them last night… the fine-looking one with the tight little ass… and the hard bod… and that face… and those…” Aggie’s hands clenched and she shuddered in undisguised delight.

Blond? Jessica’s brow furrowed. “Do you mean Jace Seymour?”

“Jace.” Aggie smiled, her ruby red lips parting to reveal a perfect set of teeth. “Tell him I still owe him a dance. He paid, but ran off to fight bouncers before I could treat him to my special brand of pain.”

Jessica chuckled. “Soft spot for him, Aggie? It’s not like you to worry about pocketing some easy cash.”

Aggie winked. “Maybe.”

“I’ll try to remember to give him your message when I go kick Sed’s ass.” Her hands clenched into fists. Sedric Lionheart would regret getting her fired. Oh yes, he would.

Sed took a long draw from his beer and gazed down at the picture in the palm of his hand. Jessica had given it to him a couple of years ago. He remembered that smile. Doubted she’d ever share it with him again. She fuckin’ hated his guts. So why was he sitting in the dark, staring at her picture, and drinking by himself again? Tradition, he supposed.

He set her picture beside his beer can and opened the journal he used to write songs. He couldn’t concentrate well enough to write actual lyrics, but words kept popping into his head. He pictured them, but mostly he felt them. He scrawled words on separate lines with blank spaces between so he could add phrases later.

Eyes of jade. A heart betrayed.

Anguish. Languish.

Pain. Insane.

Heart of stone. Alone.

Alone.

He took a ragged breath.

Alone.

The song would come later. He didn’t want to forget the feelings, though. He closed the journal, stuck it back in its hiding place under the bench seat cushion and picked up Jessica’s picture, fingering its worn edges.

The bedroom door at the back of the tour bus opened, and then the bathroom door slid shut. Sed tossed the picture on the table and took another sip of his beer. A few minutes later, a gentle hand touched his shoulder.

“Are you out here by yourself again?” Myrna asked.

Sed glanced up at her. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Can I sit?”

When he shrugged, she slid into the bench across the table from him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t take better care of Brian last night,” he said.

“He told me what happened and I don’t blame you. He’s the idiot who got involved.” Myrna picked up Jessica’s picture and examined it. “She’s stunning, Sed. Is this Jessica?”

She glanced up at him and he nodded.

“How are you doing?” she asked.

She handed the picture to him and he slid it into his pocket with the crummy engagement ring Jessica had flung at him one devastating afternoon two years before.

“Me?” He shrugged. “By the time I got out there, everyone was fleeing the scene. I didn’t even get to throw a punch. I just grabbed Trey off the sidewalk, stuffed him in the car with Brian, and we took off.”

“I meant how are you doing after seeing Jessica?”

His heart stuttered every time her name was mentioned. This time was no exception. He shrugged. “It’s no big deal. She still hates me. I still hate her.”

Myrna ducked her head, but not before he saw her knowing grin. “I see. So you aren’t going to go back to see her?”

“Why would I?”

Myrna shrugged. “Because you’re a glutton for punishment. And… you still love her.”

“No, I—”

“Has she always been an exotic dancer?”

“What?”

“Well, I assumed since you went ballistic when you saw her stripping—”

“I didn’t go ballistic. I lost my cool.” He pinched his thumb and forefinger together. “A little.”

“Uh huh. But you reacted. So was it because you didn’t expect to see her, or because you didn’t expect to see her dancing nude for strangers?”

Sed chuckled. Dr. Myrna Evans, human sexuality professor, always tried to get in everyone’s psychology. “That’s the last place on Earth I’d ever expect to see Jessica. She’s the independent feminist type. The way you are, I guess you’d say. So yeah, I was stunned. That’s why I pulled her off the stage. Not because I actually cared that she was shaking her tits at dozens of sleazy jackasses.”

His beer can crinkled in his fist.

“There’s nothing wrong with having these feelings, Sed.”

“You sound like a shrink.”

She cringed. “I thought it might help to talk about it.”

“No, it doesn’t help. I was finally over her and then… this.”

“You’re over her?” She laughed at him. “I don’t think so, Sed. Who do you think you’re talking to here?”

A busybody who is too smart for her own good. But he couldn’t say that aloud so he changed the subject. “You’re still marrying Brian tomorrow, aren’t you?”

Her brow furrowed. “Of course, why wouldn’t I?”

“You were pissed when you found out he’d been fighting.”

“Just because you’re mad at someone doesn’t mean you stop loving them.”

Sed nodded. “I guess.” He reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Myr, I’m glad Brian found you. You’re exactly what he needs, but if he ever mistreats you, he’ll be answering to me.”

“And me!” Eric called from his bunk.

“No fucking privacy around here,” Sed grumbled.

“If you want to have one last legal affair before you’re permanently saddled with Master Sinclair, there’s room in my bunk,” Eric called.

“Do you want me to hit him for you, Myr?” Sed stood up from the table.

“I got it,” Trey said. He leaned off the top bunk and there was a loud thunk in the bunk beneath.

“Ow!” Eric yelled.

Myrna climbed from the bench and gave Sed a warm hug. “Good night, Sed.”

He hugged her back. It felt wonderful to hold a woman without any sexual expectations.

She released him and returned to the bedroom.

Myrna was a good woman. Sed envied Brian.

It used to be the other way around.

Back before Jessica hated him.

Maybe he should go see her.