“Stop bringing it back to her all the time.” He jumped on his feet and took three strides away from me. He turned back to face me. “She’s got nothing to do with us anymore.”

I stood and came to face him. His hand palmed the back of my head and he pulled me hard against him so that our faces were almost touching.

“I’ll fight for you though because I can never let you go, Cass. Never.” His voice was coarse. “Because if I do, it’ll kill me.”

His mouth took ownership of mine. His tongue hunted mine. I arched against him, my hands against his pecs. His cupped my butt and he pulled my body against his. I was under his spell.

He broke the contact and took in a raspy breath.

“It will kill me too,” I said faintly.

A smile curved his lips. “So let’s keep ourselves alive!”

I nodded and he claimed my mouth again. I let him. I wanted to give him the peace he was craving for. I so wanted to.

Cassie

As every morning since I’d stepped onto this goddamn bus four weeks ago, my eyes shot wide open at seven a.m. on the dot. I stared at the pleats sticking out from the curtain around my bunk. That curtain between my bunk-bed and the ‘rest of the world’ had been a life-saver. I dressed and un-dressed behind it, wrote songs behind it and dreamed of Josh behind it.

And dreaming about Josh was what I was indulging in right now. Dreaming of how warm his body had felt behind me when I woke before dawn last Sunday. He was still sleeping and I felt his bare chest rising and falling each time he breathed. The time on the digital clock had warned me there were only a couple of minutes before that freakin’ alarm would start ringing. While I’d counted down every second in my head, my eyes had studied his hand enlaced with mine on the duvet. It was strong, but delicate, each vein drawn beautifully beneath his skin. He’d held me tightly throughout the night.

I hadn’t slept much, but really, who gave a flying fu—oops—monkey about sleep when the happiness inside reached ten on the Richter scale?

That goddamned alarm had rung all-too-soon. There’d been the rush to get dressed after a quick shower, and then the goodbyes. My cab had been the first to leave to Ronald Reagan Airport. Josh was flying from Dulles. To Europe.

He’d arrive back from Paris this morning. Maybe he’d already landed. That meant there wasn’t an ocean between us anymore. I tossed and turned a couple of times on that freakin’ bunk-bed, trying to kick my next thought out of my head.

I failed.

Eleanor was in Paris.

Eleanor was in Paris.

Eleanor was in Paris.

La-Di-Da-La-Di-Da! I sang in my head. But that wasn’t enough to cancel the image of Josh and that beautiful girl, having dinner in one of those romantic cafes I’d seen in so many damned movies. I could even hear the violin playing in the background.

I groaned and bit my tongue. I had a guy sleeping above me. Actually I had guys sleeping all around me. Cool, sexy guys. Really, I couldn’t go all insecure on Josh. Josh, who’d pushed me to go on this tour—because he wanted me to follow my dream.

Yep, time to get a grip, O’Malley. In one move, I swung my feet above the edge of the bed and pulled the curtain open. No lacy number for my nights on the bus. Not that I owned anything sexy anyway. I slept in my tracksuit. A dull, brown tracksuit. Plain with nothing written on it.

A tracksuit shouting to all the dudes onboard that I might well be the shittiest lay this side of the Mississippi.

Josh had chosen the tracksuit.

It had been his only request. He didn’t need any others because wearing this tracksuit managed to put me off sex.

“Hey, sleepyhead!” said Shawn through an opened-mouth yawn.

I’d stumbled to the front of the bus. Along the central walkway there were big revolving seats, set two-by-two, on either side of small tables. He was sitting on one of them, a mug of coffee in his hands. Outside, the Arizona desert sprawled out to the horizon, and beyond. Its bright red soil made me blink in awe.

I slumped onto the seat opposite Shawn. We didn’t talk for a minute or two. He then stood and headed over to the mini-fridge in the kitchen corner behind the driver’s seat. When he sat back, he laid a can of Coke in front of me. “The Black Doctor’s gonna help with nausea.” He winked at me.

I hadn’t told anyone about my transport-sickness. I guess the bluish shade of my skin had given me away. That, and the stubborn way I kept my eyes glued on the road ahead of us ninety-nine percent of the time I was on the bus.

“Thanks.” I gave him a warm smile.

I’d been careful with Shawn. Deep down, he was a good guy; but he liked women. Chasing them, flirting with them… sleeping with them. Fooling around wasn’t in the cards for me. I’d been worried he’d hold that against me. He hadn’t. If anything, we had the beginning of a friendship.

“Still working on that song?” I pointed at the sheets spread across the table. I took a sip of Coke and let the bubbles tickle the inside of my mouth and wake me up.

“Sweet Second? Yes. I love it, Cass, it’s a winner. And I really enjoyed working on it with you.”

I’d written the lyrics one night when I was going through a bout of serious Josh withdrawal. It was about our second chance at love, our second chance as a family. Our second chance at everything. Later on, I’d sat down with Shawn and we’d started composing the music.

“I liked it too. It’s the first time I’ve ever shared my music with another musician. It’s kind of intimate.” I fidgeted on my seat and took another sip of my Coke.

“Just like sex.” Shawn nudged me with his feet under the table. It didn’t help with the heat creeping across my cheeks. “I’d like to do that again with you. Writing a song, I mean, because sex ain’t gonna happen. I got that message loud and clear.”

My eyes met his head on. “No. It’s never gonna happen.”

We settled into an uneasy silence. The rest of the guys were still sleeping off the booze from the night before. Last night must have been pretty wild, but I’d invested in the best earplugs.

“I want to sing Sweet Second with you tonight. On stage.”

Woo-hoo! That was bumping up my ranking in the show big time. I was still the girl who was filling in for the guy who broke his leg. The one in the opening act and the sometimes-back-up. The Libs—and Shawn—were the hot ticket

“What are the other guys going to say? That’s not gonna fly with Geoff.” Geoff was in a bit of a power struggle with Shawn. .

Shawn took several sips of his coffee. I gulped down some more Coke. “We’re breaking up.”

“What?”

“It’s been festering for a while now. I’ve been offered a record deal. Will called me a couple of days ago to tell me. But it’s for a solo album.”

“Eek. You broke the news last night, hence the heavy boozing.”

“Hence the heavy boozing and the shouting and arguing.”

Grateful nod to my earplugs. “Congratulations.” I leaned over the table and squeezed his hand. “I’m happy for you. I’m sorry for the other guys, of course, but happy for you. Who did you sign with?”

Something shot across Shawn’s gaze. Gratitude? He gave me the name of the record company and I was speechless. He couldn’t get any bigger than that.

“Will you go up on stage with me tonight? We can use it as a trial run.”

“A trial run for what?”

“For tomorrow and Will. He’ll be in Vegas. I’ve told him you’re awesome and he liked what he heard back in Kansas City. I want to push Sweet Second with the studio. Hopefully we can try it as a duet.”

My Coke went down the wrong way and made me cough. And cough and cough. Damn, not the right time to look like I wasn’t quite right in my head.

“Sorry.” I put my hand on my chest to get the freak show inside me back under control. “That—That would be beyond my wildest dreams.”