This time is no different. My audience of six sits patiently in their seats while I stride confidently toward the stage. Of course it’s false confidence, but I work it anyway. Reaching the edge of the stage, which is only three steps off the ground, I actually climb the stairs with spring in my step. I make it two steps toward the center of the stage. And my knees freeze. I’m seven years old all over again.

I take a few deep, cleansing breaths.

They don’t help.

I close my eyes and try again.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

I need to do this. Eight years. It’s been eight long years. I love to sing. Picture having the one thing that you love more than anything in the world right in front of your face every day. Only it’s behind a wall of impenetrable glass and you can see it, but you can never reach it. Never touch it. That’s how I’ve felt the last eight years. But my knees…they just won’t move.

I close my eyes and try again. I want this.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

The pounding in my chest gets louder. It feels like my heart might really explode. I reach up and rub at the tightness.

I start to sweat.

The room is eerily quiet, yet I know there are six people sitting only feet away.

“Lucky,” Avery says in a soft voice. She’s testing the waters, unsure of how I might react.

Hearing her voice doesn’t pull me out of my panic, but it does calm me a bit. I swallow and force my eyes to look out at the room, without giving myself time to mull it over.

Avery is cautiously watching me. She attempts a smile over her worried face.

Through a fog, my eyes drift to the others in the room. There’s Jase; Levi, the DJ from tonight; and two of our friends. They’re all sitting together around a table, trying their hardest not to look disturbed by my display, but their faces can’t hide their concern. Then I look over their heads and my eyes fall on Flynn. He’s leaning casually against the back wall and he smiles at me. I try to smile back, but fail miserably.

Thinking I could use a major distraction, my eyes trail lower. Down Flynn’s neck to his tatted arms folded casually over his lean, masculine chest. I skim his narrow waist and my eyes linger on his jean clad thighs.

And then I see it.

He’s barefoot.

I can’t remember any man ever doing anything so sweet for me in my entire life. Except maybe the man he’s channeling.

Staring down at his feet, my focus shifts—I’m not thinking about being on stage…about that last day on stage. Instead, I’m staring at Flynn’s wiggling toes and thinking, Damn…even his toes are sexy.

The corners of my mouth tilt upward and my eyes follow their lead. Flynn’s beautiful blue eyes dance with triumph—he knows he’s gotten to me.

A minute later, I sing for my audience of six. Four verses of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”

The elation we all feel when I’m done morphs into three hours of celebration. The sun is coming up by the time we all stumble onto the street from Lucky’s. I throw my arms around Flynn’s neck and hug him tight, thanking him for the twentieth time. He hugs me back just as tight, I notice. I’m not sure if it’s the alcohol, the emotions of the night, or just the man I’m clinging to, but for some reason, I don’t want to let go. Being in his arms soothes me, makes me feel something I haven’t in a long time. I can’t put my finger on what that something is, I just know I like it. Maybe a lot.

Too soon, Flynn hails Avery and me a cab and kisses me sweetly on the cheek before helping my swaying body into the car. I’m disappointed he doesn’t join us—I’m not ready for the night to end. Not ready for whatever is going on between Flynn and me to end. Halfway home, I realize he never told me the fifth verse.

I don’t have to wait long. Just until the text comes the next day.

Chapter Eleven

Flynn

I walk the short distance to Becca’s rather than back to Nolan’s place to crash. No doubt there’s a party at Nolan’s that will still be in full swing, with the ratio of men to women heavily tilted in the band’s favor. But I’m just not in the mood to continue the festivities with a bed full of groupies tonight.

I use my key to slip into the apartment quietly, careful not to wake anyone. On my way to the guestroom, I pass by Laney’s room. The door is open, so I peek my head inside. She’s sound asleep, snuggled up to the giant Elsa she suckered me into buying last time I was here. Damn, she’s adorable even when she sleeps.

Blinds drawn, the guestroom is pitch dark, even though the sun is already crossing the horizon outside. I don’t bother to pull back the covers, instead lying diagonally across the plush comforter my sister keeps ready for my unannounced arrivals. I inhale a deep breath—I’m tired, ready to let my body slumber until my niece realizes I’m in here and pounces on me bright and early.

Without standing, I strip to my boxers and toss everything to the floor except my phone. I thumb off a quick text before powering my iPhone down.

In the dark blue sky you keep,

And often through my curtains peep,

For you never shut your eye,

Till the sun is in the sky.

The sound of Laney’s giggle is almost always how I wake when I sleep at my sister’s. But not today. Instead, it’s the constant buzz of the high-pitched doorbell. Someone is either standing in the hallway pressing the button insistently every two seconds, or the thing is broken, with the sound on the fritz. Covering my face with a pillow doesn’t drown out the noise enough to let me ignore it. For the sake of whoever is on the other side of the door, the damn thing better turn out to be broken.

“God damn it,” I grumble. Without even bothering to look through the peephole, I whip the door open. The anger I was feeling from being woken only gets worse when I see the asshole who was pushing the damn buzzer.

My brother-in-law.

Or, more correctly, my ex-brother-in-law. What Becca ever saw in this douchebag is beyond me.

“What the fuck?”

“Nobody answered.”

“Maybe that means no one is home. So leave, asshole.” I begin to push the door closed, but Douchebag sticks his foot in the door.

“Are they home? Rebecca and Helaine.”

“Bec and Laney.” God, this guy is such an uptight prick. Professor Douchebag. “I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? The place isn’t that big.”

“I was sleeping. And yeah, the place is pretty small…compared to the palace you live in with your twenty-two-year-old student. Or did you already cheat on that one and move on to a new crop of freshmen?”

He ignores most of my rant. “It’s four in the afternoon and you’re still sleeping?”

“I work nights.”

He guffaws. “Work? You sing a few songs and screw the swooning teenyboppers when you’re done. I’d hardly call that real work.”

I smile. And take a step into his private space, craning my neck down six inches to look him in the eye. “Why don’t you bring that new young wife down to the show so she can swoon over someone closer to her own age?”

“Fuck you.”

“Move your foot, or you’re going to have some broken toes when I slam this door shut.”

“Just get Rebecca.”

I take a step back inside the apartment and slam the door shut. I know Becca isn’t home, or she would have been at the door getting between us in two seconds flat. But I stroll through the apartment to double check anyway. Beds are made, no sign of Bec or Laney. The asshole is ringing the bell again before I even make it back to the door.

I enjoy the little pansy professor’s nervous jump when I whip the door open again. “They’re not here. Leave.”