“Your boy looked fucked out of his mind,” Cheyenne said. “I wonder what he’s on.”

“He’s probably just had a few drinks.”

“More like a bottle to drink, if not something harder,” Cheyenne said.

Hmm…well, only one way to find out. “I’ll meet up with you guys later,” I told them before making my way to the stairs on the side of the stage.

I hopped up to the top and then was stopped by solid muscle.

“Band only, sweetheart,” Vin said.

“Oh, Vin, it’s just me, Aribel,” I said with a smile.

Vin shrugged, ignoring me. What the…

“Vin, let her through,” Miller said, shaking his head.

“Fine.”

Vin stepped aside, and I darted past him. I didn’t know what that had been all about, but I was too focused on Grant to care.

No one was standing around in the backstage hallway.

I walked down to the break room and knocked on the closed door. “Grant, are you in there?”

No answer. Huh. Maybe he’d had to go to the restroom or he’d gone outside for some cool air. I knocked again just to be sure. “Grant!”

The door swung open. “Get in here,” he growled.

I jerked at his tone. What the hell is wrong with him? And why did he look so angry? Did I misinterpret what he had been feeling while onstage?

“Ari, now.”

The way he’d said that made me want to plant my feet on the ground, grit my teeth, and act as stubborn as possible. “Don’t order me around.”

“I don’t have time for your shit right now, Ari. Get inside. We need to talk.”

My heart sank, and my stomach dropped out of my body. Every thought I’d had up until this moment flitted out of my head. We need to talk. I’d heard that before. Is he going to break up with me? Had our time apart been the time he needed to see that this was a mistake? I’d always been strangely detached from my relationships, especially from my breakups, but just the thought of Grant leaving me made me feel like I was being fed through a meat grinder.

I struggled for that neutrality, for a shred of my indifference. I wanted that desperately because when he broke my heart, I wouldn’t be able to walk away with a feeling of disappointment that he’d looked good on paper or filled a checklist. I would walk away shattered, destroyed, and empty, knowing I’d given him a piece of myself that I’d never known I could give. In turn, I’d let him fucking own me in every way that I ever found important. My body was just a vessel, but my mind, my soul…he’d taken over those, and frankly, I didn’t want them back.

Somehow, I made it into the cramped break room, and Grant closed the door.

“What do we need to talk about?” I knew I sounded anxious. I was anxious.

Grant was staring at me with that same power he’d had onstage, but now, I saw what the girls had been saying. He was definitely drunk, if not high, and he looked pissed.

“You know what this is about.”

“Don’t play games with me, Grant. Say what you have to say.” If you want to break up with me, do it already.

“You’ve been seeing someone else, Princess? You been with that ex of yours?” he growled.

I was so blindsided by his comment that I just laughed. I shouldn’t have. It clearly just made him angrier, but it was such a ludicrous suggestion that there was nothing else for me to do.

“This isn’t fucking funny!”

“You think I’m cheating on you?” I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing again. “Dear Lord, please explain to me how it makes sense that I would be cheating on you, the self-proclaimed manwhore.”

“What? Because you’re a virgin, you can’t be seeing someone else?” he asked.

“God, how drunk are you?”

“Just answer me straight, Princess.”

“No, Grant. I don’t remember the last time I saw my ex. Actually, I might have been with you. Why do you think I’m seeing someone else? Have I ever made you think that?”

Grant rubbed his hands over his eyes. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Or no?” I prompted. He better be messing with me.

“I don’t fucking know, Ari! Someone told me that she sees you with your ex all the time. What am I supposed to think?”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t know. Some girl.”

“So, you just believe some strange girl who is probably trying to get in your pants instead of me?” I asked in disbelief. “Did I miss the part where I became your girlfriend?”

Grant cleared the distance between us in a second. He grabbed my shoulders roughly and stared down into my eyes as if he was trying to find the truth buried within. I’d never lied to him, and I didn’t want anyone else. I knew it was crazy. I knew we didn’t really make sense, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“You’re mine?”

“I’m your girlfriend.”

“No, Ari, you’re fucking mine.”

It wasn’t a question, and I didn’t have to respond. Nothing else was truer in that moment.

The next week was hell for Ari during finals. I barely saw her, but at least I had the ski trip to look forward to. Vin and I worked out everything that had happened between us. He’d admitted that he wasn’t actually pissed that I’d found a girl, but it kind of sucked that he no longer had a wingman. If I wasn’t chasing ass, then he was kind of fucked over in that department. There wasn’t much I could do there, but it helped knowing what was up. And maybe I hadn’t changed, but the thought of Ari with someone else had knocked the nonsense out of me.

With Vin on board again, we started on my new song. The guys liked it enough that they wanted to use it in the lineup for the music festival. Miller thought it might draw some attention from label scouts. I wasn’t holding my breath after the last incident.

I was just happy to get away with my girl and my friends.

Two days before we were supposed to leave, I received a call from Sydney.

“Hey, cuz. Pick me up from Newark on Thursday.”

“Find your own way. I’ve got plans.”

“Cancel them. I’m going to come visit before I go home for break.”

Apparently, her Jersey accent had only gotten thicker when she moved to the South. It seemed contradictory to me.

“I can’t cancel, Syd. We’re playing the Poconos music festival.”

“Poconos, eh? Vin going with you?” she asked with a giggle.

“He’s still in the band, last I checked,” I said dryly.

“Change of plans. Pick me up, and take me with you.”

“You are not coming with me to the Poconos.”

“So, my flight gets in around eleven in the morning. Don’t park. I’ll just meet you outside. Are you going to be in your big, black, jacked-up truck?” she singsonged.

“It’s blue.”

“Whatever. Eleven o’clock. See you then.” And she hung up on me.

I told Ari that Sydney was coming with us, and Ari was excited to meet her. I didn’t know how to prepare Ari for my cousin. Sydney was really one of a kind.

I stopped by Ari’s place Thursday morning on my way out of town. The guys were driving the van out around noon, and Ari’s group of friends was leaving around the same time. I’d meet them there after I stopped in Newark.

“Come in!” someone called after I knocked on the door.

“I could have been a burglar or a murderer,” I said. “You just letting anyone inside without seeing who it is?”

“We let you in,” Ari said, walking out of her bedroom.

Her blonde hair was tied up into a tight ponytail that I was looking forward to using as leverage this weekend—or at least, that was the goal.

“Darlin’, I’m no stranger.”

“You’re going to be if you keep calling me that.” She closed the distance between us.

I bent down like I was going to kiss her, but instead, I grabbed her legs and wrapped them around my waist. She latched on to me as I carried her into her bedroom.