“I thought you guys were incredible. High energy. Good set list. The crowd was really into it.”
“Thanks, but we still need work. Rocket fucked up on a song. I missed a chord on another. Hawkin forgot the lyrics and just told the crowd to sing along to cover it up.”
“Didn’t notice at all.”
“Yeah, but there are a million other bands out there waiting to take our place.” He lifts his beer again, giving me a better view of some of his tattoos. Some Japanese writing. The neck of a guitar. More that I can’t make out.
“You always were hard on yourself.”
“We need to be better. That’s all there is to it.”
“Better?” I laugh. “I’d say having the number one album in the country is pretty damn good. Can’t go much higher than that.”
Vince stares at me, his cheeks flushing, and his sheepish grin reminds me of a little boy before he shakes his head. “It’s absolutely fucking crazy, isn’t it? A total mindfuck. The guys . . . we still can’t wrap our heads around it.”
“I can’t imagine.”
“We went from couch-surfing and ramen to The Ritz and private jets all within a year.”
Another knock at the door. “Gotta go. Buses are loading,” a voice says through the door.
My heart sinks. This is it? That’s all the time I get?
Vince looks at me and then looks at the door before jogging to it and throwing it open. “Go on ahead,” he calls out. “I’ll catch up.” He turns to me. “I know a hole in the wall not too far from here. The food’s not great, but it’s dark so I won’t be recognized. Want to go?”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Bristol
Seven Years Ago
“Then there was Japan. We sold out the stadium built for fifty thousand people, before moving on to Germany. It’s fucking crazy there.”
I study him across a table littered with dirty plates and empty beer bottles. I have no clue what time it is because it feels like time has stood still while we’ve been catching up in the dimly lit dining area. The staff left long ago save for one person who Vince slipped some ridiculous amount of money to. That person is currently sitting in the back room no doubt scrolling on his phone and bored to tears.
I’ve enjoyed listening to him regale me with stories about his travels and crazy fans. About sold-out venues and empty dive bars. But that’s the famous Vince talking.
“And then in Brazil—”
“Vince?”
He stops and looks at me. “Yeah?”
“I don’t care.”
“What do you mean, you don’t care?” He laughs, holding his hands out.
I’ve had enough wine to take the edge off. I lean forward and whisper. “I. Don’t. Care.”
“Shug—”
“Look at you. You made it against all fucking odds. I’m so damn proud of you . . . but I hear you talking about all of this stuff and I don’t care, because when I look at you, I still see the teenager standing in my window at two in the morning.”
I watch my words hit him. One by one. “Bristol.”
“I’m serious. No one deserves this more than you.” My smile is soft and his matches as we stare at each other over the dim light.
And for the first time all night, it’s there.
It being that palpable chemistry we always had. The kind we never had to work at even when we sat beside each other as I tutored him. I fought it every step of the way, wondering how could this goody-two-shoes find a rebel so irresistible?
I thought maybe it had gone with the years that passed us by, and there’s something in the way those light green eyes of his are looking at me that says I was wrong.
The bob of his Adam’s apple and glance at my lips tells me he feels it too.
“What about you?” he asks to break the silence. “We’ve spent all this time talking about me, I want to know about what you’ve been up to.”
“I pale in comparison to your accomplishments.”
“I want to know.” He reaches out and my hand heats under his touch. “Tell me about college and how you’re conquering the world.”
My smile is stilted as I lie. “Just school and work. Normal things.” There’s no need to elaborate about how my parents’ divorce threw me for a loop. How I was desperate to leave home and get some space after feeling betrayed by them. But when my dad lost his job and the economy had its downswing, money was tight, so I opted for junior college rather than put them more in debt. How I’m working nights and going to school during the day, hoping to transfer to a four-year university next year.
“Where’d you end up?”
“Cal State.” I wave a hand at him, more than ready to be off this topic. “It’s two in the morning. We should let this poor guy get home,” I say about the employee and then realize that leaving might mean our night is over. Our time is done. And I suddenly want to take the words back.
“You’re right. We should.” Vince stands, takes one last pull on his beer, and throws a wad of cash on the table, admonishing me when I reach for my wallet to pitch in. He grabs my wrist. “Don’t even think about it.”
But when I look up to meet his eyes, my protest dies on my lips.
He’s close. So close that I swear it hurts to look at him. To be this close to him, to want him and not have him. The ache in my chest is so poignant I swear he can feel it too.
My shaky inhale sounds like a scream in the silence, but Vince doesn’t acknowledge it as he reaches up to cup the side of my face.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, his eyes locked on mine as he dips down and brushes his lips against mine.
It’s a soft sigh of a kiss, a reminder of what used to be. A brief touch of our tongues is more than enough to remind me how much I craved the taste of him after he left.
How much it hurt to pick up the phone and not have him there. How much I regretted not giving the part of myself to him that I could never take back.
Instinct mixed with memories and longing has me reaching up, threading my fingers through his hair, and deepening the kiss.
He puts his hand on the small of my back and pulls me into him as his other directs my head to angle the kiss. There’s no urgency, just the smoldering of ashes having new oxygen breathed into them.
It lasts only seconds before he ends the kiss, but it’s enough to solidify that the connection between us is still there.
When I open my eyes, his are squeezed shut and his hand is fisted at his side as if he’s chastising himself.
“Vince?” Confusion weaves through my tone.
He opens his eyes, his smile tight and voice clipped. “We should go.”
I grab his hand and hold him in place when he goes to walk away. He looks down at our hands and then back up to me but doesn’t say a word. He doesn’t have to because the steel in his eyes is harsh enough. It’s almost as if he’s waiting for me to give an answer he’s never voiced the question to, but I don’t have a chance to.
“That mistake was on me.” He shrugs his hand from my grip and then turns on his heel.
I scramble behind him as his long strides eat up the sidewalk that leads to the limo. He opens the door to the car for me but won’t meet my eyes and doesn’t say a word as we get in.
What am I missing? Did I do something wrong? What happened?
It’s like a switch was flipped, and I’m on the wrong end of it.
“Where to?” the driver asks.
“What hotel are you staying at?” He finally speaks.
“None. I wasn’t planning on staying.”
His sigh is heavy. “It’s two in the fucking morning. Do you actually think I’m going to let you drive home right now?”
By the way he refuses to look at me, I’d think that’s exactly what he wants.
“That was my plan. How was I to know we were going to go out to dinner and talk till who knows when?”
“So you figured you’d drive for four hours, say hi, shoot your shot, then turn back around again?”
Shoot my shot? “Vince. What in the hell are you—”
“The usual hotel, Brian,” he says to the driver.
“I’ll let them know you’re coming,” Brian says and then slides the partition up.