Tetra woke up on the windowseat, neck cramped and ankle throbbing. Right next to her head, her phone vibrated again. It was Justin again.

She’d been watching the live feed of the concert that night, as he well knew. She had wondered if the blonde-in-black that sashayed onto the stage had been coincidence or another one of Xander’s pranks, but it was pretty quickly obvious that the girl had a past with Justin. An intimate past.

Justin hadn’t looked happy to see her…but he hadn’t looked unhappy, either. His attitude on stage was always fairly unscrupulous—it gave Xander less ammunition, Justin had told her.

Justin hadn’t stopped playing, but he hadn’t kicked the thin, fair-haired mystery girl off the stage, either. Then she kissed him, and Tetra gave herself permission to stop torturing herself and shut the laptop.

Justin had texted twice since then, presumably after the show, but they were only brief inquiries to her presence. There was no explanation inside them. Tetra didn’t want to be “that girl” and ask him about it. She had no idea how to respond. So she didn’t.

She did, however, text Kara. Who was the girl?

Kara responded in less than a minute. I was hoping you knew. He talks to you far more than he talks to us.

Which wasn’t exactly the answer Tetra wanted, so she did the next logical thing a modern savvy teenager does: she Googled him.

Thirty minutes later, she’d wished she hadn’t.

It was one thing to hear Justin’s stories of addiction and self-destruction; it was another to see photos of him in the throes of it. Flipping though the extensive virtual gallery of photographic evidence made it real. And ten times more horrible.

The girl’s name was Juliette, and she was there in every photo of him dated up to six months ago. They were always close together, as if attached from shoulder to waist. Based on their heavy-lids, it was more possible they were using each other for support to remain standing.

Justin’s eyes were so bloodshot, the gray irises looked like storm clouds lit by the sun.

She left her laptop on the bed and went to sit on the window seat, as if crossing the room could also distance her from his past.

But she couldn’t unsee it now. She leaned back against the pillows, closed her eyes, and tried to think of a different perspective. Tetra might have just as easily fallen into that same lifestyle, after Kansas. That might have even been the reason her father had supported this move so wholeheartedly—Tetra’s version of running away was surely much easier for a parent to take than the road Justin had taken. Or the road she had threatened to take.

However they accomplished it, Justin and Tetra had both emerged on the other side of their personal hells. They had promised to support each other. However she felt about the blonde on the stage—however he felt—she still needed to be there for him. So when she woke to the buzz of his latest text, no matter what it said, she knew she had to answer him. She slid her finger across the screen to see the contents.

Look out the window.

What?

Too tired to think more about it, Tetra sat up and peered out the window as instructed.

Justin peered back.

Tetra gave a small scream before clapping her hand over her mouth. The last thing she wanted to do was wake her father.

Justin smiled, put a finger to his lips, and motioned for her to open the window.

“What are you doing here?” she whispered.

“I want to see the stars,” he said.

Was Justin Zatarain seriously at her window inviting her to go stargazing? “This is a dream,” she said, because saying such things out loud had typically woken her up in the past.

“No dream,” he said. “Come with me.”

Tetra motioned to the giant, fuzzy, velcroed boot. “I can’t walk.”

“I’ve got the van,” he said. “If you can scoot up to the window sill, I’ll take care of the rest.”

Tetra, still in half-sleep, simply obeyed. She pulled her good knee to her chest on the window seat, then used it to leverage the rest of herself up and onto the windowsill. Justin helped her carefully shift the boot outside before scooping her up and carrying her to the van. The passenger door was already open wide.

She didn’t care what he said. This was definitely a dream. And she never wanted to wake up.

But there was still a tall, blonde Goth Beauty cover model to be explained before this dream could continue. Tetra considered how to broach the subject without being a clingy girlfriend. Not that she even was Justin’s girlfriend, or his anything at all.

God, even this train of thought wasn’t going well.

“So,” she started.

Thankfully, Justin went ahead and took the ball from there. “How much did you see?”

“I saw the kiss.” Not that she wanted to talk about that any further.

“Then you didn’t see me throw her off the stage?”

All at once, the butterflies in her stomach woke up and had a party. “You did what?”

“Look, I don’t know how Juliette ended up in Ft. Lauderdale, and I don’t care. That girl is the physical embodiment of all the horrible things I’ve put behind me. She is the definition of my old life. When I told you I didn’t want to blow my last shot, I meant it.” He reached over to the passenger’s seat and took her hand in his. “The shit hit the fan, Tetra.”

“And you came here.”

“I ran here,” Justin clarified. “You said you would be the one I could run to when I needed to run. And I needed to run.”

If Tetra’s heart grew any larger, she was sure it would explode right inside her chest. “I guess I never thought you would take that literally,” she said, and then laughed. “Ironic, isn’t it, that you’ve run to a girl who can’t walk at all?”

“You have me,” Justin said. “I’ll carry you.”

Did she? Did she have him, really? Even if it was true for only this night, this second, Tetra loved him for saying so. “Thank you.”

He squeezed her hand once more and quickly kissed her fingers before relinquishing it. Tetra’s hand felt incredibly light without the pressure of his touch, and she missed it. She missed him, even though he was right next to her in the driver’s seat. But tomorrow he would be back on tour—if he hadn’t given up and ditched the band completely—and after that he’d return to California and his mom.

There were so many things she wanted to ask him, but this moment was like a butterfly: fragile and beautiful and poised to be whisked away by the slightest breeze. She took a mental picture of him beside her, surrounded by the empty water bottles and gum wrappers and stray cords: the flotsam of a crew who lives on the road. The street lights shone down upon him as he passed each one, illuminating the mesmerizing whorls of tattoos on his tanned forearms and the satisfied grin on his face. He glanced at her again, and when the light passed, his gray eyes flashed silver.

So many things yet to ask…but he looked so peaceful, so relaxed, that Tetra stayed silent.

Justin drove until he found a side street with beach access and parked the van. Tetra opened the door with every intention of hopping down and getting as far as she could on her own, but Justin was there in a flash to scoop her up in his incredibly strong arms and carry her down the boardwalk to the sand.

Tetra had wrapped her arms around his neck in surprise when he’d lifted her out of the van, and she left them there. She forced herself to relax more and more with every step. It was a strange thing to trust another person enough to be carried in their arms. Before now, the only time she’d ever been carried was by her parents, as a little girl. This was very, very different.

This was the thing they wrote romance novels about.

The wind whipped her hair about them both as he carried her over the sand. She turned her head out of the wind and into his skin. He smelled of sweat and salt and citrus…and something that made her heart beat incredibly fast. As close as they were, she wondered if he could tell.

Before they reached the water, he set her down. The lights from the street had been erased by the trees and dunes and dark bathhouses around them, revealing a myriad of stars in the cloudless night sky.

“Take a breath,” he said. “Make a wish…”

“…count to three,” she finished. Of course he would quote one of her favorite movies. Tetra put all her weight on her good leg and, as instructed, took a deep, cleansing breath of ocean air and held it.

She wished for him to stay.

“There are skies like this in Kansas,” she said as she exhaled. “Out in the fields where there are no lights, the stars look like sparkling salt crystals spilled on a black silk tablecloth. When you look up, you feel like you could fall into them forever. I don’t miss much from Kansas, but I never realized how much I missed that.”

She looked down from the stars and fell into Justin’s eyes instead. As much as she wanted this fairy tale dream to last, she felt duty bound to protect her heart. She had lost so much in the last year; losing Justin on top of that was going to be like one more funeral.

“Can we sit?” she asked and Justin obligingly helped lower her to the sand before plopping down beside her. A whole expanse of beach to the right and left and an entire ocean before them, and he sat so close that their sides touched.

“I Googled you.” The breeze caught her words and carried them away so quickly she wasn’t sure he’d heard them. Then she felt him tense a little. “Sorry.”

“I wish I could shield you from all that,” he answered. “But I can’t pretend that version of Justin didn’t exist. All those pictures and articles will forever be my punishment for the life I led then. Every relationship I have from here on out will be tainted because of it. Every friend I make will have to be okay with the person I was, and the person I’ve become. I suspect that means I won’t have many true friends.”

“I’m pretty sure you have Kara and Liam,” Tetra said playfully, and then nudged him with her body. “And you’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.”

“You’re just saying that because you can’t walk away. Literally.” He took her hand again; this time he didn’t let go. Tetra felt the calluses on his fingertips and the soft skin between his fingers as he folded hers into his. She leaned into him and put her head on his shoulder.

They sat there for a very long time, accompanied by only the stars and the waves and each other.

“I want this,” he said softly.

“I want this too,” she admitted. “But we…” Reluctantly, she lifted her head. In a few months, she would go back to school and have to deal with all the relative minutia of being the New Girl. In a few days, he would go back to California and that would be that. She tried to think of the best way to put all that into words without spoiling the magic. “I have my dad. And you have your mom.”

He turned to face her, his gray eyes still bright against the shadows. “I’ve spent the last couple of weeks having the rug constantly yanked out from under me. Despite that, I’ve pulled off a decent performance every time.”

“You have,” she said. “More than decent. Sometimes outstanding.”

“Sometimes?” he asked. When she smiled at the jest, his serious face softened a bit. “So if I told you that I was going to figure it out, would you trust me?”

Figure what out? Not that it mattered. “Yes,” she said automatically.

He kissed her so quickly that she was caught by surprise. The kiss itself was gentle and brief. Her first real kiss. It hadn’t even occurred to her to wish for that! A dream come true, and over far too soon.

When he pulled away, he didn’t go far. “Thank you.”

Her tingling lips felt him say the words. The waves sounded like a crowd cheering. Her heart hammered inside her chest.

The second time, she kissed him, or maybe they met halfway—either way, for the first time in a very long time, Tetra felt no sadness or pain. Every nerve in her body hummed. She touched his cheek with her free hand, let her fingers slide into that gorgeous, thick mane of dark hair. He did the same, not letting their entwined hands between them break apart for even a second.

Feeling far braver than she had any right to be, Tetra parted her lips. He did the same. Then she dared to slip her tongue against his. Justin followed suit. Tetra realized then that he was letting her take the lead, kissing her only as deeply as she felt comfortable. The overwhelming kindness in that simple gesture was almost enough to break her. The sheer intensity of the emotions building up inside Tetra made her gasp.

Justin pulled back. “Are you okay?”

Tetra looked at the sand, the waves, the stars, anything but him. “Would it freak you out if I suddenly burst into tears?” she asked.

“That depends,” he said. “Good tears, or bad tears?”

“The good kind.” She blinked at the stars in an effort to get her feelings under control before she embarrassed herself. “Very, very good. Maybe too good.”

“Then cry all you want,” said Justin. “Bawl it all out. No judgment. I’ll give you my shirt to use as a handkerchief.”

“Excellent. I’m collecting your shirts to sell on eBay when you’re super famous. Oh, Justin.” She hiccuped. Her little joke had stopped the sob, but it didn’t stop the tears from escaping. “I don’t know if I deserve to be this happy.”

“I know I don’t.”

Something in his voice made her turn to him.

He had tears in his eyes as well.

Tetra leaned in and kissed them away. He kissed hers away too, tracing the salty trails with his tongue. When their lips met again, they did so with a passion that felt like they’d been kissing for months, not minutes.

And then he said the four worst words in the English language.

“I have to go.”

Still a little speechless, Tetra nodded. If the rest of 10mm Conspiracy woke to find themselves abandoned in Ft. Lauderdale…or worse, if Dad happened to wake and find her gone…

“Come to the show in Naples,” he said.

“Justin, I can’t go to a concert like this.” She waved her hand over the giant black cast now covered in beach sand.

“I’ll make sure you have a place to sit,” he said. “Bring your dad. Bring Lupe. Bring the whole island if you want…just please say you’ll come see the show.”

Tetra wasn’t sure if her ankle would hold out, or if her dad would even say yes, but she would like to see Kara and Liam—and yes, even crazy, sabotagey Xander—again. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll try.”

This time, he kissed his thank you.

Any other worries Tetra might have had simply melted away.