After leaving Nash down in the car, I made it up to my apartment. As soon as I opened the door, Peyton exploded.

“Where have you been?” she yelled, then leapt on me, squeezing me tightly. “I’ve been trying to contact you for so long, and all I get is this confusing text about you being with Nash, and then you went radio silent. Do you understand what that does to a girl? Do you have any idea what kind of scenarios I’ve cooked up? I thought his fiancée had poisoned you or you’d been in a drive-by shooting or Nash had kidnapped you and locked you in his bathroom.” She paused for a breath and then ran her wide eyes over my face. “My mind has gone crazy. I was ready to call the police. And then those pictures surfaced! And I really went crazy, completely convinced his fiancée had offed you. Why aren’t you saying anything?”

I laughed. “You haven’t stopped talking since I opened the front door. I haven’t had a chance to say anything.”

“Good point.” She backed up, her eyes still wide in clear panic. “I’ll grab wine. You change into comfortable clothes. We’ll reconvene in the living room in five minutes, and you’ll tell me every detail.”

The next two hours were spent filling Peyton in on every single detail of the last few days of my life. She wanted the nitty gritty on the sex, so I told her as much as I was comfortable with, though it made me blush furiously.

“I can’t believe it.” She finished off her wine. “He left his fiancée, and you were in his bed within a day.”

“You make me sound so easy.”

“It’s not that, it just shows that you guys were always meant to be. I’m only sorry I had to work all weekend.” She pouted. She worked nights and then slept all day.

“There’s not much to tell.”

“Only the complete and total upheaval of your life.”

“There is that.”

“How do you think Vivienne is taking it?”

That was the other hiccup in my happiness. I felt bad for Vivienne. I believed she truly loved Nash and was probably heartbroken. I hoped she wasn’t too sad. There was no doubt she’d find someone else, it just depended on how long it’d take her heart to heal. “I’m not sure. Nash said he talked to her this morning, but I didn’t get any other details. I was too preoccupied with my own breakdown.”

“Understandable. Who do you think leaked the story?”

“I honestly don’t know. It could be anyone.”

“Do you think Viv did?”

I considered that for a moment, but then I dismissed it. She didn’t seem the vengeful type. The story painted her as a victim, but there would be people out there who would mock her for not being able to keep a man, especially with her fame and wealth. It was a fucked-up way to think, but it was what people thought. “I don’t think so. It could be anyone, really. Even with NDAs, people still talk.”

“I’m so sorry that your life is such a mess, but I’m so happy you and Nash are back together.”

A smile crept up on my face. Every time I thought of my weekend with Nash, my insides went warm and gooey. Now that the panic of losing my job was over, I realized that I was really happy to have Nash. The rest was just details. “Me too. It does pose the problem of rent. I have some savings and stuff, but I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to find a job and who knows if it’ll pay anywhere near as well as my last one.”

“We’ll be fine. You’ve been taking care of me for a long time. I can cover it.”

“Won’t that be hard for you?”

“I’ve been saving my half of the rent all these years. I figured it’d either be a really kick ass down payment on a house or a situation would arise where I could pay it back.” She shrugged. “I have money. I can float us. I know you’ll find a job.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Peyton.” I hugged her.

“You’d be miserable and friendless. You would shrivel up and die, and they’d have to write about the fact that my absence caused your death.”

I laughed the first real, deep laugh I’d had since this morning. “I love you.”

“I know you do.” She smirked. “I still can’t believe you spent all weekend with Nash without talking to me.”

“What did you want me to say?”

“Details, woman! I’ve been here all these years trying to get you over the guy, and you run back to him without giving me any of the details.”

I swirled my glass and looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “You have all the details now.”

“I know. And all is right in the world. So, what now?”

“I don’t know. I have to come up with a resume and job hunt.”

She was quiet a second. “Are you going to stay here? Or go back to California with Nash?”

The possibility had never occurred to me, but I contemplated it now. This did solve the issue of distance between us, but I couldn’t imagine leaving my parents and Peyton behind. They’d been my support system for so long. It didn’t feel right to uproot my entire life and move. At the same time, I already ached with the thought of Nash being across the country from me. “I honestly hadn’t thought about it.”

She patted my hand. “No matter what you do, you have me. Forever, okay? You’ll always be my best friend. You have to do what’ll make you happy, even if it means you leave.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, my eyes welling with tears. My emotions were yo-yoing everywhere, and I couldn’t seem to catch my breath.

“Absolutely. Plus, if you go to California, it’ll give me a really good excuse to take a vacation and check out the fabulous sights and weather. And, of course, the men.”

I laughed again, loving her more by the second. “Of course. It seems really fast, though, doesn’t it? Getting together with Nash and then planning on uprooting my entire life to move across the country with him?”

“Bianca, it’s been almost a fucking decade. This isn’t fast, this is slower than a goddamned snail. You have to do what makes you happy, what works best for you. Nash obviously is what makes you happy. Make everything else work around it.”

I nodded, agreeing with her, but too nervous to say anything. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go with Nash. I could always come back here if it didn’t work out, but I knew I’d live in regret if I didn’t at least try. “He hasn’t said anything to me about coming with him when he leaves, though.”

“I’m sure he will. It hasn’t even been twelve hours since everything happened. There hasn’t really been an opportunity.”

She was right, of course. As if on cue, my phone chirped with a text message. I’d plugged it in after I’d gotten changed.

“You’re glowing, B,” Peyton whispered. I glanced up at her, and she was smiling warmly. “It’s right, and you know it.”

“It is, Peyton. It really is.”

“Well, pack a bag and plan to hole up in his hotel for a few days. I’m sure you’ll go back into your bubble of sex and happiness until you come up with another plan.”

She followed me into my room and helped me pack. I left behind all of my professional clothes, knowing I wouldn’t need them. It was strange to think I didn’t have to go back to work in the morning—or any morning for the foreseeable future. I texted Nash to come pick me up and hugged Peyton goodbye, promising to be in touch with her.

Then I left my apartment to go back to Nash. It was surreal that he was waiting for me, and I couldn’t wait to see what the future held for us.

Two weeks later, Nash and I were sitting in a small coffee shop. I watched people bustling by on the street, likely going to work. I was restless. There had never been a time in my life where I wasn’t doing something. I was either at school, making sure my grades were the best they could be, or I was working for As You Wish. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I still woke up at my normal working time, but there wasn’t anything to fill the hours between.

I spent all the time I could with Nash. We went to a few movies, dinners, or hung out like we were now. Sometimes he’d have to disappear for a while for work-related things and my stomach burned. I hated not feeling useful. I needed a purpose. I’d fixed up a resume and applied for some jobs, but nothing was coming up.

My name was in the papers as the reason Nash James and Vivienne Petit broke up. Nash and I had been photographed a few more times. I felt like eyes were on me everywhere. One time, pictures had been published of me walking down the street with a grocery bag. Another, I was with Nash, holding his hand. I’d never felt so scrutinized in my entire life. I was afraid to eat in public in case one of those awful photos of me opening my mouth wide to take a bite were published.

Since the pressure and media scrutiny had gotten so bad, Nash’s people had released a statement about us saying we were friends growing up and we reconnected. He thought it’d help with the way things had been going, but it hadn’t. People wanted a piece of me regardless.

I sighed and rested my chin in my hand. “What’s wrong, Bee?” Nash asked. He was on a laptop, doing something related to his career. Hopelessness gripped my stomach and sunk it.

“I’m thinking about how much my life has changed in the last few weeks.”

He closed his computer and grabbed my hand that was holding my coffee cup. “We’ll figure something out.” He smiled, his thumb rubbing over my knuckles. “That’s actually something I wanted to talk to you about.”

I turned to look at him. “What?”

“I have to go back to California. Felix has been back for a while, and he’s been working on songs. I need to get back there and help him.”

“I thought you were taking time off?” I asked, unease making me slightly dizzy. Everything seemed to be moving at warped speed and I found it hard to keep up.

“I am. You know I’ve been writing songs again. I don’t want to lose it, you know?”

Nash had confided in me about how he’d been unable to write anything for a long time. It was his outlet, how he vented his emotions. The need to put words to music was part of who he was, and he’d felt off kilter without it. In the last week, I’d woken up to find him hunched over the desk in the hotel room, scrawling madly on paper. His inspiration had come back to him. I wasn’t allowed to look at anything he’d written, but I knew I’d hear it in time.

“When do you leave?” I swallowed, a lump forming in my throat.

“I wanted you to come with me,” he said, voice soft. He squeezed my hand and smiled.

“Really?” Of course, Peyton and I had talked about me going with him, but I never really thought I would. I wasn’t sure if he’d want me and I was afraid of leaving everything I’ve ever had behind.

“Absolutely.” He pulled my hand closer and placed a kiss on my palm. “You don’t have a job here anymore. Nothing is holding you back. Come with me. I want you to. I don’t want to be apart from you, not anymore.”

“What about my parents and Peyton?”

“I already talked to Peyton,” he responded. He knew I’d worry about her on her own. I didn’t know if she’d be able to make it on her own financially or if she’d be okay with me going off. She said she was before but saying it and having it become a reality was something completely different. I’d talk to her on my own, but I loved that he wanted to give me peace of mind, that he knew me well enough to understand my worries and fears before they even came up. “She said she’s able to afford the rent on her own. She said that you had refused to take any money from her the past few years because you were convinced she’d have no money. She got sick of fighting it, so she let it go.” He smirked.

“That’s true. I did refuse the money.”

“She was so excited that you might actually go with me that she screamed and babbled gibberish for several minutes before bursting into tears. She wants you to be happy, Bee. She doesn’t want to be a wall preventing you from it.”

My chest warmed, and tears pricked my eyes. I truly had the best friend in the entire world. And the best boyfriend. “Your parents are welcome to visit whenever they want, you know that. Peyton too. And it’s not forever. We won’t go there and never come back, but I do need to get back there for a while. We can visit in a couple months.”

Nerves took flight in my stomach, fluttering against my rib cage and lungs. I wanted to go with him. I’d never thrown caution to the wind and grabbed what I wanted like this—not really. It was tempting to say yes, with his green eyes silently pleading with me. He wanted me to go too. I took a deep breath, hoping to calm the fluttering. “Let’s do it. I’ll come with you.” I squeezed his hand back, the anxiety kicking up a gear. I always thought things out, planned them, weighed pros and cons. This time, I was following my gut and my heart.

Nash grinned a sexy and irresistible grin and stood, sweeping me into his arms and kissing me. As usual, I lost my thoughts as his lips moved with mine. “I’m so happy, Bee,” he murmured against my mouth.

“I am too.”

And I meant it. I was happy even with the restlessness I felt. I’d find a purpose, a career, but I’d never find love like I had with this man ever again. I had to protect, nurture, and savor these feelings. I’d lived too long denying them.