Bristol

TAP, TAP, TAP.

I look up from the suitcase I’m packing. Someone’s knocking on the door of Grady’s guest bedroom. I hastily tuck the cheap whistle Grip won for me at the carnival into the bag and zip it up. When I open the door, Rhyson stands in the hall.

“Can I come in?” His dark hair, always a gorgeous mess, flops into his eyes.

“Sure.” I step back and wave him in, sitting on the bed and waiting to hear what he has to say. We’ve had very little time alone since the night we talked after the club. We spent yesterday with his friends, and he had to go back to the studio last night.

“All packed, huh?” He eyes my huge suitcase.

“Looks that way.” A small, sad smile touches my mouth. “I’ll miss LA. Who’d have thought?”

“Will you miss LA, or will you miss your big brother?” he teases.

“Not this big brother stuff again.”

“I haven’t been much of one.” His smile fades. “A brother, I mean.”

Instead of answering, I wait for him to go on.

He shakes his head. “It’s so hard to know what to trust when it comes to them, to our parents.”

“You can trust me to be who I say I am, Rhyson. Your sister.” I tilt my chin and flash him some confidence in the form of a smile. “You’ll see that when I’m managing that career for you.”

“I don’t have a career.” He laughs and leans back on the bed, propped on his elbows.

“But you will. You should. And when you do, I’ll be right there to help you.”

“You can’t build plans around something that hasn’t happened yet.”

“Idiot, what do you think dreams are if not plans we make based on things that haven’t happened yet?”

We laugh a little, and I lie back beside him, resting my head on his shoulder. What I wouldn’t have given years ago to have my brother like this. To have time with him when he wasn’t rehearsing or touring or doing whatever was required of him.

“Don’t you have any dreams of your own?” he asks.

Grip’s face, his soft touches and promises in the dark waters last night, come to mind. I want to believe him because those kisses on the Ferris wheel, in the fun house, in the ocean were the best of my life. The conversations we’ve had this week changed me. No controversy, no memory, no hope or fear was off limits. They have woven themselves—he has woven himself—into the fabric of my dreams so quickly it frightens me.

“I do have dreams,” I finally answer. “And they’re all here now.”

He smiles at me slowly and nods.

“We better get going.” Rhyson glances at his watch, and it makes me think of the cheap watch I won for Grip last night. I shake off memories of the carnival as Rhyson rolls the Louis bag out of my room and down the hall.

“It’s a shame I didn’t get to see Uncle Grady this trip.”

“Next time,” Rhyson says. “But there are some people who want to tell you goodbye.”

When we enter the living room, my new friends are all there. Jimmi, Luke, Mandi, and standing at the back of the group is Grip, his eyes a beautifully laid trap I stumble into and can’t wriggle free of.

“Oh, you guys.” I wrap my arms around Jimmi, who squeezes me so tightly I can barely breathe.

“I feel like I found a new bestie.” Jimmi blinks tears from her big blue eyes. “We have to talk every week, and you have to come back soon. And I can come to New York, too.”

“Deal.” I smile through a few tears of my own. “We’ll stay in touch. Don’t worry.”

I haven’t spent as much time with Luke and Mandi, but it’s still sweet of them to show up to say goodbye to me. They’re both cool, and Rhyson is lucky to have this tight-knit circle of people in his life. I don’t really have anything like them in New York, and it makes me want to wish away the next two years at Columbia so I can move here right away.

And then there’s Grip.

We take a few careful steps toward each other, and I feel like everyone’s watching us.

“Thank you for everything,” I say softly, leaving a few inches between us. His eyes burn a mute plea for more.

“No problem. Sure.”

He glances down at the floor before slipping his arms around my waist and dragging me against his warm, hard body. Not caring what Rhyson or anyone else thinks, I tip up on my toes and hook my elbows behind his neck as tightly as I can. His hands spread over my back, fitting my curves to all his ridges and planes.

“You come back to me, okay?” he whispers in my ear. “Slow doesn’t mean stop, right?”

My cheeks fire up, and I glance self-consciously at the others, but they aren’t paying attention. Rhyson is rolling my suitcase out to the car, and Mandi, Luke, and Jimmi are talking about last night at the beach swimming nude. Or semi-nude. Jimmi was the only one brave/crazy enough to be fully naked.

“No, slow doesn’t mean stop,” I agree. “In fact—”

His phone ringing interrupts me telling him I plan to come back this summer when I have a few days off from my internship.

“Lemme grab this,” he says frowning at the phone. “It’s Jade.”

I remember her name from the story he told me on the Ferris wheel. The one he still feels guilt over.

“Hey, whassup?” He presses the phone to his ear, and his brows snap together. “Why’d you tell her I was here?”

I turn away, heeding Rhyson’s call to come on or I’ll miss my flight. We walk outside to load up the car so we can get on the road. Rhyson and Grip are taking me, and I’m not sure if we should tell Rhyson what has been going on or not. It feels like such a fledgling thing but still substantial enough that he should know. I’m still silently debating when a Toyota Camry pulls up to the curb, and a curvy woman with dark brown skin and black, curly hair gets out. A scowl mars her beautiful face, and anger has her arms swinging at her side with her long strides.

“Where is he?” she demands of Rhyson without any preamble.

“Uh, hey, Tessa.” Rhyson glances up the driveway and widens his eyes meaningfully at his best friend.

Rhyson may be looking at Grip, but Grip is looking at me, and if I didn’t know better, I would say he’s panicking. Before I have time to process what’s happening, how my world is about to be ripped into tiny pieces, Tessa begins her tirade.

“How you gonna ignore my calls and text messages?” Yelling, she fits her hands to the swell of her hips. “For two damn weeks, Grip?”

“I didn’t.” Grip looks at me with troubled eyes over her shoulder and then back to her face. “We just kept missing each other. What’s going on? What’s this about?”

“This is about me trying to tell you something I wanted to talk about in person, not over some voice mail.” Her strident voice pitches across the yard at him.

“Okay, damn, Tessa,” Grips says, irritation evident on his face. “I’m going with Rhyson to take his sister to the airport. Can we talk later? When I get back?”

“Who is she?” I whisper to Rhyson.

“That’s Tessa.” Rhyson stretches his eyebrows until they disappear under his unruly hair. “Grip’s girlfriend.”

“His girl—” I choke on the rest of the word as a tight hand vices my throat. That can’t be. Last night’s water-dappled promises and sea salt kisses. The perfect kiss under the stars at the top of the world. All lies? We shared deep, dark lonely things. We shared everything, and it was the most honest connection I’ve ever had with anyone. And under it all was the lie that he could be mine? That maybe I could be his? That he didn’t belong to someone else? He would have said.

“No, we can’t talk when you get back,” Tessa snaps. “We need to talk now. I’m sick of chasing your ass down. You are taking responsibility for this.”

“Responsibility?” Grip shakes his head and shrugs “For what?”

“For this baby, that’s for what,” she retorts with harsh smugness.

His wide eyes snap to my face, and any doubt that she might be the one lying, that somehow this is all a prank, a hidden camera stunt, dissolve. That guard I forgot about and dropped all week falls back into place over my heart just in time.

We don’t cry in front of strangers.

My mother’s admonition, the voice of reason in my head that I ignored the last few days, slips iron discs between my vertebrae.

“Rhyson, can we go?” I ask. “I can’t miss my flight home.”

“Bristol!” Grip yells over the screeching banshee with wildly gesticulating arms in front of him. “Wait. I can—”

I open the door to Rhyson’s car and get in, not wanting to hear the dollar-late, day-short explanations disguising his lies.

Rhyson gets in, glancing over his shoulder at the spectacle on the yard, the beautiful woman screaming at Grip’s rigid face and ticking jaw. He looks at me through the car window, his eyes begging me for something I won’t give.

Second chances.

“Drive, Rhyson.” My voice is rock and resolve. “Let your friend sort his shit out. I’m going home.”