It was Giselle’s idea, really. After everyone had finally filtered out of the suite, leaving the three of us alone, she sighed and said, “I don’t think I can make it another week here.”

The thing was, I agreed with her. I’d come to Oceanside to reconnect with my past, to recharge my soul, but since I’d gotten here I had hardly picked up my guitar, hardly thought of a single note of music, and had spent very little time actually in the town. Now everyone knew I was here, which would make it that much harder. My little fortress of solitude, this penthouse suite, wasn’t going to be quiet and empty anymore. It was back to business as usual, and I wasn’t ready to go back to that yet.

“She has a point,” I said to Toby.

“Don’t you start,” he said. “You’re the whole reason we’re here.”

“I was thinking about the mountains,” I said.

“Oh!” said Giselle. “I know the most charming chalet in the Lötschental, my friend Ingrid stayed there last winter--”

I shook my head. “Something more local. One of the resorts upstate. What about Eagle Ridge?”

All the life drained out of her. “Local.”

Toby nodded. “Makes sense. Plenty of time to get back here for more planning meetings.”

“But...mountains here?” Giselle said plaintively. “Do they even have snow?”

“You don’t have to go, you know,” I said. “You could stay here, absorb more of the town’s flavor, while I--”

“Say no more,” she said.

Toby looked like he was doing math in his head. “I’m not crazy about the idea. We haven’t gotten nearly as much coverage of you and Giselle in town as I would’ve liked. Still, a mountain retreat would be photogenic, more appropriate for fall. As long as we’re back here to get footage of the two of you during the parade, we should be good.”

I felt a little guilty about springing the next part on them, but hey, what’s the point of being a pop star if you can’t be a little capricious? “I’m inviting Cave,” I said.

The room went absolutely silent.

“Ransom,” said Toby.

“Don’t try to change my mind.”

“We literally just talked about this!”

I shook my head. “No. What we talked about was me keeping secrets about it. So I’m being as open as I can be.”

“Oh, that is it,” said Giselle. “Why am I even here? What do I have to show for it, other than a few pictures on my photostream of Ransom in front of some ugly lobsters?”

“Look, don’t take offense,” I said, “but you two caused this problem. When I got here, nobody knew I was in town. If I’d wanted to see anyone, I could’ve kept it quiet. But Toby, you wanted to be sure the world knew where I was, and Giselle, you were the method to make that happen. So guess what? I don’t want ten thousand screaming fans staring at me right now. I would just like to have a chance to spend some time with Cave, like a normal person.”

Toby stared at me over the tops of his glasses. “Like a normal person who can whisk away to the mountains at a moment’s notice.”

“Why is this even a discussion? Why is this any of your business?” I asked. “I’m sick of being chaperoned. I’m a grown man, Toby. If I want to see someone, I shouldn’t have to plan it all out with our social media team--or have to try to cover it up behind closed curtains and locked doors.”

He glanced over at Giselle, then back to me. “Exactly how serious is this relationship?” he asked.

“That’s just the point. I wouldn’t call it serious. I wouldn’t even call it a relationship. But whenever you have to hide something, it makes it seem so much more serious--”

“Oh come on,” said Giselle. “Call it whatever you like, but you were making goo-goo eyes at him our entire walk.”

“I was not!”

“Honestly, it was embarrassing to see.”

Toby threw up his hands. “If you must see him, why don’t you just invite him to the suite? Giselle and I will make ourselves scarce, and--”

“--and we can hide behind closed doors again,” I said. “And there would be all this pressure because now we’ve asked you to leave. Don’t you see, I just want to be normal? I don’t want to have to move heaven and earth just to spend five minutes with somebody. I don’t want to have to hide, I don’t want to have to take precautions, I just want to do whatever it is normal people do when they meet someone they might like.”

“I always kidnap people I’m interested in to fly them to the mountains,” said Giselle. “Also, if Ransom gets to invite Cave, I’m inviting Rhody.”

“That’s not how this works!” shouted Toby. “Who the hell is Rhody?”

“Huh,” I said. “That makes a certain amount of sense.”

“A certain amount?” said Giselle. “It’s perfect. It solves all of Toby’s concerns. It’s such a good solution, in fact, that I am amazed neither of you thought of it first, but then maybe you were too caught up in your little tiff.”

“Okay, before you start congratulating yourself,” said Toby, “Who is Rhody, and why will he or she solve my concerns?”

“She’s an old friend of Ransom’s,” said Giselle. “And of Cave’s.”

“And aside from making this trip down memory lane more expensive, what value does she add?”

Giselle rolled her eyes, as though it were all self-explanatory. “If anyone were to find out about this little jaunt, then Rhody can pose as Cave’s love interest like I’m posing as Ransom’s. Just two straight couples, straighting it up on some utterly uninspiring local mountain. As a bonus, it’ll give me someone to talk to other than you two old ladies.”

Toby looked utterly defeated. “I just give up,” he said. “Do whatever you want. I’ll clean it up the best I can, but I tell you this, Ransom: You’re taking a big risk.”

* * *

“I mean, it’s a bit sudden,” Cave said through the phone.

“There’s a lodge up at Eagle Ridge, very exclusive. Gorgeous lake, lots of forest,” I said. “I was thinking of getting out of town for a day or two, and going up there.”

Playing it so cool. Oh, the mountains just popped into my head, thought I’d go, no big deal.

“It sounds great,” said Cave. His voice was different than it had been this morning. All the energy sounded drained out of him. Was something wrong, I wondered. Did he not want to go?

Wait, why was I being insecure? I’d managed to bully everyone into giving me my way. I should’ve been extra secure.

But what if he didn’t want to go with me?

“So I can put you down as a yes?” I asked.

Again that hesitation. “I don’t know...” he said. I heard someone in the background speaking to him, but couldn’t tell what they were saying. Did he have his own Toby and Giselle, trying to hold him back?

“You can think about it,” I said, again trying to inject that no big deal into my voice.

“It’s just, it would be really difficult for me to get away right now. Jojo is teething, and he’s so unpredictable about it. And work is piling up...I mean, all that time I spent with you today, I was supposed to be working,” he said with a tired laugh.

I should have just let it go at that. He was too busy to go. But I’d spent so long arguing with Toby and Giselle about it that I almost felt like he had to go. I’d removed every obstacle so far, hadn’t I? Couldn’t I remove a few more?

“Look, we can hire a nanny to come with us,” I said. “Someone really professional, someone who you can trust. As for your work, you know what, outsource it to my social media people. I’ll get them on the case. They can work directly with your local guys.”

His long pause made me nervous. I didn’t know what to think. I’d just offered so much. Would he find that a little weird? A lot weird? Would it make him feel weighed down with an obligation to come? That would be awful. I just hated for all this stuff to get in the way. Like I told Toby, I just wanted to be normal. But...sometimes to get to normal, you have to do a lot of crazy things.

“You’d do that?” he said, finally. “A nanny? Really?”

“It’ll be a little vacation for both of you,” I said. “Jojo loves meeting new people. He’ll love the mountains. We can even bring Isabel. Hell, I’ll hire a dog-walker for her too.”

He laughed. “I guess I can’t say no to that.”

I held the phone away from me and sighed deeply with relief. My shoulders had been so tense. Gathering myself, I said, “Glad to hear it. I’ll text you some details, okay? See you soon.”

“Okay. And...Ransom?”

“Yeah?”

“This is honestly the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me. I’m really excited.”

“No big deal,” I lied.