Jazz stepped off the bus and tucked her secondhand iPod in her pocket. The ink on the shred of paper gripped in her other hand would probably run soon. Her palms were so damp she couldn’t stop wiping them on her jeans.

Just do it. One foot in front of the other. Keep walking.

She dug out the address and made her way to the end of the block, biting her lip the whole time. She should’ve called first. A landline phone number had been included in the listing, so she should’ve used it.

I could call from outside.

No, she didn’t have many minutes left on her phone and she wasn’t going to be that much of a coward. It had been two years since she’d seen him, but that wasn’t all that long in the scheme of things. Only seven hundred something days. Barely a blink.

When she stood beside the patchy lawn of the home Gray now lived in, she flexed her fingers and imagined limbering up for a lengthy session behind the kit. It was about mental endurance as much as anything else. Playing on past the point of pain and frustration and exhaustion, even when the notes wouldn’t fall right and nothing sounded the way it did in her head. She never buckled, never stopped.

No matter what greeted her on the other side of this door, she would be fine. Unbreakable. Fucking granite.

Then he opened the door, his dark, wavy hair falling past his bare shoulders—he’d lost his shirt somewhere along the way—and his jeans hugging lean hips, and she forgot all about being stone. One glimpse was like hot lava, melting her on sight.

The cool frost burned away in his eyes, leaving only heat. “Jazz.” Her name sounded like a prayer.

“Yeah.” She smiled and adjusted her knapsack over her shoulder. “You look good.”

“Thanks. So do you.” He rubbed his hand over his mouth. “Uh, do you want to come in? You look hot. I mean, thirsty. It’s brutal out there. Want a drink? Not alcohol. Like lemonade.”

When she started to laugh, he grinned. “Fuck this noise.” He locked his arms around her waist, hauling her straight off her feet and over the threshold. She laughed harder and locked her arms around his neck, wondering how it could still feel this right. Nothing had changed. He was the lock for her key. The hand for her glove.

Fuck it, he was her everything. Still. Always.

He finally set her down, though she doubted her feet would ever truly touch the ground again. “How are you? What are you doing now?”

“Not much. I’m working at the waffle house. What about you?”

“Teaching music theory to some kindergarten kids as part of an internship.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “I still have one year left at Berkeley.”

“That’s awesome. And you’re no longer living with your parents.”

His face closed down. “No. I haven’t since it happened.” He held up a hand. “Don’t ask me how they are, because I don’t know. We don’t talk anymore.”

“Gray,” she said, barely unable to speak. He’d given up his family for her, and they hadn’t even been in contact. She’d never met anyone more selfless.

“Don’t. It’s done.” He scratched his chest and she tried not to watch his muscles ripple. So many freaking muscles. “What else are you up to?”

“I just finished school.”

“That’s great. Where’d you end up?”

“Trawler Community College. I finished up my high school credits and got a certificate in Early Childhood Development in one fell swoop.” She gave him a sheepish smile. “Turns out they have programs for fuckup dropouts like me.”

“Shut up. You weren’t ever a fuckup.”

“But I did drop out.”

“It isn’t dropping out if you end up somewhere better.” He tucked her hair behind her ear as he always had. “I’m so proud of you.”

She fought not to blush. “Thanks. I’m in a band.”

“Huh. Imagine that.” His grin grew. “Me too.”

“Oh yeah?” She knew exactly which one. She’d only stalked him to clubs in the area about ten times over the past year. “Maybe we should compare notes.”

“Maybe we should.” He frowned, tilting his head as he rubbed his fingers over her crowded earlobe. She was up to half a dozen piercings. “What the hell did you do to your hair?”

“Took you long enough to notice.”

“Oh, I noticed.” He rubbed his hand over the shaved part of her head that transitioned into long pink and green waves on the side. “You look fucking amazing.”

“But not hot,” she teased.

He started to respond when a door shut down the hall. She’d assumed he lived with a couple of roommates, so that didn’t surprise her. But when a curvaceous blonde came down the hall wearing just a nightshirt, carrying a basket of laundry that clearly contained a pile of boxers, Jazz stumbled back. Her heels hit the floor, hard.

“Hey, I couldn’t find the dryer sheets you bought. Are they in the—” The blonde trailed off and smiled at Jazz. “Hi. I didn’t realize we had guests. I’m Amber.” She anchored the laundry basket against her hip. “Man, your hair is sweet.”

Jazz laughed because what else could she do? Cry? Well, yeah, but that’d be later, when she was alone. “Thanks. I’m Jazz.”

“Awesome to meet you. Are you one of Gray’s music friends? You look like one of them.” She pursed her lips. “Oh my, that sounded bad. I mean, you dress funky like they do, with the ripped jeans and the cool hair and all. Of course your ass is half the size of mine.” She paused, apparently noticing Gray had yet to speak. He actually didn’t seem to be breathing, so that wasn’t too surprising. “Notice he’s not arguing with me,” she added.

“Jazz is my foster sister,” he said, almost robotically.

Jazz flinched before she could control it. You walked away. Remember that. “Used to be,” she said, making her voice as cheery as possible. “Now I’m just the girl with crazy hair he used to know.”

She turned to reach for the door, surprised to find it was still open. They’d just started talking without even closing it. Forgetting everything around them, just like the old days.

Not anymore.

“Jazz, wait.”

“I wish I could hang out longer, but I have practice. You know, us wild music types have to play as much as possible.” She smiled at Amber over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you.”

“I’ll be right back,” Gray said to Amber, following Jazz onto the sidewalk.

When she just kept walking, he grabbed her arm and spun her back. “That’s it? You’re just leaving?”

“What do you expect me to do? You have a girlfriend. She’s even pretty.”

He frowned. “Did you expect me to have one that’s not?”

“No, but it would’ve been more considerate.”

“Woman, I don’t fucking understand you. You took off for two years without a word. You gave me a fake address and a fake phone number, swapped cell numbers and dropped out of school. You did everything you could to break contact with me. What the hell did you expect me to do? Hold my dick for two years?”

“I’m not supposed to think about your dick. Because I’m your foster sister, remember?”

He swore under his breath. “What am I supposed to do? Tell me.”

“It’s already done.” She shook her head and kept walking, anchoring her knapsack higher on her shoulder. “I’ll see you around. Maybe on the cover of a magazine. Or maybe YouTube. Lots of artists get discovered on there nowadays.”

“Jesus, Jazz, wait. I couldn’t just hit the pause button on my life.”

“I know. And neither can I.”

“So that’s it? This is really the end.” He let out a harsh laugh. “I got you back only to lose you all over again.”

She stopped at the end of the sidewalk and turned back, sucking him down one last time. Bathed in unrelenting sunshine, he seemed to glisten with life and vitality. The golden boy she would always love, no matter what.

“With us, you never know.”