I should have been happy. Fuck, I should have been over-the-moon thrilled. My solo album—the project I had poured my life and energy into for months—was climbing the charts rapidly. Critics were raving, fans were lining up at concerts, the world was going nuts. I should have been drinking champagne and partying with rock stars and models and having the time of my fucking life.

Instead I was alone in my cabin with a bottle of the best whiskey I could get, trying to drink Mia out of my system. It wasn’t working.

I was a fucking idiot.

I should have never gotten involved with her. Anyone with brains would have seen that sleeping with Mia, that being with her, would have ended this way. Because Luke was right. I was a scumbag. A scumbag who didn’t deserve someone like Mia.

And now I had broken her heart and damaged my own in the process.

Fucking scumbag.

My phone rang and for a brief, wonderful moment, I held out hope that it was Mia.

It was Zoey. I put her on speakerphone and poured myself another glass of whiskey.

“Are you drinking?” she asked as a greeting.

“No,” I lied.

“Bullshit,” she told me. “Get yourself together, James,” she ordered. “You can’t keep hiding out in your little cabin in the woods when you’re about to have the number one record in the country.”

I wanted to feel happy, but all I felt was loneliness.

“That’s great,” I said numbly.

“Austin.” Zoey’s voice became gentle. “This is not healthy.”

“I’ll be fine,” I told her. “I just need some time.”

“How much time?” she wanted to know. “Because the VMAs want you to open for them next weekend.”

“I can’t,” I said.

For most of my life, the only place I felt loved and accepted was on stage. Until Mia. With her, I had felt everything I had always wanted—everything I had always dreamed of. I felt safe with her. Loved. Accepted. And now that I knew that, I also knew that the high from being on stage would never again come close to how it had felt to be with her.

“What?” Zoey practically shrieked into my ear. “Austin! This is huge. You can’t turn them down.”

“I can,” I told her. “And I am.”

Then I hung up.

I drank some more and passed out on my couch. When I came to it was because someone was kicking at my feet. I opened my eyes and blinked blearily up at the large form looming over me.

“What are you doing?” Luke demanded.

I sprang up off the couch, fists up. My cheek had healed from our last encounter but I wasn’t about to get punched in the face again. Even if I deserved it.

“Calm down, Chuck Norris,” Luke teased. “I’m not going to hit you again.”

I lowered my arms, but still remained tense. We hadn’t spoken since the fight in the alley, and I had no idea what Luke was doing here. I wondered if I should have changed the locks. But instead of punching me or yelling at me—both things I would have deserved—Luke just sat down on the couch I had vacated and put his feet up on the coffee table.

“So,” he said. “You and my sister, huh?”

My mouth dropped open. What the fuck was this?

“Come on.” He patted the couch next to him. “After getting my ass handed to me by Mia, I figured I might as well try to hear your side of the story.”

“You spoke to Mia?” I asked, dropping down onto the couch.

He nodded, pouring himself a glass of whiskey and taking a long drink. “She wasn’t too pleased with me, as you can imagine.”

I winced. I’d rather get punched in the face a dozen times by Luke than face Mia’s wrath. But still, I couldn’t help feeling jealous that she was speaking to her brother. Not that I expected her to speak to me ever again. Not after what I had done.

“Come on,” Luke urged, taking another drink of whiskey. “I’m still pissed about the whole thing, but I’m going to be understanding here. So, tell me why you would lie to me and break the bro code, and follow that up by breaking my little sister’s heart.”

Guilt slammed into me like a truck.

“I didn’t mean to,” I told him.

“Didn’t mean to what?” he wanted to know. “Lie to me, or break her heart?”

“Both,” I confessed. “The whole thing was a mistake.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “A mistake?”

“I never should have gotten involved with her.” I leaned back against the cushions. “I was shortsighted and selfish. And you were right. She deserves better.”

“Not according to her, she doesn’t,” Luke told me.

“What?”

“She still cares about you.” Luke put his glass down and crossed his arms. “Hell, she probably loves you, though she’d never admit that to me.”

The thought that Mia might love me made my chest hurt. Because if she did love me, then I was completely unworthy of that emotion. Because I was completely unworthy of her. And my recent actions had done more than prove that.

Still, I couldn’t deny the sense of hope that surged through me.

“You think she loves me?” I wanted to know, while knowing that I sounded exactly like a love-struck teen girl when I asked it.

“Yeah, I do,” Luke said. “And I think you’re a total moron if you let her go like this.”

I stared at him.

“You’re not mad about us?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“Fuck yeah I’m still mad,” Luke told me. “But I’m way madder at the thought that after all this, you’re hurting her. As if what the two of you went through meant nothing.”

“It didn’t,” I ran my hand through my hair. “Mia is . . .” I searched for the right word. “She’s special. And she deserves someone special.”

“If I’ve learned anything about my sister recently, it’s that she’s the only one who can decide who is special enough for her.” Luke looked at me. “And apparently she thinks that’s you.”

“She might have lost her mind,” I told him.

He shrugged. “Maybe. Probably. But are you really going to be the one to tell her that she’s wrong?” He shuddered. “I can’t imagine there’s any man alive who can tell my sister that she’s wrong.”

I laughed a little at that, his words swirling around my head.

What if he was right? What if it didn’t matter what my demons were telling me? If Mia thought I was right for her, then maybe that was enough. Maybe that’s what love was—believing you were worthy because someone told you that you were. It was definitely the first time in my life that I had considered it was possible.

I stood up, knowing what I needed to do.

“Where are you going?” Luke asked.

I grabbed my jacket. “There’s somewhere I need to be,” I told him, and headed out the door.