“Hey,” I answer softly, ignoring the spears of pain jabbing into my chest as I wander away to a quiet corner of the bar. I pace back and forth before I realize I’m right in front of the door. Someone opens it into my back and walks through it with a muttered apology. It was my fault. It was stupid to stand in front of a door. I’m not paying attention to my surroundings because I’m trying to focus on keeping my heart from beating out of my chest as I take a phone call I don’t want to take right now.
“Hey.”
“How’s Germany?”
“Lonely without you. Remind me when you’re getting here again?”
Here it is. My opening. My chance to tell him I decided I’m not coming.
Someone starts playing with the sound system, checking to see if the microphones are working. The voice blares loudly behind me and I jump, startled. “Test one. Test two. Test one. One. One.” The mics definitely have sound.
“Where are you?” he asks.
A flash of fear tightens my chest. “At a bar.”
“With who?”
I clear my throat. “A friend. Can I call you back?”
“I’m heading to bed.”
“What are you doing up so late?”
“Jet lag, I guess. I went out for a bit. I miss you.”
This is where I say I miss you, too. But I’m already holding enough truths back from him. I can’t outright lie to him with his voice in my ear.
I’m tempted to ask where he went and who he went with. Where’s out? What does that mean?
I remind myself that I just traveled to Los Angeles on Mark’s private jet with every intention of spending the next couple days by Mark’s side. I have no right to ask him any of those questions.
The severity of what I’m doing slams into me with the force of a freight train. I’m giving into whims because of some fantasy. I think back to the morning I met Brian when I was stepping off the elevator leaving Mark’s place. I remember thinking I needed to write my own rule book because I didn’t know how to walk out of a one-night stand with a rock star.
I can’t even fathom how far off course I’ve traveled since that morning.
I need a new rule book: How to Live with Yourself when You’re Doing Everything Wrong.
“I, uh...” I trail off. I can’t force myself to say something I don’t mean. “I don’t think I’m going to be able to come to Germany.” I blurt it out because if I don’t, I’ll lose my nerve.
“What? Why not?”
“It’s just...” What? It’s just what? It’s just that I’m not coming to Germany because I want a week alone with Mark more than I want to fly to Germany to see you. It’s just that I’m in love with your brother. It’s just that I love you, too, but it’s not enough. I love him more. It’s just that I’m an awful person and you deserve better than I can give you.
The truth should be told in person. This isn’t an over the phone kind of conversation. Even if I leave Mark out of it, which I will...he still needs to hear it from me in person. I don’t even register how hard that’ll be because it doesn’t matter. It’s the right thing to do.
So despite the vow to myself that I’m going to tell him the truth, I lie. “My principal asked if I could teach the last week of summer school.”
The door opens and more people enter the bar. I guess I could move away from the corner by the door, but I don’t know where else to go. I don’t want Morgan and Angelique to hear me, and I can’t exactly go back where the boys are.
Show time is quickly approaching. The crowd is starting to gather.
“And you said yes?”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Reese.”
Ain’t that the truth? “I was his last option. The other teacher had a family emergency.”
“But your ticket’s non-refundable.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back. It’s bad timing anyway for me with school coming so quickly.”
I hear an audible sigh over the phone. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just disappointed.”
“Me, too.”
“I thought it’d be a fun last vacation for you before school started back up.”
“It would have been.”
“I need to get some sleep. Early morning and all that.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
He doesn’t acknowledge my apology. “Night.”
“Night.” He ends the call, and I stare at my phone for a beat.
The picture in the background behind my apps is one of Brian and me. I look genuinely happy in the photo. I flip to the last page of my apps. I purposely put only one app on the last page so I can flip to the picture of us I love so much that I set it as my phone’s background. I study us. He’s smiling. His eyes are crinkled at the corners, his lips are turned up.
My imagination might be working overtime, or I could be reading something I want to see as a way to excuse my behavior, but for the first time, I notice something’s missing. It’s something in Brian’s smile. Something in the way his head is tilted away from me instead of toward me. I’ve looked at this same picture hundreds of times—every time I open my phone, really—and I’ve given it a longer gaze when we were apart, when I was thinking of him or missing him. I never noticed it before, but something’s definitely off.
I’m looking at it through a different lens now. Before, Brian was the one in my heart. Now, I’ve chosen Mark. Funny how those lenses can so drastically change the way I view the exact same picture I’ve looked at hundreds of times.
Morgan and Angelique are still at the bar. Before I go back to them and my wine, I change the picture of Brian and me to one of Jill and me as guilt burns in my chest.
* * *
“Our job is to stay out of the way,” Morgan explains as we walk around backstage. “Usually Angie and I have chairs set up for us backstage and we watch from back here, but there’s not a good backstage area here, so we can go out to the bar if we want tonight.”
We’re not allowed in the green room right now because of whatever the boys do for their pregame, and we didn’t want to sit in the bar anymore as the room started filling with party-goers. Angelique is sitting in one of the offices with a glass of wine and her cell phone, and Morgan’s giving me the rundown of what happens backstage before a show. Men move trunks and instruments, and Morgan surveys the area as we stand back and step out of the way.
I haven’t even seen Mark since we got here forty-five minutes ago. I need to see him, need to talk to him. I need to tell him about my phone call with Brian. Brian’s one question keeps playing over in my mind: Where are you?
His tone had been so accusatory. Surely he’s been backstage at his brother’s shows, heard the roadie test the microphone. But, on the other hand, those same things probably happen at any band’s performance.
But then I told him I wasn’t coming to Germany. I wonder what he’s thinking—and whether he suspects something’s up with me, though I doubt he’d ever think something was going on between his brother and me.
I’m snapped out of my thoughts when Morgan yanks my arm. I tumble back and almost fall, but I regain my balance at the last second as two men carrying what looks like a heavy trunk scurry by us.
“Are you okay?” Morgan asks.
I nod and brush my hands down my jeans.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to get run over.”
I shake my head. “It’s okay.”
“You seemed lost in thought.”
“I need to talk to Mark.”
She nods. “I hate that feeling. Like you need to see him, but you can’t. You won’t get him alone until after the show, and even then he’ll have other stuff to do.”
“Like what?”
“The meet and greet, and usually after smaller private events, they’ll either invite fans to the green room or go mingle for a bit.”
“They mingle? Like regular guys?”
“They are regular guys. Well, regular guys with security and bodyguards who follow them around.” She laughs. “They didn’t claim their spot at the top by ignoring their fans. Just sometimes Mark and Ethan give a little too much attention to certain fans, if you know what I mean.”
My eyebrows furrow as I feel a little like I was just punched in the gut.
“Oh...I—I’m sorry,” she stutters. “I meant before you. Mark with one girl...it’s just gonna take some getting used to.”
Her apology and subsequent explanation don’t help the sting of her words. I’m a fan he gave too much attention to. Mark claims I’m more, and I believe him...but I’m terrified it’s not enough.
I think of Angelique over in the office by herself. Is it a lonely existence to base your entire life around what your significant other does? Morgan doesn’t seem to feel that way, but she’s found her niche with the band. She’s outgoing and sweet, and as she told me earlier, she acts as the band nurse. She still has an identity of her own.
I think of what a future with Mark would look like. I wouldn’t be able to continue teaching—especially not seniors. They’d be too distracted by my personal life to learn anything, and besides, I wouldn’t want to be away from him for months out of the year. Like Morgan and Angelique, I’d want to go on tour with him when the band does.
Would he want me there, though?
These are all the types of things I need to discuss with him, but what we have is still so new—and not just new, but it’s supposed to be a secret, too. At least from the man we’re deceiving.
“Do they get nervous before shows?” I ask, directing the subject away from Mark and his past indiscretions.
She nods. “We’re always allowed in for the pregame shot after they do their little ritual. It’s the last thing they do before they huddle then run onstage, and I always see the spark of nerves before a show. They’d never admit it, but I know them well enough that I can read it on their faces. You’d think that’d stop after how many times they’ve done this, but it doesn’t go away.”
“Who gets most nervous?”
“Ethan.”
“No way!”
“Mark is the most confident, or at least the best at masking his nerves. As the front man, he has to be. He talks to the crowd the most. He works the stage. He somehow makes every person there feel like he’s singing directly to them.”
“I know what you mean. I’ve felt that every time I’ve seen them live.”
“Doesn’t matter if you’re in the last row of the top floor, furthest from the stage. He’s talking to you, singing to you.”
We’re both quiet as we watch the flurry of activity around us. I see a roadie carrying what I recognize as Mark’s signature guitar, and my heart flutters. I’m the one who will be going home with him tonight.
“Why does Angelique hate me?” I ask.
“She doesn’t,” she says softly. “She’s just protective of our boys.”
“And you’re not?”
“Oh, I am. But I like you. I got the immediate sense that you’re going to be around for more than just tonight.”
“How?”
“Nothing you did. It’s the way Mark acts around you.”
I step back out of another roadie’s way. “You only saw us together for a few seconds.”
“I know. That’s all I needed. He’s hooked on you. I’ve never seen him kiss a girl like he kissed you. It gave me little flutters.”
I laugh. “Me too.”
Angelique appears beside me. “It’s time,” she says.
Time for what? I want to ask, but I don’t.
Angelique still doesn’t look at me, and I get the feeling tonight isn’t the night to win her over. If Morgan’s right and Mark is hooked on me, I’ll get another chance. I’m generally a people-pleaser, though, and it hurts to know someone doesn’t like me, especially when she hasn’t even given me a chance.
But that’s what a life with him would be like. Millions of women around the globe would automatically hate me simply because of who I’m linked with.
I follow the ladies into the green room with that thought in my mind.
All four men are sitting around the small table now, each with a drink in front of him. Several security guards gather in one corner. The only one I recognize is Vinny. Gorgeous women mill around the room, but they all seem to have jobs to do—it’s not like they’re here to hook up. They stand around chatting with each other rather than focusing on the guys in the band, and I wonder how many of these same women were backstage at Mandalay Bay when I walked into the dressing room and assumed they all wanted Mark.
A bottle of Jägermeister sits on a counter behind the band members with several shot glasses. Morgan walks right over to the counter without even stopping to kiss her husband. Angelique stands behind Steve. I glance around awkwardly, not sure where to go or what to do. I don’t know my place here. I finally look over at Mark, and his gaze is pinned on me.
I see something new there in his eyes, something I’ve never seen—but I’ve also never been with him right before he’s about to take the stage.
He’s nervous, just like Morgan said he’d be. She said he masks it best, but I can still read it there. The thought makes me feel like I know him on a deeper level than I’ve given us credit for.
Without words, just the slightest angle of his head, he calls me to him. I walk over behind him, and he yanks me so my body aligns with his back. He leans his head onto my stomach. I wonder if he can feel the flutters tumbling around in there. He pulls my hand down onto his shoulder, holding it there for a few beats. I flash back to that night when I went to the casino with Brian and he did the same thing to me—pulled my hand onto his shoulder and then called me his good luck charm.
I shake Brian out of my head because I don’t want him here, not when I’m with Mark. Not when Mark needs me.
But no matter how much I shake him out, he’s still here, wedged between Mark and me, the elephant in the room, the shame in my heart, the guilt in my blood.
I glance over at Ethan, and he’s pinning me with a glare. I’m thankful for the friendly eyes of Morgan, James, and Steve, because honestly Angelique and Ethan are almost enough to discourage me from a relationship with Mark.
Almost enough.
Nothing could keep me away from him.
Even as I think it, I hope nothing isn’t just a famous last word for us.
Morgan pours out seven shots and passes them around the table. I don’t want a shot of Jäger on top of all the wine I’ve had tonight, but this is a ritual, and I won’t be the one to shake that up—especially not the first time I’ve ever been invited into this circle.
Once everyone has a shot, they all hold up their glasses and touch them. I join in like I’m a member of the band. My eye catches Angelique’s, and she looks pissed that I’m here. I brush away the thought. Mark wants me here; her feelings don’t matter.
“To show six seventy-one,” Mark says. “Good pitches, no hitches, no forgets.”
Everyone—except me—chimes in together with, “No regrets!”
I’ll know the words for next time.
We all throw back our shots, and then the boys stand. I move away from the table as Mark scoots his chair back, but he doesn’t let me get far. His hand circles my wrist and he tugs me so I fall into his chest. He chuckles as those deep, green eyes hold me captive.
“Wish me luck.”
I smile as my insides melt at this glimpse of his insecurity. “You? Nah, you don’t need it.”
“Nah, you’re probably right.”
I laugh, and his mouth covers mine. He doesn’t seem to care that everyone’s watching, doesn’t seem to mind that I’m in a relationship with his younger brother. All that matters is the two of us and this singular connection of lip to lip, mouth to mouth. He opens his mouth, and his tongue slides against mine. He tastes like the Jäger we just shot down, but I still get a hint of his peppermint. This is a tiny preview of what we’ll be doing later, and it sends a shot of adrenaline through me.
He pulls back and his eyes latch onto mine for just a beat, but that beat represents all the need, all the want, all the lust and desire that courses through me, through him, between us. I see it there in him just as much as I feel it inside of me. I feel him pulling strength and confidence from that single look shared between us, like he can get out on that stage and do what he does best now because I’m here.
And that thought blows my mind.
He’s done this for over ten years without me, yet the need in his eyes for me tells a different story.
I don’t know how I ever believed that he wasn’t sincere in his feelings for me—that he was just using me as a pawn in a game with his brother. I see everything I need to see there, all the love and longing, and I’m certain that I’ve chosen the right brother.
A rush of excitement rockets through my system. I can’t wait for him to get out on that stage, to watch him perform. I can’t imagine how he feels if I’m this excited.
I think back to his toast—to show six seventy-one. It’s hard to fathom that they’ve played that many shows together. It’s fascinating to see they still get nervous in their own ways as they get on that stage, even though it’s for the six hundred seventy-first time.
The four band members bid us goodbye. We follow them out of the green room, and they huddle privately behind the stage, wait for their introduction, and head out.
Morgan, Angelique, and I walk through the door and into the bar to watch. A crowd has gathered by the stage, so we stand near the back. I’m used to finding my way to the front so I can catch a closer glimpse of Mark Ashton, but tonight I allow others to stand up front.
I can’t help when my mouth forms the words I know so well. I bob my head to the music and dance in place. The wine and Jäger have done their job well to lower my inhibitions along with my ability to care what anybody thinks of me, including Angelique. I catch Mark’s eye, and I swear he smiles at me as he sings the words to the songs I know so well. I wonder for a split second if I feel like he’s singing to me because of that charisma Morgan and I talked about or if it’s because of what we share now—if it’s because he actually is singing to me.
It feels odd to be here without Jill, to sing along without my best friend by my side. I glance over at Morgan and Angelique. They’re both staring up at the stage, but neither of them is singing. Surely they know the words. They’d have to after hearing them upwards of six hundred times—not even counting practices. They’re both studying, though. Instead of enjoying the show, they’re silently critiquing. I try to imagine myself doing that—sitting by and objectively watching the show for mistakes and cracks instead of enjoying it as I sing every word to every song.
I can’t imagine myself ever being like them. I’m a fan of this band, of Mark Ashton, and I always will be. Even just thinking of sitting through nearly seven hundred Vail shows has my toes tingling. An acute, sharp ache presses between my legs as I watch him up there. Watching him like this—in his element, working the crowd—it’s insane. I see it from a completely different perspective now, and while I always got turned on watching him even though he had no idea I even existed, this is different. I’m more than just turned on. I feel the rough seam of my jeans press against my panties, and I think of Mark’s mouth in that same place, his peppermint breath hot against my sensitive, wet flesh.
I’ve wanted men before, sure, but not like this. I crave him. It’s basic and instinctual, carnal and erotic. It’s inside me, a caged animal trying to claw its way out.
The tempo shifts from Vail’s newest rock chart topper to a slower ballad. Ethan takes a break because this song doesn’t have drums. He sits back and chugs his beer, and James and Steve also stop for a drink break. Mark strums his guitar and then starts singing the words that I memorized after I only read them once.
The light hits your eyes
A part of me dies
A little like destiny
It’s just for one night
But it feels too right
A little like destiny
I can’t let it go
It’s starting to show
A little like destiny
His eyes are on mine through the entire song. I don’t sing along even though I know the words—this feels like Mark’s song, a tribute to whatever we’re starting here, and I’m hypnotized by his voice and his eyes. He told me he finished writing the lyrics, and the brand new words wash over me.
She’s with him but in my heart
With him so my world falls apart
In the other room loving another man
She’ll come back to me when she can
Because she belongs with me
It’s a little like destiny
She wasn’t in my plan
Never in the plan
But the day I met her
Is the day my life began
He fades into the refrain again, and when he hits the last line, a little like destiny, he draws in a deep breath then digs deep to belt it out in a sort of battle cry. His eyes are on mine, and I can feel his emotions tumbling through my chest as he brings everything he has and lays it out for everyone to hear, lays it out for me to gather in my arms and hold in my heart.
When the song’s over and he fades out of that final bar, the crowd goes wild. Morgan’s arm comes around me. “Are you okay?” she asks.
I tear my gaze from Mark, who’s looking down at his guitar as he starts the intro to the next song. In my periphery, I hear the drums join in and then the bass and the rhythm guitar. My eyes meet Morgan’s, and I nod.
“You’re crying,” she says.
I touch my fingers to my cheek. It’s wet.
“I didn’t realize...” I trail off in a daze.
“He wrote that for you,” Morgan says close to my ear.
I nod and try to swallow down the lump in my throat. It’s impossible.
I wipe the tears from my cheeks, shocked I’m crying but not entirely surprised by it. I draw in a deep breath and watch the crowd for the next song because it’s too intense to look up at Mark. I’ll cry again, cry that he wants me like this, that he feels so strongly about me he set words about his feelings to music. That he brought me into this world of his, that he wants me to be part of it and part of his life.
I can’t bring myself to sing along to the rest of the set because of that damn lump in my throat, but I feel it start to loosen when Morgan presses another glass of wine to my palm. I look to her gratefully, and I suddenly feel like I have a friend. Angelique may hate me until she gets the chance to know me, but I’ll win her over. Morgan, though, makes me feel like I fit into this world that I never thought I’d be part of.