I saw her get up from the sound booth and stomp away.

She hadn't said a single word to me all morning. I'd thought that her smart-aleck mouth bothered me. But her silence bothered me even more. Especially since all I wanted to do was talk to her about last night. And about when we could do it again.

Instead of fixing my obsession, fucking her had only made it worse. Now that I'd been inside of her, all I wanted was to be there again.

But she wouldn't even look in my direction. Now she'd disappeared, probably to go hide on her phone some more so she could avoid having to look at me.

Fuck this. I wasn't going to let her start playing her games again. It happened.

And it was going to happen again.

"Oy," I called out. "Can we take five?" I feign a grimace. "I think that last solo tweaked my back."

"You're an old, decrepit man," Ewan deadpanned.

"I'm six months older than you!"

"Decrepit."

"Whatever. I need to walk it off."

"Yeah mate, whatever." Ewan looked at the booth. "That okay Jimmy? Hey, where'd August go?"

That was what I intended to find out.

She wasn't in the lounge, filling her time with busywork to avoid me. She wasn't using the front office to call journalists, building buzz for us.

She was outside in the bright autumn sunlight. Pacing.

"Getting your cardio in, love?" I called, bounding down the steps to walk with her. Then I stopped and looked around. "Bloody hell."

It was the first time I'd been out in the sunlight in a solid week, and in that time the autumn colors had peaked. The mountains around us were a patchwork quilt of reds and golds and sky blazed a clear and brilliant blue overhead. "I see why you wanted to come outside," I said.

She turned away from me. "I needed to think," she said dully.

"All we did was have a nice fuck, love," I teased her. "You sound like your puppy died."

She shook her head. "You don't get it."

"No," I said, balling up my fists. "I have to say, I really don't. You can't tell me you didn't want it, love. You could have walked out the front door."

She shook her head again. "I know. That was my mistake."

"Best mistake of your life."

"You are so cocky, you know? There are no stakes here for you like there are for me. I fuck this up, you just fire me, no skin off your back. You get to reap the rewards of all the hard work I've put into this comeback, and I get tossed to the curb!" Her eyes blazed.

I stepped back on my heel. "No one's tossing you to the curb, love."

She sighed. "Why am I even trying to explain? You couldn't possibly understand." She shook her head and turned back towards the studios. "I need to get back to work."

Baffled, I followed her back in through the front door. She strode right past Ewan, Niall and Hudson in the lounge and slammed the door to the front office.

Niall glanced up at the sound and then bent back to his phone. Ewan winced and looked at me. "What did you do?"

"I haven't the faintest," I sighed.

Niall pulled his phone away from his ear and grinned like a maniac. "Well that's fucking brilliant!" he declared.

"Why are you so happy?" Hudson asked, smiling because Niall was smiling.

"That was Tally!" Niall crowed.

Hudson looked confused. "Your sister?" Ewan supplied.

"You have a sister?" Hudson asked.

Niall nodded. "Little Tallula. She's coming Stateside. Wants to know if she can stay with me." He looked down at the phone fondly. "Told her I'd have no idea where we'd be then, but wherever I was, she was welcome."

"Your mum's not coming?" Ewan asked.

He glanced up. "Mum would never come to the States. She still calls them The Colonies."

I snorted. "Oh, that's lovely."

"She's a nightmare. I dunno how Tally turned out so sweet with such a harridan for a female role model."

Ewan was still stuck. "So Tallula's coming to the States all by herself? She's old enough to do that?"

Niall rolled his eyes. "She's nineteen now. Nearly twenty."

"She is?" Ewan's eyes bugged out. "Jesus fuck, how did that happen?" Last I saw your sister she was still playing with dolls."

"Me too, in a way." Niall sounded sad. "We've been away a long time. Don't you ever miss your family?"

"I do," August piped up. I hadn't even realized she'd been listening. She walked over and patted Niall's arm. "I have little brothers. My middle one, Tate, he's at college, university I guess you call it, right now and he's having a hard time. I just want to scoop him up out of this rough patch, dust him off and set him standing upright on the other side of everything." She trailed off for a second. "But he's down on Long Island at Hofstra and isn't picking up his phone, so I can't do anything except worry."

She was trying to hide it but I could hear the small, frantic note in her voice. I could hear that vulnerability even though she tried to hide it and it made me want to kiss her so hard that I absorbed some of that worry and took it away from her. Share it with her so she didn't have to work so hard all alone.

Lightning flashed in my head and I suddenly knew why she was so adamant we'd made a mistake last night. And I knew what I needed to do to convince her that letting me in wasn't the worst mistake she could make after all.