She was breathless when she stood back up and handed me the bass. "That good?" she said through clenched teeth.

I took the bass, grateful to have a good reason for tearing my eyes away from the rise and fall of her chest under that black T-shirt. "Sound good," I muttered. It might have sounded awesome or it might have sounded like utter shite, I had no idea. I was too busy trying to remember the promise I'd made myself last.

Just friends. Just friends. I am just her friend.

"Yeah, so, we have an interview this morning," I heard myself saying. Like I needed to explain to her why I was about to run out of here half-hunched to hide my erection. "I'll be back later, yeah?"

"I'll be here," she said. And fuck it if it didn't thrill me to hear her say that.

"Oy!" Ewan was standing by the rented van, waving me in. As I jogged over to him, he caught me with one of his trademark glowers. "You all right then?"

"Bloody fine," I grunted, shoving my way past him.

"Your roadie-chick working up to your standards?" Jules wanted to know.

"She's fine," I repeated, settling down. The tips of my ears were burning.

"Good then," Ewan said, plopping back down in his seat. "Then I'm totally glad we took this bloody detour so you could be sure. I nominate you to be the one to tell August why we were late to this interview."

"Oh fuck, no way, make Jules do it, he's the only one who's not afraid of her."

"Oh, I'm afraid of her," Jules corrected with a proud glint in his eye. "But lucky for me, fear is quite a potent aphrodisiac."

"Gross," Hudson muttered.

I laughed and leaned back to look out the window as we headed out into the stop-and-go traffic on the way to the studio. "This is such a bloody huge country," I said to no one in particular.

Even after tours that spread out coast to coast, we still hadn't seen a fraction of this huge fucking continent. But beyond that, at least for a music obsessed Brit like me, the best part of touring the States is seeing the people and places that populated my subconscious. "Remember when we first landed in New York City?" I asked.

Ewan immediately knew what I was talking about. "Spent two days just wandering around with our mouths hanging open, totally gobsmacked," he recalled. "What a bunch of yobs."

Hudson laughed. "That's not exclusive to you Brits though," he reminded us. "We moved to Queens from Texas when I was twelve and I think I went into some kind of shell-shock."

I nodded. "Shell-shock in the right word, yeah. All those places, hell, I'd heard all about them in the music I listened to. The Ramones, Lou Reed, hell Sinatra even sung about New York. It was like walking into a fantasy land and not just because of the music either. You watch all these places on the telly as a little boy in England, and then you fly across the water and are dropped right in the middle of it. It was familiar, but surreal." I tapped my fingers on my knee a moment before the right simile occurred to me. "Like waking from a dream and having the scenery not change at all."

"Aren't you a poetic fuck this morning," Jules said, poking me in the arm. "Any reason in particular?"

For some reason, this morning's impromptu jam session with Reese felt like a secret I needed to keep. "Just happy is all."

Jules rolled his eyes. "Well stop grinning like a jack o'lantern. You're gonna scare the radio people."

I flipped him the V-sign as we pulled into the lot to see an anxious looking woman hugging a clipboard and tapping her foot, eyeing her watch pointedly. "Oh shite, she's an August clone," Ewan groaned.

"Did your fiancee send someone to spy on us?" I asked Jules.

"She doesn't look anything like her," Jules grumbled. But he still hopped up first and headed to the front, as if somehow August would find out he'd pissed off her clone.

This morning's interview was with the morning hosts, a big bald man in a bright pink polo shirt, and a blonde woman who was pretty in a pinched sort of way. "I'm Beck, and this is Grady," the man said, shaking our hands before slipping his headphones back on. "Thanks for being with us this morning."

"Thanks for having us," Ewan said promptly and politely. Not many British bands break in the States. Course we had an in now with our scruffy Labrador retriever of a lead singer, who hailed from Dallas but now called Queens home. But the ones who came over, like us: U2, Coldplay, Def Leppard, the fucking Beatles, they all had one thing in common. They didn't piss of the Yanks by being lazy, arrogant twats. They worked like dogs, charmed everyone in sight and acted like they really wanted to be here.

So that's what we did too.

"We're here with Wreckage, live in the studio, good morning guys!" Grady said into her mic.

We all chorused good mornings in return.

"Now this is your fourth tour in the US, so you're experts now. Tell me, what is different about America audiences, versus British ones?"

"Ah," Ewan leaned forward and glanced at us. "Not sure if the audience are all that different, but the countries sure are."

"There are things we have to get used to," I added.

"Like what?" Beck prompted.

"Weak beer," Jules replied immediately, to gales of laughter.

"I resent that," Hudson said.

"You shouldn't," Jules said, turning to him. "You're always drinking the bottles of the real lager I have set aside."

This prompted more laughter from Beck and Grady. "What else is different?" she asked.

I leaned into my mic. "Seems like I always need to be reminded that my beard trimmer won't work with your voltage."

"But don't panic," Ewan added. "Because there's always a 24-hour place open 'round here."

"I go back to England and have a hankering for beef jerky at three in the morning, I'm piss out of luck. Here it's a given," Jules added.

"And the girls are different too," I suddenly blurted.

"Oh, now there's the real story!" Beck crowed as I felt my ears heat up and cursed myself inwardly.

I felt a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "Niall here just got out of a bad thing," Jules explained, shooting me a smile that for once contained no traces of assholery.

"Right, you just broke of an engagement, didn't you?" Grady asked, honing in on me like a shark scenting blood in the water.

My throat tightened. "Yes," was all I managed in a strangled whisper.

"I think we'd best leave it alone," Ewan growled, glowering at Grady.

She seemed to weigh it in her head a moment; my feelings versus the potential ratings bonanza this would be. "I realize this is a deeply personal topic," she said smoothly. "But I wondered, in light of what happened between you and your fiancee, is there any advice you have for people who want to avoid running into similar issues?"

"I really think you should - "

"Hey piss off you nosy -"

" - how that could be relevant -"

My bandmates were all leaping to my defense, but I held up my hand. "Yeah Grady, I do actually. That's a good question." I leaned forward. "You have to be honest," I said clearly into the mic. "Don't keep secrets. Ever."

As we wrapped up the interview, that refrain kept echoing in my ears. I kept telling myself that secrets were what had destroyed me and Izzy, but wasn't I over here trying to keep something else secret too?

"Oy, lads," I called as we stepped back onto the van. "I have a favor to ask you all."

"If it's bopping that intrusive cow in the nose with a rolled up newspaper, I'm happy to do it," Jules grumbled. "Nosy twat."

"Aye, but she was just doing her job is all," I reminded him. "I'm not so fragile about any more, mate. It's been a while."

He glanced at me sidelong. "You were fucking fragile about it not two days ago. What changed?"

Dark hair. Light eyes. That electric feeling I get whenever she's near. "I've got something else to focus on."

"You mean someone," Hudson corrected, butting in.

No more secrets. "Aye," I said, finally admitting it. "Someone I'd like to do something nice for, but I need you lot to help me out."