Francesca Foster is rarely taken off guard.

A Type-A control freak with a penchant for numbers and a reputation for success in the music industry, the acquisitions agent was the driving force behind Wildwood’s first album. In her early thirties, she often seems much older due to her serious, ever-scientific approach to life’s many problems. Since I first met her, I’ve never seen so much as a single auburn hair out of place in her sleek asymmetrical bob, never witnessed her angular features assembled into an expression of anything except cool, unwavering composure.

…Until the moment she steps into her glass corner office and finds me sitting in her chair with my feet up on her impeccably organized desk.

“Felicity!” Her wide eyes scan my face, saturated with shock. There’s a hand thrown over her chest, as though I’ve nearly given her a heart attack. “What on earth are you doing here?”

Carefully, with studied slowness, I pull my feet off her desk and lean back in her chair, pinning her to the spot with a glare.

“What am I doing here, Francesca? Really? You have the nerve to ask me that?” My voice is cold. Almost unrecognizable. “You sent your flying monkey to my grandmother’s funeral and served me with a lawsuit.”

“I am not a wicked witch, despite what you might think.” She sighs deeply, a line of concern creasing the smooth skin between her perfectly plucked brows. “I regret the timing of it, but you left me with little choice.”

“I suppose I should be grateful you had him wait until thirty seconds after she was in the ground, rather than interrupting my final goodbyes on the side of the grave, huh?” My laugh is brittle. “Big of you.”

She takes a few slow steps into the office and sinks elegantly into the chair across from mine, the definition of posh in her tailored teal dress. “As I’ve already said, I regret the timing. But the funeral yesterday was the first time in two years I knew, with absolute certainty, where you’d be — considering you walked away without so much as a word to anyone, let alone a forwarding address.”

“You could’ve called my family attorney. He knows how to reach me.”

“Tell me — if I’d called, would you be here right now?”

My chin jerks higher, but I don’t respond. We both know nothing short of a court summons would’ve been enough to bring me back to this city.

“I thought as much.” Her lips purse. “Felicity, I am not your enemy.”

“Well, you’re certainly not my friend. Friends don’t sue each other.”

“That’s correct — I’m not your friend. Technically, I am your boss, for lack of a better term. And while I have always liked you, I also like my job.” She leans forward, voice intent. “What I do not like, is failing to deliver on promises I make to my superiors. Do you realize the position you put me in, when you left? The damage you caused? Not just to the band, or to yourself—“ Her gaze flickers to my blonde hair and scans down my scowling face, searching for a glimpse of a girl who no longer exists. “—you also left me to explain to my bosses why the most popular Route 66 act in well over a decade wouldn’t be touring around the country, making good on that triple-platinum album they funded.”

“I didn’t—” I break off, sparks of shame kindling into flame as her words penetrate the angry fog that’s been surrounding me since her henchman shoved that lawsuit into my hands. When I speak, my tone is significantly less hostile. “I didn’t realize. Okay? When I walked away… I didn’t realize it would affect anyone else. I didn’t think about the repercussions. I just…” My eyes lock on hers, pleading for a shred of understanding. “Francesca, I had to get out. You don’t understand—”

“No. I do not understand. Perhaps because you never took the time to explain it to me.”

“I apologize. All right? I apologize for leaving. I apologize for disappearing without any explanation.” I cross my bare legs, picking absently at a loose thread at the sleeve of my sage green sundress. “What else do you want from me? Besides, apparently, all the money I possess and a lengthy legal battle over the breach of my contract?”

“Don’t be dramatic. I just needed a way to get you back to Los Angeles — I have no intentions to sue you, Felicity, nor do I want to.”

“What do you want?”

“No more than what you promised to deliver when you signed your contract.”

My eyes flash to hers, jaw locking. I don’t ask — I already know what she’s about to say.

“The tour.” She clasps her hands together in her lap. “I want you to go on tour with Ryder.”

I flinch at the sound of his name. If Francesca notices my reaction, she ignores it.

“Six months. Thirty cities. That’s what we agreed on two years ago.”

“Things were different two years ago.”

“Your hair, for starters.”

My eyes narrow. “Was that a joke?”

Her lips twist. “Merely an observation.”

“Observe all you want. You won’t change my mind. I’m not doing this tour.”

“Then you give us no choice but to pursue legal action against you.” Her eyes soften slightly. “Felicity, if it were up to me, I’d let you walk away. But it’s out of my hands. These orders are coming straight from the top. My boss’s boss’s boss. There’s nothing I can do.”

My jaw clenches and unclenches rhythmically.

“Have you seen him?” she asks after a moment of tense silence. “Since you left, have you spoken to him at all?”

“No.” I force out the world like poison from my lips.

“So you don’t know about—”

“Stop.” I hold up a hand, cutting her off. “I don’t know anything about Ryder Woods, and I don’t want to know.”

“But—”

“Francesca. I mean it. One more word about him, I’m walking out that door.”

Her lips clamp shut and a frosty silence descends. I can tell she’s angry with me, but I don’t care. After I left Los Angeles, I made the mistake of looking at the tabloids one too many times. I saw all I ever needed to see about Ryder’s activities once I left Los Angeles behind — the DUI arrests, the drugs charges, the court appearances. The girls hanging on his arms like party favors as he stumbled, bleary-eyed, from one club to the next, his hotshot new A-list friends by his sides.

Every article I read, every picture I saw, every headline I memorized was just another nail of validation in the coffin of my choices.

It was right to leave.

I had to walk away.

There was no other option.

“You know, I don’t recall you being this stubborn, before.” Francesca’s head tilts. “Or this… cold.”

“You mean back when I was eighteen and naive enough to sign away my future to a label that cares more about their bottom line than their artists’ happiness?” I snort. “People change.”

“They certainly do,” she says carefully, her eyes flashing with thoughts I can’t decipher.

Blowing out a long breath, I stare at the woman who I once considered, if not a friend, at least an ally. As much as I’d like to hate her, to blame her for all of this… I can’t. None of this is her fault. It’s mine. My mess. My bed to lie in.

Despite my objections, despite my defiance… we both know it’s an empty facade. I have no choice but to do this tour. I accepted that fact the moment I picked up Jerry’s phone and changed my flight destination from Boston to Los Angeles.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean I can’t negotiate the terms of torture in my favor…

“Four months,” I say finally, making her brows lift. “Four months, not six. No overseas shows. Plus separate travel accommodations, so I only have to interact with—” I swallow harshly. “—with the band when absolutely unavoidable, while we’re actively on stage performing or in the studio rehearsing. If you can make that happen, I’ll go on the tour. If you can’t… you can call my lawyer and deal with him instead.” I lean forward, eyes narrowing in what I hope is a threatening look. “Based on his track record, I wouldn’t suggest that.”

It’s a bluff, of course. The in-house Route 66 legal team could crush a sweet family attorney like Jerry Perry faster than a baseball bat would a cantaloupe. But Francesca seems to take it seriously enough, her expression somber as she turns over my offer in her mind.

“Four months…” she murmurs.

I nod sharply.

“We’ll have to accelerate the schedule. Rearrange the entire tour route. Maybe even drop several smaller cities from the lineup…” She tilts her head in contemplation. “You’ll be doing multiple shows a week. Tours are grueling enough when you’re getting proper amounts of sleep and not pushing your vocal cords to the limit. The timeframe you’re talking about here… It’ll be rough on your bodies, even rougher on your minds. Frankly, it’ll be hell.”

“It’ll be hell either way.” My voice is hollow. “The way I see it, four months of burning is better than six.”

“I’ll have to run it by my boss. And his boss. And probably his boss. But… there’s a chance I can make it work.”

“I thought Francesca Foster could make anything work.”

“Within reason.”

Reaching out, I grab a heavy fountain pen that probably costs more than my entire outfit off her desk and scrawl a series of digits on a nearby notepad. “Here’s the name and number of the hotel I’m staying at. Ask for Joy Winters at the desk, they’ll connect you.” I glance up with a grim expression. “I’m only staying there tonight. If I don’t hear from you by tomorrow, I’m heading home. And I won’t be back until your lawyers fly their asses to my front doorstep and drag me kicking and screaming.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Francesca’s lips twist. “I’ll have an answer for you by the end of the day.”

“Great. Then we’re done here.” I push to my feet and start walking toward the door.

“Felicity, wait.”

I freeze in the frame, not looking back.

“If I can make this happen… if I can get my bosses to agree and put together a tour at lightning speed… ” She sucks in a sharp breath. “You do realize you’ll have to see him. Sing with him. That, even if I get you your own tour bus, book you in separate rooms at the hotels… some interaction will be necessary.”

My eyes press closed. I don’t want to think about that part yet — the Ryder part. I can’t. I’m barely able to process the fact that I’ve agreed to go on this blasted tour. It’s too much to contemplate who I’ll be going on it with. Too much to consider what it’ll be like to see him again… to make music with him again…

“Felicity? Are you listening?” She clears her throat awkwardly. “Your fans want to see Wildwood. That includes Ryder, both on stage and off. No matter what personal hangups you two have, the world wants to see you together.”

When I speak, I barely recognize my own voice. “I know.”

“And… you’re okay with that?”

I glance over my shoulder at her. Whatever she sees on my face makes her go pale.

“I haven’t been okay for two years, Francesca. Today won’t be the day I start.”

I don’t wait for her to respond as I walk out the door.

Face hidden behind a set of huge sunglasses, I tug the brim of my hat lower over my face as I walk along the boardwalk. The lights of the Santa Monica pier pulse neon-bright in the distance, the ferris wheel making slow rounds over the water as twilight slowly gives way to shadow. When it gets too dark to see, I tuck my sunglasses into my bag and hope to God no one recognizes me.

These very well could be my final hours of anonymity. I revel in them, knowing every second of freedom is numbered. As soon as Francesca arranges the tour — which she will, because that woman has never yet faced a challenge she couldn’t conquer — this life I’ve spent so long running from will start all over again. The press circuits and the interviews. The late nights and the screaming fans and the music.

Oh, god, the music.

I miss it like an amputated limb, like some vital organ that’s been removed from my body, leaving me incomplete and aching. It’s been ages since I’ve played. Ages since I’ve felt my fingers on the strings, since my mouth has formed those melodies I once wrote for him, sung the notes that used to swirl though every corner of my mind.

Stopping wasn’t a choice — it was a mechanism of survival. Because every time I’ve tried to sing lately, every time I’ve so much as strummed a chord, memories have crashed over me in a wave, threatening to drag me to the depths of despair. And so, for months, my guitar has been collecting dust in a closet, a leftover prop from a role I’m no longer fit to play.

I stroll the boardwalk for a long while before I head back to my hotel, taking in the sights. Last time I was here, I hated LA almost on principle, mostly because it wasn’t Nashville — too big, too bright. Packed to the brim with vain, materialistic people pursuing vain, materialistic careers. But tonight, as I wander in the dark, slipping through the lively crowds unnoticed, I recognize a side I didn’t last time. A side I either couldn’t see or didn’t want to see.

There’s a certain beauty here, in the madness. In the wild waves that crash along the beach, so different from the Atlantic’s rocky shores; in the slender-necked palm trees that line the path like eternal soldiers guarding the gates of Old Hollywood; in the constant streams of tourists and locals alike, buying food from shouting vendors, bustling in and out of storefronts, their arms laden with packages.

I drift along, breathing deep gulps of salty summer air. Just one more stranger in a sea of rollerbladers and speed walkers, moms with strollers and chirpy teens on cellphones. I can’t deny there’s an undeniable rush in this city, like nowhere else I’ve ever stepped foot. Not even my beloved Nashville.

After the quiet isolation of my cottage, it should be overwhelming. A shock to the system. But something inside me seems to stir awake as I walk, totally immersed in the vigor electrifying the very air around me. Something that’s been slumbering for a long, long time.

Maybe Francesca was right.

Maybe I really have changed.

My whole life, I’ve craved safety. Stability. After a childhood like mine… I thought it would be better to avoid being around anyone at all, to keep my walls so high no one could ever scale them. Because, to me, safety and solitude have always been co-dependent states.

And yet… for the past two years, I’ve been nothing but alone. Nothing but safe in that new life of silent anonymity, living as Joy Winters.

Off the grid.

Unreachable, untouchable.

For the first time in my life, I’ve been accountable to no one but myself. I do not shudder in fear at the slamming of a door or feel my pulse race at the prospect of a little white pill and its mighty consequences.

Totally, completely safe.

And totally, completely alone.

It’s what I always wanted. What I spent years hoping for, living for, dreaming for.

So… why does it feel so empty?

Why have I spent so many nights sitting out on my porch with my head craned back to the stars, seeking out Scorpius in the summer skies? Why does my breath puff the chilled winter air as I stand in the dark, searching for Orion on those distant celestial horizons?

Their everlasting chase, orbits always at odds.

Never in the same sky at once.

My eyes are suddenly glassy as I turn down the street that will bring me back to my hotel.

Maybe I was wrong.

Maybe being totally safe, with only your own light to brighten the dark sky around you, is wholly overrated.

I’ve been back in my hotel room all of three minutes when the phone rings. I brace myself for the words I know are coming as soon as I lift the receiver to my ear and say hello.

“They gave the green light,” Francesca says, sounding smug. “Four months. Twenty-five cities.”

I’m silent.

“Felicity?” she prompts.

“When?”

“Assuming all variables behave in accordance with the estimates I’ve put together, everything could be in place as early as next month. Six weeks from now, by my best guess.”

So soon.

The breath goes out of my lungs in a single whoosh of air. “I didn’t think it would happen this quickly.”

“I know. But the higher-ups are eager to get the tour underway after all this time. Plus, we already did all the preliminary planning back when your album first dropped. It’s just a matter of reconfirming dates with the venues and putting the tickets up for purchase, which I don’t foresee as a problem — your sales are still incredibly strong, considering you haven’t put out a new album in nearly two years. After a few strategic press announcements, perhaps a comeback interview on The Eileen Show and musical guest slot on one of the late night programs… your fans will be clamoring to see you play live.”

“Musical guest slot? Francesca, I haven’t rehearsed in ages and I definitely didn’t agree to—”

“You know publicity comes with the territory. Don’t worry, Felicity. We’ll make sure you’re rehearsed and ready before we send you out on any stages.”

This is all moving at hyper-speed. “But, Francesca—”

“I have someone attempting to locate Ryder as we speak…”

Attempting to locate him? Where the hell is he, on Pluto? Or is he on another bender, drugged out and hazy in some perfect model’s bed? Snorting lines of coke off an ample chest at a music festival in the desert? Making more headline-fodder for the tabloids to exploit?

I bite my tongue to keep from asking, close my eyes to keep from conjuring any more images of his past exploits.

“My assistant has already been in touch with Aiden and Lincoln,” Francesca tells me, though I’m only half-listening. My mind is still stuck on thoughts of Ryder — and the realization that I’m going to be face to face with him in a matter of days. “They’ve been playing backup on another tour for the past few months, but I’ll pull some strings, get them swapped out so you’ll have them at your disposal for rehearsals and, of course, once you head out on the road.”

It took so long to piece myself back together.

So long.

How am I going to see him without shattering all over again?

“Felicity? Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

“Yes.” I jolt back into reality. “I’m listening.”

“Great, because we have a lot to do in the next few weeks and I need you operating at one hundred percent. In fact, don’t go to sleep — start packing your things. The arrangements are all made and I’m coming over to discuss logistics in person. See you in one hour.”

“What? Why should I pack? Francesca? Francesca!”

She’s already hung up.