Three weeks later, every nerve ending in my body feels frayed and raw as I pace back and forth inside the glass sound booth. It’s my first day in the studios — and my first day back in Los Angeles after agreeing to do the tour. Despite Francesca’s objections about leaving and Jerry’s insistence he could handle all of Gran’s affairs without me, I flew home to close up my cottage and tie up the loose ends of my life before finally surrendering myself to Route 66’s authority a few hours ago.

Mercifully, I’ve kept myself too busy to think about the upcoming tour… or the man I’ll come face to face with tomorrow morning, during our first official band rehearsal.

Breathe. Just breathe.

I glance through the glass wall, into the sound mixing room where a bank of dark equipment waits at the ready. The clock on the wall informs me it’s almost midnight, but I have no desire to go up to the penthouse apartment Francesca arranged for me use while we rehearse for the tour. The fact that only a short elevator ride separates me from my bed would make me happier if I knew there was any chance at all I’d be able to sleep once I crawl into it.

The Route 66 main offices are downtown, but their state-of-the-art recording studios occupy a sleek glass building smack dab in the center of Hollywood Boulevard, a stone’s throw from the Walk of Fame, the Dolby Theater, and several rival record labels. The streets outside are sure to be bustling with life even at this hour, but everyone else in the studio has gone home for the night — from the sound technicians in the production box to the maintenance staff who clean the equipment.

I guess they got tired of watching me pace.

My solo session today, which was supposed to ease me back into things in a no-pressure — read: no-Ryder — environment, was a total failure. Six straight hours of silent frustration that I’m nearly positive drove Francesca to drink.

It’s not that I didn’t try to sing. I stood at the mic as they piped a familiar Wildwood instrumental track through the headphones, counted down the familiar beats until my intro, opened my mouth and…

Nothing.

Not a single note came out.

Yanking the headphones down to dangle around my neck, I run my hands through my messy blonde hair. It’s finally getting long again. Two years ago, when I first dyed it, I also chopped it to my chin — a severe bob I detested as soon as I set down the scissors. But now, almost without my noticing, it’s crept back past my shoulders. Long enough to braid.

I know I’ll have to dye it dark prior to the start of the tour, restoring my Wildwood image before I step on any stages or am inevitably caught on camera by the paparazzi. Francesca has offered to make me an appointment with her personal stylist at least three times, her tone sharpening from suggestion to demand with each successive inquiry.

I’m not sure why I’m resisting — maybe it’s some misguided way to exert control over a destiny which has effectively been taken out of my hands. One last shred of resistance before I’m forced back into this life I thought I’d left behind for good. But if an unflattering hair color with outgrown roots is my only line of defense…

I’m pretty much screwed.

A few minutes from now, it’ll be tomorrow. And tomorrow, I cannot fall apart. I cannot break down. I cannot stand in silence at the mic, lyrics lodged in my throat.

Tomorrow, I have to make music again, even if it kills me.

Keep singing, Felicity. You’re a light in the dark.

With Gran’s words bolstering me, I bend to pick up the pale blue guitar she left me in her will. A vintage Gibson, signed with her autograph on the front in elegant black script. It’s the nicest instrument I’ve ever held — worth more than most cars on the market. The guy in the mixing booth nearly had a coronary when I pulled it from its case earlier and asked if someone in the building would be able to re-string it for me.

Just holding it makes me feel calmer. As though Gran is standing beside me, nodding her approval. Adjusting the strap more firmly over my shoulder, I step toward the mic and set my fingers on the strings. The first chord I strum echoes in the soundproofed room, plaintive and poignant.

I can’t bring myself to play a single note I once performed with Ryder. Instead, I pluck out something new — strains of a song I wrote so many months ago, I’m not sure I remember all the right words. Leaning into the mic, I close my eyes, shut out my thoughts, and let the lyrics fly.

My voice sounds shaky and thin. A broken shell of its former glory. I tell myself the cracks are from disuse, not the lyrics I wrote during that dark first winter on the Cape, when I was still drowning in grief for the things I’d lost, when the only thing that lessened the ache in my chest was a pen bleeding ink on the pages of a long-abandoned journal.

Memories flash.

Blood on a tile bathroom floor.

A box beneath the earth on the bluffs by the sea.

I shove the images down — deep, deep, deep — before they can consume me. This feeling, right here, this unbearable sorrow, is the reason I put my guitar in a musty closet and my songwriting book in a locked dresser drawer. Dashing the tears from my cheeks, I whirl away from the mic without finishing the song and head for the exit. Even tossing and turning in bed has to be better than this torture.

I need a few hours’ break from being Felicity Wilde.

I’m halfway to the door when my red-rimmed eyes lift to the glass wall dividing the rehearsal space from the sound room. My feet slam to a halt when my gaze snags on the man standing there, staring at me through the pane.

I must be hallucinating.

He can’t be here.

But he is.

He doesn’t move an inch; nor do I. We hover on the edge of a razor-sharp precipice, drinking each other in through a thin wall of glass.

Ten feet.

Two years.

An instant.

A lifetime.

I try to school my expression, but I’m not sure it cooperates. My pulse pounds a mad tattoo inside my veins as my hands grip the wood neck of my guitar, a vain attempt to ground myself in reality. I stare at him, eyes sweeping across his sun-bronzed skin, skirting around those bottomless two-tone eyes that have always managed to carve a mark in my heart with a mere glance.

He looks totally different, and exactly the same.

Same beard, but it’s fuller now, as though he hasn’t bothered to shave properly at any point in the recent past. Same tall frame, but it’s no longer lean — he’s filled out with new muscles, his tanned biceps straining the confines of a faded black t-shirt I swear he owned last time I saw him. Same mismatched eyes — one blue, one brown, both holding me to the spot like steel manacles. They’re full of so much pain I can’t breathe properly when I look into them, so I stare at his chin instead, hoping he can’t see my heart jumping beneath the fabric of my thin blue dress.

A minute passes in unremitting silence. Ryder hasn’t moved — and the look on his face suggests he won’t be doing so anytime soon. Unless I plan on staying in this glass box all night, engaged in a staring contest with a man I can hardly bear to keep my eyes on… there’s no choice. I simply have to walk through that door and bypass the six-foot-two roadblock standing between me and the elevator.

Just breathe.

One foot at a time.

The exit is right there.

Like a soldier on the front lines, I take a steadying breath and force myself into motion. Five measly steps — they take an eternity. My hand shakes as it reaches for the door and pulls it wide on silent hinges. My thudding heart is the only sound I hear as I step over the threshold. And then I’m there — face to face with the man who’s enmeshed so deep beneath my skin, I know I’ll never get him out. Not in this lifetime; not even in the next.

When I come to a stop, leaving a handful of feet between us, Ryder’s eyes flare with sudden sadness as they flicker down to the guitar in my hands.

“She left you the Gibson.”

I stare up at him, every word lodged stubbornly in my throat, refusing to escape.

“I’m sorry about your grandmother.” His voice is stripped bare, his emotions held tightly in check. “I only heard this morning, when I got back. If I’d known…”

He trails off.

If he’d known.

In another lifetime, if he’d known… he would’ve been there at my side to say goodbye to Gran. In another world, if he’d known… he would’ve held my hand while she disappeared into the earth.

“Felicity,” he whispers, a crack breaking the word right down the middle, a fault line of regret that sends aftershocks through my soul. I swallow hard, trying in vain to rid myself of the emotions strangling me from the inside out.

“Felicity…”

“You— you aren’t supposed to be here,” I breathe, my words barely audible as they slip past my lips. They dissipate like smoke in the air between us. “Not until tomorrow.”

“Sorry to disappoint.” He doesn’t look sorry. Not at all. “But… I knew you’d be here.”

How could you possibly know that?

I bite back the question.

“You always were a nightingale — singing alone in the dark, while the whole world’s asleep.” He doesn’t move an inch, but his voice — that faint twang, that intoxicating rasp — seems to reach out and stroke itself down my spine in a caress. “First time I heard you sing, it was three in the morning. Do you remember?”

I remember everything.

My eyes press closed, just for a moment, as I try to get a hold of myself. I hate that he can still affect me, despite everything. Hate that he still knows me so well, even after all this time.

His sigh makes my eyes snap open.

“Felicity. Say something,” he pleads. His gaze devours me, a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. “Say… anything.”

“We have nothing to say to each other.”

The flare of anger on his face tells me just how strongly he disagrees. “You don’t want to talk? Fine. I’ll talk.” His words are an ardent whisper. “Did you really think I wouldn’t come find you the minute I learned you were back in Los Angeles? Did you really think I’d wait until tomorrow’s rehearsal, minding Francesca’s schedule like a good little boy, giving you a polite bubble of space after two fucking years without so much as a word?”

I jerk my chin in a swift, stubborn move, not deigning to answer.

“You did.” His laugh is hollow. “Christ, Felicity.”

“It’s late.” There’s a terrible tremor in my voice as I hold his stare. “I’m tired, and we have an early day tomorrow. Please… let me pass. Let me go, Ryder.”

He finally moves — not to clear out of my path, but to step closer. My whole world narrows to the remaining sliver of space between his body and mine. Two feet of air, thrumming violently with two years of pent up emotion.

Breaking the silence, his tone is lethally soft — a blade sliding between two exposed ribs, piercing my heart with precision. “Are you honestly going to make me ask where you’ve been all this time?”

“I can’t do this right now. Okay?” I swallow hard, clinging desperately to the scraps of my composure. “We have rehearsals tomorrow, and a tour to think about—”

His words are blunt.“Fuck the tour, Felicity.”

I flinch.

“In fact…” His voice drops low and he takes another step, unapologetically invading my space. “Fuck the whole goddamn world and everyone in it. They can all go to hell, as far as I’m concerned.”

My breath catches in my throat. I use every ounce of energy I possess to keep breathing, to keep my hands from trembling, to keep my voice from quivering as I stare at him, studying the slight changes in his face — the harrowed, haunted look his features lacked last time we crossed orbits. The darkness behind his eyes.

“I don’t give a shit about the tour. About the label or the press or anything else for that matter.” His words are hollow, desperate. “The only thing I care about right now — the only thing I’ve ever cared about — is you.”

I cross my arms over my chest to hide the shaking of my hands. My words are as cold as I can manage when I speak again.

“I didn’t come back here for you, Ryder. I came back because I was contractually obligated.”

“I don’t give a shit.” He counters swiftly, his voice gruff. “All that matters is you’re here.”

“Well… you can go back to whatever island you’ve been stranded on, sipping mai-tais with your model friends, because I’m not staying.”

A jolt moves through him. “Excuse me?”

“I’m leaving.” I brace myself for his reaction. “As soon as the tour is done, I’m gone. So there’s no need for some big, dramatic discussion. No need to dredge up ancient history. Okay?”

“No need?” he echoes, the words brittle.

I nod sharply but don’t speak. Every minute I stand here staring at him, I feel a little more of my strength fade. I won’t cry — won’t allow myself to be that weak — but my heart weeps tears of blood each time it pumps inside my chest.

“No need,” he repeats, his tone blunt as a battle axe. “You and I have very different definitions for what that word means. Because, Felicity, in my book, we need to talk about a hell of a lot of things that went down before you disappeared on me without a fucking explanation.”

“No, we don’t,” I snap defensively. “We have nothing to talk about. We have a job to do. Let’s just get it done with as much professionalism and grace as we can manage, and then we’ll go our separate ways. The past can stay right where it is — in the past.”

He watches me for a long moment, his expression flickering through a spectrum of emotions so fast I can’t identify a single one of them.

“You think this is over.” The words are incredulous as he gestures from his chest to my own — as though the very notion is ludicrous to him.

My breaths are coming too fast. “No — I know it’s over. It’s been over for two years, now.”

“Felicity. Let’s get something straight.”

My eyebrows lift as I wait, trying not to suffocate under the weight of all the words I won’t allow myself to say. Trying not to plummet headfirst into the well of emotion I see swimming in his eyes.

“You and me?” He leans closer and I swear, the whole damn world goes still. “We aren’t over. We weren’t over two years ago. We aren’t over now. We’ll never be over, no matter how much time passes or how much distance gets between us.”

“I…” I open my mouth to contradict him, but I can’t get a single syllable past my lips.

“I don’t care if you don’t believe me. I don’t care if you hate me,” he says simply, his words a jarring juxtaposition to the passion in his stare. “You’re part of me, Felicity. You’re imprinted on my DNA. You’re embedded in my fucking bone marrow. That doesn’t go away. Not after two years. Not ever.”

Without another word, he turns and walks out of the room, leaving me alone with his words still ringing in the air like a promise.

Like a vow.