I can’t tell Adam that the real reason I won’t do shots with him is because every time his lips are on me, I never want him to take them off. And if I put mine on him . . . I honestly can’t even predict what would come of that. Probably Dee’s dream come true. Unfortunately, my answer only encourages him.

“Alright, what do you want then?” he asks.

I chuckle and shake my head.

“Come on, just name it!”

“I don’t want anything!”

“You have to want something.”

I pick up Adam’s phone and change it to the noninstrumental version. His voice sings through the speakers, and I grin at him triumphantly.

But he’s smiling right back. “Not what you really wanted though, is it?”

I huff and turn the radio down, and he laughs at me.

“I’ll think about it,” I say, pulling my phone from a cup holder so I can check my messages.

“Think about what you want, or think about doing a shot with me?”

“Both.”

I’m not crazy—I’m so not going to think about it.

When I turn on my phone, I have texts from Dee and Leti, but none from Brady. I’m thankful this is one of the few days that he hasn’t messaged me first thing in the morning—because today has been good so far and I really want to keep it that way.

Dee texted me a few times to “check the status” of my “imminent deflowering.” I text her back to let her know that my daisies remain unplucked and healthy as ever, and to wish her good luck on her first day at the new job.

Leti texted me to let me know that he had another dream about Adam. In this one, I was apparently sitting on Adam’s lap in French class telling him everything I wanted for Christmas, and Leti was pissed as hell because he had been in line to sit on Adam’s lap first.

While reading his text, I bust up laughing so hard that tears pour from my eyes, and Adam turns a curious glance in my direction. Leti’s next message asks me to send him another picture of Adam today to make up for my “bitch-slap-worthy line-cutting” last night. After I finish my hysterical laughing, I ask Adam if I can take another picture of him for a friend of mine.

“Only if you do a tequila shot with me tonight,” he replies matter-of-factly.

I roll my eyes and tell him what I’m texting to Leti as I type it into my phone.

Sorry, but his highness Adam Everest is being a total freaking diva today.

Adam chuckles. “Tell your friend why I won’t let you. Let’s see whose side they’re on then.”

God, I can just imagine how that conversation would go. Dee would probably quit her new job just so she and Leti could drive all the way out to the next venue and hold me down while Adam licked salt off my stomach.

On second thought . . . telling them might not be such a bad idea.

“Time’s up,” Adam says, and I glance at the digital time on the radio. My half hour went way too fast. I sigh and grab the textbook from where I threw it into the backseat, and we immediately get back to work.

Chapter Seventeen

TWO HOURS LATER I slap the book closed, and Adam raises his eyebrow at me. “That’s all she wrote,” I say.

“We’re done?

I nod. “Yep. Except for practicing the written stuff.”

“We’ll have some time before the show.”

“Sounds good.” I smile over at him. “Congrats.”

Adam reaches over and squeezes my shoulder. “Couldn’t have done it without you, you know.”

“Oh, believe me,” I chuckle, “I know.”

A smile stays on his lips as he asks, “Are you going to help me study for the rest of the semester?”

Are we seriously making plans for the future?! My feet twitch in anticipation of the nerdy dance I’d be doing if Adam wasn’t sitting right next to me to see it. My lips are just as twitchy, threatening to beam a giddy full-faced smile at him. “Sure, if you want me to.”

“I want you to.” He flashes me that smooth white grin, his eyes happy and sincere.

“You need me to.”

He laughs. “That too.” In truth, Adam doesn’t need me at all. He just needs to apply himself, but he doesn’t seem capable of doing that without someone breathing down his neck.

When I finally toss our textbook into the back and sit up straight, the sun glints off a road sign saying we’re ten miles outside of Fairview. I raise my eyebrow. “Where is this next concert, exactly?” We’re less than twenty miles outside of my hometown, and Adam told me our locations in distance, not by name.

“Fairview. Why?”

I tell Adam about growing up near here and that my parents still live two towns over. He jokes about me taking him home to meet Mom and Dad, and I laugh. My dad would have a heart attack and my mom . . . well, she’d probably bake chocolate-chip cookies and smile as she gifted Adam with fingernail polish remover as a two-months-early Christmas gift.

When we pull up to the venue, we have an hour and a half until showtime. On the bus, I sit Adam down with the textbook and a notepad from my backpack and he dives into written exercises, determined to finish before the show so he doesn’t have to do any studying afterward. I grab a Red Bull from the kitchen and sit nearby. The roadies are all inside the venue setting up, but most of the band is still on the bus, with the exception of Joel. After a while, I realize they’ve all been giving me super-weird looks.

I stare hard at Cody, who has been by far the least subtle. “What?”