Iris hung up her phone and exhaled a deep, relieved breath. An interview offer. Not a job offer yet, but she was hopeful. Next week she would meet the mother and kids, a seven-year-old girl and two-year-old boy. She had received the distinct impression from the mom’s enthusiasm over her qualifications that if all went well, she was in. If Heidi came through on her recommendation, anyway.

And she found she was excited. Maybe for the first time since stepping off the plane what felt like forever ago. Surely it was a sign. Tonight was the Ruin concert, and Sara had not stopped bugging her about it.

Her childhood experiences had soured her against religion, but she had to admit, over the last couple of weeks, she’d prayed to whomever might be listening for a sign of some kind. Should she stay alone and make her own way? She should run back to Elijah and throw caution to the wind? Her heart begged her to do the latter. Her head begged her to do the former.

Everyone said to follow your heart in all things. But the heart wasn’t the smartest organ. It had gotten her into this mess in the first place. Well . . . her heart and other areas.

And now she had a real prospect, one that most likely wouldn’t exist well alongside any life she might create with Elijah Vance. If she were with him, he would consume her whole. There was no question.

She had asked for a sign, and she felt she’d gotten it.

But that didn’t stop Sara from showing up at her door at six o’clock, armed with what looked like a suitcase full of cosmetics. “Sara,” Iris groaned. “I’m not letting you in.”

“Yes you are. You can’t stop me. I’m bigger than you.” As if to prove it, Sara shoved her way past Iris and into her apartment. She was already dressed and ready to rock, wearing shredded jeans and a loose, slouchy shirt that barely hung onto her shoulders. Her hair was styled in big, lazy curls. She looked fabulous, while Iris was in sweats rocking three-day-old hair.

“I have a job interview.”

Sara set her makeup down and cocked a perfect brow at her attire. “Tonight?”

“Next week.”

“Um . . . so?”

“Thanks for the show of enthusiasm, friend.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Sara clapped her hands and jumped up and down in a ridiculous exaggeration of excitement. “Yay! Congratulations! I’m so happy for you. Now let’s go celebrate.”

“You are nothing if not persistent.”

“Nothing is standing between me and Elijah Vance tonight, honey. So haul your cute ass into the shower.”

Iris smirked. “If nothing is standing between you two, then you should be just fine without me.”

“You have a point, but it isn’t going to work.”

“Sara, you aren’t going to shower me, dress me and throw me in your car against my will.”

Sara propped her hands on her waist, giving Iris her best glare of challenge. “Wanna try me?”

For the first time, confronted with the possibilities of the night, real panic began to flutter up into her chest. Elijah Vance. Whenever Sara said his name, a jolt went through her, as if the mere syllables had a power of their own. “I can’t, Sara. I can’t go.”

Sara frowned, taking a couple steps forward as she began to notice Iris’s distress. “I don’t understand.”

“You don’t have to.”

“But I want to. What’s the matter? I get wanting to sit around all night and mope, but . . . you look terrified. I mean, it’s not that scary, you know? It’s only music. And several thousand crazy people, but in my experience everyone is pretty good about looking out for each other.”

Iris found herself wanting to laugh. Actually, she was amazed that Sara, as astute as she was, hadn’t put all the pieces together in her devious little head and figured out Iris’s mystery man was the very one she wanted to drool over all night. 

All of a sudden she wanted to spill the whole story, knowing that Sara would be like a vault, but honor dictated she keep her mouth shut. She’d done enough to bring shame down on herself these last two months.

Funny how things worked out. When the tour started—it seemed like forever ago—she’d only wanted to go back home. Now she was here and miserable.

Sara was still waiting for her answer. Iris stared at her friend for a moment and realized the best way to get her off her case was to placate her.

“All right,” she said with a sigh, turning for the bathroom. “I’ll go.”

––––––––

THE LINE TO GET INTO the arena stretched on for what seemed like miles.

Iris had never been on this side of things. The fan excitement, the girls trilling over the band members—Elijah in particular—the guys raucous and ready to see their heroes. Cars crept by seeking a parking space, blaring the songs Iris had become familiar with over the past two months, Eli’s voice doing things to her deep in her belly.

Sara bounced excitedly next to her, flirting, laughing, having a great time even before the doors opened.

Iris only kept staring at the will-call windows up ahead.

Where she might have a AAA pass waiting for her. One little laminate that could be a key to . . . she didn’t know what. And that was the problem.

Every shiny, sinister black SUV that pulled around back in the direction of the loading docks caught her eye, because any one of them might carry Elijah. He probably wouldn’t still be on the bus; this was home turf. She remembered the schedule. They would have already completed sound check long ago.

She drew a deep breath of the summer evening air, wishing it could help calm her stuttering heart, but there was nothing for it. This had been a terrible mistake, she knew that.

“Are you okay? You look pale,” Sara said, drawing her attention back.

“I’m fine.”

“You look amazing, if I do say so myself.”

“Thanks to you.” Sara had actually taken a pair of Iris’s jeans and shredded them. She hadn’t protested, but she felt self-conscious standing out here with a fair amount of leg showing and a skimpy top Sara had brought because she thought it would look great on her. It did, but it wasn’t Iris’s style. Once satisfied with what she was wearing, Sara had set about giving her blue eyes a smoky treatment that made them smolder in a way she’d never seen before.

Or maybe it was the memories giving her that dreamy, sultry expression. They had never been far from her mind, but they’d all come rushing back in abundance at the thought of being here tonight. Of seeing him, hearing his voice, remembering what it had sounded like in her ear.

It didn’t help that Sara struck up a conversation with the girls behind them, talking about that very thing.

“You know how he sounds at the end of ‘Let Them Lie’? I swear to God he had an orgasm when he was singing that,” the blue-haired girl was saying as she gave a full-body shudder.

Sara shared the girl’s enthusiasm. “Oh! Hell yes. I love that song for that very reason. I’ve always said if I were with him, I’d make him mad just so he would yell at me.”

The girls broke up in laughter. Iris decided she could go hide in the bathroom for the night, feigning sudden sickness. But that would leave Sara on her own. It would serve her right for subjecting her to this.

“I can’t believe Heidi was such a slut. Who would cheat on that man?”

“For real, for real. I’d kiss him and make it better.”

“I’d blow him and make it better.”

More laughter. Iris closed her eyes. She might not have to feign sudden sickness. She might throw up right here, right now.

“—like he’d just grab your hair, slam you against a wall, and fuck your fucking brains out—”

Her voice tore its way from her throat at last. “Sara, I need to . . . go do something. I’ll be right back. Save my spot.”

Sara blinked at her, torn from her bawdy conversation. “What do you have to do?”

“Something. Don’t worry about it. I’ll be back.”

“You’re acting really weird, you know.”

“She probably needs to go rub one off after all the shit we’ve been talking,” the blue-hair girl said with a laugh. “I know I do, hell.”

Iris walked away without another word. It should be harmless girl talk, but it wasn’t. Not to her. He was a person and he was a father. He’d been through real pain and all roughly half his audience cared about was getting into his pants.

There were a few people in front of her at the will-call window, but when she looked back at the gate line, she was relieved to realize that Sara probably couldn’t see her from where she stood with her new friends. Sighing, she surveyed the colorful characters around her, most of them heavily inked, dressed in black, some of the girls in shorts and torn fishnets, some of the guys wearing chains and piercings. Then again, several of them looked like soccer parents, probably a testament to the band’s longevity. Their first generation of fans had grown up.

“Next?” the college-age girl behind the window said, and Iris stepped forward.

“I should have a pass waiting? Iris Silverman.”

While she checked whatever she needed to check, Iris scrolled through her text messages. Elijah had stayed true to his word; he hadn’t contacted her. Their last messages to each other were sliding further and further down her list as time passed, a fact that made her sad.

“I don’t have you down.”

The girl’s bored voice snatched Iris’s attention upward. “You don’t?”

“No.”

“Um . . . can you look again?”

“I checked twice already.”

“This is where I’d pick it up, right?”

“Probably. You could check with security, I guess. Who was supposed to leave you a pass?”

Iris stepped closer and dropped her voice. “Elijah Vance.”

The blonde’s expression became one of yeah-suuuure-he-was sympathy. Iris felt her face flame. Eli was only a text away. She could get it straightened in a heartbeat. “You know what, never mind. Thanks.” For nothing, she finished silently, walking back toward the line as she heard the booth worker call for the next person with far more amusement than she’d had a moment ago.

It was a mix-up, wasn’t it? She couldn’t imagine him forgetting about it. Not this. Not if he really wanted to see her.

But what if he didn’t?

It’s a sign.

Sara looked Iris up and down as she rejoined her in the line. “You okay?”

“I’m okay. I don’t feel very well, but I’ll manage.”

“You like look you’re about to cry. Iris, tonight is about having fun. Let your hair down, boo.”

“It’s down.”

“Your hair is as up as I’ve ever seen it, trust me.”

“I’m sorry you’ve wasted a ticket on me. I’m probably not going to be very good company tonight.”

“Oh come on. Even if you are a gigantic pain in my ass sometimes, there isn’t anyone else I’d rather waste a ticket on.”

Iris chuckled sadly, examining the hulking girth of the building against the darkening sky. He’s in there, she thought. She felt as nervous as she’d been the first time she’d pulled up to the arena in Portland, afraid he wouldn’t let her in, that he would take his boys and send her away. But he hadn’t. He’d kept his word to let her do her job.

She guessed she hadn’t done it very well in the end. He was in there and she was out here. What had she been thinking, anyway? One bad word from Heidi and this new opportunity would disappear like a bubble pricked by a needlepoint. Iris could only imagine the humiliation of getting that phone call.

Sorry, can’t have you screwing my kids’ dad too.

Another car crept by, Elijah’s voice roaring from the interior.

What the hell was she doing here?

––––––––

HE PACED THE FLOOR, aware of Seger’s eyes on him as he went through his vocal warm-up, his mind a thousand miles away. He barely heard himself work through the scales and trills he’d done a thousand times, and there was no way to loosen the tension from his jaw no matter how much he massaged it. Tonight, he was probably going to suck. He kept waiting for a knock at his dressing room door, but it hadn’t come yet.

Elijah had begun to accept the fact that it wasn’t going to.

Goddammit. He shouldn’t have given up. He shouldn’t have given her time to think her way out of this, but if she came, he wanted it to be her decision and not because he’d been a creepy stalking bastard. He didn’t want it to be because he’d strong-armed her. But he could have put forth a little more effort. Leaving her alone with her guilt and her sadness obviously hadn’t been the way to go.

Tomorrow. He could call her tomorrow, throw himself on her mercy, but that would be breaking the word he’d given her. If he wanted Iris to trust him, it was the last thing he should do.

“Dad, are you okay?” Seger asked, making Eli stop and look at his son. He’d been awesome during Dylan’s downtime and he’d wanted to come for this last run, so Heidi had taken Dylan home with her.

“Sure, bud. Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been different today.”

“It’s the last stop. I guess it’s always bittersweet.”

Seger watched him for a minute. “Do you miss Iris?”

Answering the question with a question was avoidance at its finest, but in the end he was a chickenshit. “Do you?”

Seger shrugged one shoulder. “I kinda do miss her dumb rhymes.”

Eli huffed a laugh. “You always hated them the most.”

“She still did them, though. She didn’t care that I hated them.”

“Probably made her do them more.”

Seger grinned. “Yeah, probably.”

He looked so grown-up right then, so astute, that Eli couldn’t resist giving him the truth. “I miss her. I miss her a lot.”

“Why don’t you call her?”

Ah, the innocence of youth. “I did. She was supposed to come tonight if she wanted to see me.” He sighed. “She hasn’t.”

“I know Mom fired her. She never told us, but I know she did. Iris wouldn’t just leave. Was that because of you?”

Eli walked over and sat on the couch next to Seger. A knock sounded at the door, making his heart jump, but it was only Dan telling them they had twenty minutes until showtime. He crossed his arms and stared at the floor, hoping his kid wouldn’t hate him when he admitted the truth. “Yeah. It was because of me.”

“Because you like her.”

He looked at Seger and felt the fact tumble out like it was the simplest thing in the world. “I love her.”

“Dad. You have to call her.”

“I told her I wouldn’t. She’d be here if she wanted to be, Seeg. I left her a triple-A pass. It’s up to her.”

“Yeah, but . . . shouldn’t you show her that you like her that much? I didn’t show Bella, and now she likes that Tristan guy. I should have shown her.”

Eli watched the gamut of emotions cross his young son’s face and wanted to weep for his future. He was a deep little guy, which meant he would feel everything more deeply. He had that curse. Eli had it, too. Life hadn’t been easy for him growing up. Hell, life hadn’t been easy once he was grown with the world in the palm of his hand.

“I probably should have shown her,” he admitted. “But she’s afraid. And I was afraid anything I did would scare her even more. Maybe our timing isn’t right. She probably has lots of things she wants to do now. You’ll understand the older you get. Timing is everything.”

“But how can she forget us?”

“She’ll never forget you. I promise she thinks of you every day. I bet someday we’ll get to talk to each other again. Maybe. Things are . . . not good right now. You know.”

“Yeah,” his son said dully. “I know.”

He’d tried to protect his kids from it all, but he knew Seger heard it and was smart enough to comprehend it. But sitting here and talking about this right now was shredding his fucking heart in his chest. It felt too much like saying goodbye to Iris, and dammit, he didn’t want to do that. They had so much to see and do together. He had so much he wanted to show her. A lifetime of things. This couldn’t be her answer. It couldn’t be.

But each second that ticked by on the clock across the room drove the truth deeper into his guts. She wasn’t here. Which only meant she didn’t want to be.