There are advantages to an empty refrigerator.

Grady maneuvers two huge pizza boxes through my door, several smaller boxes piled on top and two bags hanging off his arm. All of this overflows my small table. My place is going to smell like cheese and carbs and garlic when I come home again.

“You may have been right about the fruit pizza,” he says, side-eyeing me as I lift one of the lids. “But I’m not on board with the seafood one. We can go for sushi or something tomorrow.”

“What’s wrong with you that you’re single?”

He looks a little ridiculous with a mozzarella stick hanging out of his mouth, but he recovers. “Thought the abrupt topic changes were my thing?”

He’s wary, not mad, and I run the question through my mind again. “That really came out wrong, huh?”

“Maybe a little bit. You burned a lot of calories earlier, it’s hunger.” He winks at me and dangles a string of melty cheese in front of my face. “This will help.”

It does. The way his eyes darken when I suck the tip of his finger, to get the oil off, really, helps too.

“Because you’re being kind of perfect. Like, A-plus boyfriend material. So why aren’t you someone’s boyfriend?” I gasp and widen my eyes, playing with him. “You have five thousand human skulls in your basement, don’t you?”

“Only two thousand. I ground the other three into male enhancement powder.”

“I knew no one had that much stamina.”

“No impugning the stamina.” The last word is broken off by his mouth slanting across mine.

Several minutes later, he pulls back. “Load up a plate and we’ll toss in the next movie. Then I’ll tell you.”

We’d decided on a genetically manipulated animals eat people theme. The movies were usually pretty cheesy, but they cheered me up on days when all I wanted was to unleash the velociraptors.

“Sooo…” he drawls after the first victims have been crunched. “Relationships weren’t on my radar until I was about twenty-four. Like, serious, committed, all the feelings romantic relationships. Oh, I love this part.”

Two more humans become chow, then he continues. “I met Marise at some party in New York City and we hit it off, so I asked if I could take her out the next night. Only she was flying to the Caribbean for another shoot. She’s a model.”

“Panties or bikinis?”

“Both. And high fashion couture or whatever they call it. Anyway, she gave me her number anyway and we kept in touch. She was one of the most down to earth people I’d ever met. No drama. At the time, there was tons of drama in my life. Our second album had just blown up, suddenly there were fans everywhere, press, my dad was all over it. It was nuts.”

“And she grounded you.”

“Yes.” The word comes out on a sigh of relief, whether from nostalgia or that I understand, I’m not sure. Then he tips my chin up for a kiss. It’s me.

“I’m not sure when we became a couple, but there we were. And it was good. Really good. Fun, easy. Lots of weekends at the beach, stuff like that. Then our tour started, and more people knew her name, so she started getting more bookings. Within six months, both our schedules were just jammed. We’d make plans six weeks out, then they’d fall through at the last minute because she’d get another job, which at the time she couldn’t turn down. Models don’t have a long shelf-life, and even though she was ‘hot’ at the time, she wanted to take full advantage of it while she could.”

“Smart woman.”

“You’d probably like each other. Which just goes to show I have pretty awesome taste.”

I push at his shoulder. “Don’t make me feed you to the t-rex.”

While he’s off balance, he rolls to his feet and takes our empty plates into the kitchen. He comes back and hands me a beer. “Better than the sharks.”

“So what happened?”

He shrugs. “It wasn’t as dramatic as all those Hollywood breakups that claim too much time apart. We emailed or called pretty much every day, there was no cheating or shit like that. We spent more time catching up on what each other had been up to than we spent doing stuff together. She had all these great things going on, I had all these things going on, and while we kept up, by the time we got a few weeks off in the same town, we hardly recognized each other.

“Touring seems like it’s the same thing, day in and day out, over and over. You don’t notice the little changes as they’re happening. Same thing with flying all over the globe for fashion shows and photo shoots.”

Pillows thunk against the wall as he tosses them back to the head of the bed. He stretches out, propped up against the mismatch of patterns and colors. I lever back and nestle into his outstretched arm. “So as quietly as we’d become a couple, we unbecame a couple. Took me a few months to connect all the dots. Maybe long-distance relationships work if people have been together for a while, but we’re on the road so much, there’s no opportunity to build anything with someone.”

“And you guys don’t date people who work for you.”

He shifts. “Yeah. We didn’t.”

“Didn’t?” Not a hook I’m going to let him off.

“Short version, because it’s not really my story to tell. James met this woman on the set of our first video, a production assistant at the time and bam. Madly in love. We all liked her, no problem. She was driven, ambitious, determined. Not bad traits, but when my mama refused to act as our manager anymore, James’s girlfriend saw an opportunity. What started as the two of them talking things over that were going on with the band, like a couple would, sort of turned into her trying to push her way into managing us. Things got…uncomfortable. James ended it, but it hit him hard, he felt guilty for what she’d almost done to our career too, which didn’t help. So Bax came up with the idea that we should make a pact, no more dating anyone who worked for us, or could potentially work for us. It made James feel better, for a while.”

“Is that why he’s all broody?”

“Kinda. He’s always been like that, but it got worse after the breakup.”

I feel the laugh rumbling in his chest. “Except the damn kid went and got smarter than us, because he’s the one who told me to get my ass over here and make this work. So I guess we don’t have that rule anymore.”

“Guess not.” I chew my lip. One nice safe obstacle down. Sometimes wide-open roads were the scariest. You’re happily moving along, and then…fiery crash.

“Hey, know what’s a great palate cleanser?” he suddenly asks.

“Toothpaste?”

“Well, yeah,” he gets out a few moments later. “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed this much with anyone outside the band.”

“Happy to entertain you.” Which is the truth, because he’s got a great laugh.

“Palate cleanser?” I prod a few scenes later.

“Huh? Oh. Sex. Then you made me laugh and now I’m not in the mood.”

“I think that’s all the pizza.”

“Pizza is sex fuel.”

“That the name of your next number one song?”

His fingers tap against my arm. “Could be. I’ll run it by the guys.”

I lean my head back to see his face. He may be serious. I boop him on the nose. “Do no such thing. This will all become one of those stories so infamous you have to give them titles.” I do my best Grady impression. “Hey, everyone, remember the Pizza Fuck Incident? Wrote a song about it. Goes like this.”

He flips our positions, straddling my hips to pin me to the bed. “Someone’s snark is on point this evening.”

“Thank you. We should do the making out thing now.”

“We really should. And get naked. Save us a few minutes in the morning.” His hands skate up my sides, pulling my thin tank as they go.

“The morning?”

His smile is nothing short of wicked. “Well, you did derail my hot shower and hot sex plans for this morning. So I’m rescheduling for tomorrow.”

“You’ve been in my bathroom. That shower is not big enough. I tell you this now so you can change plans accordingly.”

The tip of his tongue slicks across my bottom lip. “Slow sleepy sex it’ll be then. I’ll take a raincheck on the hot shower sex.”

“Deal.”

Later, after he’s fallen asleep, the blue flicker of the television highlighting the planes and dips of his body, I wonder if maybe, this time, everything will mix together just right.