CHAPTER 24

“What’re we celebrating?” I call over the music as Jacob slides a shot down the bar at Leo’s. “Landed an audition.” He lifts his glass and clinks mine, and we both drink. The alcohol burns down my throat, welcome and bracing at once. The first two days back to school are turning out to be a rude awakening but not for the reasons I expected. Our fridge is broken, ruining the food I bought on the weekend. Our landlord is dodging me, and the guy I called today to fix it said he’d come by tomorrow between eight and whenever he feels like it. I had my first weekly guitar lesson this afternoon with my intensive professor—the guy who’s assigned to oversee my development—during which he wanted to lecture me about the “evolution of my style.” Which probably could’ve been avoided if he hadn’t insisted on referring to it as the “evolution of my style.” At Leo's, I’m ready to forget all of it for a few hours. A full third of the crowd is from Vanier, but they're here to unwind. Hell, maybe someone’ll catch my eye tonight. Because that worked so well the last time. “Congrats on the audition,” I tell my friend as I set my empty glass on the bar next to his. He tells me about the new TV series. “You’d leave school if you got it?” “Sure. That’s what we’re all here for.” Apparently, that’s why Emily’s here. I can’t stop thinking about her words at the assembly yesterday. I’ve thought about what I’d say if I saw Emily Carlton again, but she caught me off guard, here in the last place I expected, and all I could think was how part of me that’d been dead for a year suddenly woke up. It took everything in me not to drag her out of that hall to somewhere private and demand she tell me what the hell is going on. “You ever think about her?” Jacob’s voice drags me back. “Who?” “Mariah. She left for LA before the summer. You guys dated.” I shrug. “Not really. We were friends. We went out a few times.” She gave me indications of wanting to date, but we both knew the deal—there were more important things than each other. When she landed a part in LA, I took her to the airport with Jacob and some other friends, hugged her, and went on with my day. We’ve texted a few times since just to say hey and see how things are going. “So, that’s not why you were brooding all summer.” I stare at him, perplexed. “I wasn’t brooding.” “You were, but that means it’s not over her. So, it must’ve been about Zeke.” Jacob stares past me, and I follow his gaze to a big poster by the door advertising the annual fall showcase at Vanier. “You want to get Zeke’s attention?” he drawls, grinning. “Close the fall showcase.” I’ve been so focused on getting my contract back and getting out of Vanier I haven’t stopped to think about what to do if I stay this semester. It’s a big deal. Everyone gets written up in the media, and whoever is selected to close gets a ten-grand honorarium. “It’s not the worst idea,” I tell him. “I’m full of ‘em today. Really getting into this mentoring thing. My girl’s a peach. And cute.” My spine stiffens as he continues. “I know you said not to go there, but Ty, you met her. She’s fucking adorable. And that voice... I wanna record her saying my name when she comes.” I step closer, my chest tightening. “She’s not your girl.” The words are out before I can stop them. His grin turns smug. “She came to me needing something today. I gave it to her.” “What exactly did you give her?” Before Jacob can answer, the sound of applause echoes as performers change. I glance at the girl taking the stage and freeze an inch from pummeling my roommate. Even twenty feet from the stage, Emily’s dark-rimmed eyes seem to reach straight into my soul. Her hair’s dark and waving over her shoulders. I stopped dying my hair, and she started. She’s wearing high-heeled boots and tight jeans and a shirt—if you can call it a shirt—that pushes up her breasts and stops halfway down her stomach. My abs clench hard. I can’t decide which part is most responsible for my reaction: the long line of her legs or the soft shadowed dip between her breasts or the slick lips, shiny as if she’s been sucking on them. She looks ripe, like fruit you’ve been impatiently waiting to soften, telling yourself it’s not time yet. Emily lifts a guitar over her head, and Jacob whistles admiringly. “What do you know? My manatee talked herself into a slot at Leo’s. I tell you, Ty, this girl might be it for me.” “Put your dick back in.” My quick retort surprises both of us. The woman on the stage isn’t the girl I fell for two years ago. It should be comforting to know that. Instead, it’s disconcerting as hell. A body bumps mine, a girl blinking at me with apology and thinly veiled invitation. I barely notice, shoving my hands in my pockets as my gaze locks on the stage. Jacob’s watching me, though his phone’s trained on the stage. “You want her too.” “That’s bullshit.” I shove both hands through my hair, trying to fight the discomfort clawing at my insides. “Look at you. You’re a mess.” The woman whose hair sways as she bends the strings of the guitar, fingers picking the opening chords of a song, isn’t the girl I fell for. Which means Emily’s gone. After leaving Dallas, I consoled myself with the fact that she was still intact somewhere, like a dragonfly in amber—the earnest girl with a disarming smile who’d bleed because that’s what we’re meant to do. But she’s not, and before I can process the churning in my gut at that realization, the woman on stage starts to sing. Emily always had the kind of voice you wanted to listen to all day. This is lower, sultrier. It’s an invitation and a promise, and it wraps around my spine, drags down. Emily Carlton just grabbed my cock in the middle of this bar. My confusion’s gone, squashed by something more deliberate. The fact that she’s here, that she’s changed, that she can still turn me on without even touching me, pisses me off. Jacob hollers, and I ignore him, cutting through the half-drunk crowd to backstage. “Wasn’t sure you were coming.” The woman who runs open mic night looks at her list. “You want in after her?” I glance at Emily. “Next one.” I stalk to the edge of the stage. At this new angle, I can see Emily swaying with her own music, the spell she's weaving on the faces of the crowd. Tightness works through my gut. We’re going to talk about this right the fuck now. How she’s here. Why she’s here. Why the fact that she’s here is affecting me so goddamn much. My gaze lands on the small silver handbag sitting on an unused speaker. It’s familiar, and I reach for it. When Emily comes off stage, beaming and sweating from the spotlight, her attention goes to the speaker. “Where’s my—” I hold up the bag, and her eyes flash. When she swipes for the bag, it falls between us, the contents spilling out. “What are you doing here?” she demands as we both drop to the ground. She reaches for her phone, her face a breath away from mine. “Leo’s is my place. I should be asking you the same thing.” I retrieve one of the cards and hold it up in the half light. “It almost looks like you. This you. Whoever she is.” I grab her bag and straighten. She rises too, her gaze lingering on the purse in my hands as if I might run away with it. “What would your dad say if he could see you like this?” I press. Emily’s close enough I see her breasts heaving under her low-cut top. “I don’t care.” I’m not even mad at her. I’m mad at me, at the way she affects me still, at the fact that I left her for my dreams but also so the sweet, smart girl I craved like a drug could grow up without my influence. But she’s not here. That girl is gone. “Besides,” she goes on, “he doesn’t know everything that happens in the world.” A single piece in a twisted puzzle clicks into place. “He doesn’t know you’re here.” There’s a hint of panic in those eyes, a vulnerability I catalogue, memorize. I feel the power shift between us, like I’m suddenly gaining the upper hand. “Where does he think you are?” I ask. She looks like she wants to deny me, but there’s no point lying. I can find out. “Columbia University.” The next act on stage is playing something down tempo. Now that she’s close, I smell her. She’s memories and dreams, gold and glory, and parts of me that were dead five minutes ago suddenly ache. “You shouldn’t be so surprised to see me,” she goes on. “You saw me at auditions. Couldn’t believe I’d actually get in?” It’s my turn to be back on my heels. “I thought I imagined you.” Her brows pull together. “Why would you do that?” I don’t fucking know. Because I wanted you here? “Whatever,” she says, realizing I’m not going to answer. “Give my bag back.” I open it and tuck the license back in. When I do, my fingers close on the round glass shape on a chain. I lift it high between us. When the glass flashes in the light, my gut twists. Hard. The pendant is flat, cut in the shape of a heart. At first, I think it’s purple glass, but when I look closer, I see it’s two pieces of clear glass edged with dull gold binding the edges together around the dark-purple thing inside it. To preserve it. I can’t place it, but familiarity and nostalgia wash over me in uninvited waves. “What is this?” I demand. “A reminder that I’m not the person I was. That’s the last question of yours I’m going to answer because I don’t owe you anything. You walked away from me.” The pain and accusation in her voice has my chest tightening, but I remind myself she’s fine. She got over me fast. “I know Jacob’s my mentor and he’s your roommate,” she goes on, “but we can stay out of each other’s way.” The way she looks when she says it, the hint of vulnerability in those dark-rimmed eyes, the waver in those gloss-slicked lips, tells me the earnest, honest girl I knew isn’t gone. Not entirely. It makes her ten times harder to ignore. I steel myself, unwilling to show what I’m feeling as I drop the pendant into the bag and hold it out. “He likes you,” I mutter grudgingly as our hands meet on the fabric. “Jacob?” Her brows lift. “I like him, too.” But her gaze drops down my body before flicking back up. “Don’t worry about me. I’m sure your girlfriend is more than enough to keep you occupied.” “My what?” Doubt has her licking her lips. “The girl who was climbing you in that practice room.” Knowing it bothered her has adrenaline surging through me. I should correct her assumption, tell her Mariah wasn’t my girlfriend then and isn’t now. But for some fucked-up reason, I need to remind her what went down between us might be over but it happened. More than that, it mattered. I step closer, inhale her scent as I brush her hair back behind her ear. To her credit, she doesn’t back away. She’s all grown up? Fine. I’ll treat her like it. “You want me to pretend I don’t know you?” I murmur against her ear. “That I never kissed that mouth? Never slept in your bed?” Never made you laugh. Never stared at you in utter awe for how beautiful you were, the way you saw the world. I force those thoughts away because they’re stirring up feelings I can’t stand. “Never watched those eyes get big when you imagined me fucking you, when you practically begged me to do it?” The little shiver that overtakes her has me wanting to drop my lips to her jaw, see if it’s as soft as I remember. Applause in the distance tells me the previous performer has wrapped up, and someone shouts at me to take the stage, but I can’t move. She pulls back first, tucking her bag under her arm and sucking in a breath. “That’s exactly what I expect. This is my fresh start. No one’s going to mess it up. Not even you, Timothy Adams.” As she disappears down the stairs, I don’t feel anything like vindicated. The only thing I can think is that I’d give everything I have to hear her say my name again.