Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

I woke up to knocking.

Loud, frantic knocking.

“Ora!” an extremely familiar voice called out.

I blinked and sat up. “Amos?” I yelled back, picking up my phone from where I’d left it lying on the floor, plugged in. The screen said it was seven in the morning.

On my day off. Sunday.

What the hell was Am doing awake this early too? He’d literally told me at least three times that he usually stayed up all night playing video games and wouldn’t wake up until after one unless his dad was home. It had made me laugh.

Throwing my legs over the side of the bed, I called out again, “Amos? You okay?”

He replied then as I grabbed a hoodie from where I’d left it draped over one of the table’s chairs and slipped it on. Despite how warm it got during the day, some nights still got cool. “Oraaaa! Yes! Come here!”

What the hell was going on? I yawned and pulled on the sleep shorts I’d peeled off last night too, sliding them up my legs at the top of the stairs before I ran down as fast as possible. Amos wasn’t a dramatic kid. We’d spent so much time together over the last month, I would have picked up on it. If anything, he was sensitive and shy, even though he was coming out of his bubble around me more and more every day.

At least one of the Rhodes men was.

Unlocking then pulling open the door, I was already squinting at him.

Still in his pajamas—a wrinkled T-shirt from the town’s high school and basketball shorts I’d bet he’d inherited from Mr. Rhodes—he stared back at me. There was a drool stain on his cheek, and even his eyelashes looked a little crusty . . . But the rest of him was wide awake. Alarmed even.

Why did he look freaked out?

“What happened?” I asked, trying not to worry.

He grabbed my hand, which should have been a sign because he tolerated me on the rare occasions I hugged him but had never initiated one himself, and started pulling me forward, out the door.

“Hold on,” I said, stopping to slip on my boots halfway and shuffling after him. “What’s going on?”

The kid didn’t even glance at me as he kept on leading me toward his house. “Your . . . your friend is at my house,” he basically gasped.

“My friend?” What friend? Clara?

That was when he glanced over, his expression damn near distraught. “Yeah, your friend.” His throat bobbed. “You said some things, but I didn’t really believe you.”

“That’s rude,” I yawned, not knowing what the hell he was talking about but going along with it.

Amos ignored me. “But she’s inside. She was banging on the door and calling your name—and she doesn’t have her wig on, but it’s her.”

Wig?

I clomped up the stairs behind him, way too tired to really use my brain yet. One of my boots fell off, and I had to tap his hand to get him to stop so I could put it back on.

“She said she’s making us all breakfast, so I ran over here to get you.” He kept on rambling a mile a minute, talking faster than ever. More than ever too. He pushed the door open and kept on tugging me after him. “Can I tell Jackie? Dad said she could come over for two hours, remember? She’s gonna cry.”

“I stayed up last night finishing a book, Am. Who is over here? Clara? Why would Jackie cry?”

He led me straight into the living room before suddenly stopping.

“It’s her,” he whispered, not sounding very reverent but more like . . . surprised out of his mind.

I narrowed my eyes toward the kitchen with yet another yawn and spotted the jet-black hair and slim body standing in front of the stove, stirring something in a glass bowl.

I couldn’t clearly see the woman’s features, but all it took was an “Ora!” for me to know who she was.

An eight-time Grammy winner.

One of my best friends in the whole world.

One of my favorite people in the whole world.

And one of the absolute last people I would’ve ever imagined seeing in Mr. Rhodes’s house.

“Yuki?” I asked anyway.

I was pretty sure she set down the bowl before rushing over and throwing her arms around me, hugging the shit out of me so hard I couldn’t breathe. Still in shock, I hugged her back just as tight.

“What are you doing here?” I asked her in an exhale I was careful to let out above her head since I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet.

She hugged me even tighter. “I had the day off, and right after my show last night, I decided to come and see you. I tried calling but it went straight to voice mail. I’ve missed you so much, cutie pie.” Yuki pulled back just a little. “Is this okay? I remember you said you had this Sunday off.” Before I could say another word, she went on. “I can leave early if you need me to.”

I rolled my eyes and hugged her again. “Yes, it’s okay. I have plans but—”

“We can do whatever you need to do!” she offered, pulling back, giving me a rare view of her makeup-less and wigless upper body. Yuki Young, the person I loved and who had painted my nails once a week when I’d stayed with her at her twenty-thousand-square-foot mansion in Nashville.

Looking at her, only a massive fan would recognize her. And it was really, really rare. We could go out in public all the time . . . with her bodyguard that looked more like a boyfriend.

“I wasn’t really going to give you the chance to choose otherwise, Yu.” I laughed, feeling so tired but so happy to see her.

Honestly, it filled my heart with so much joy, I might have cried if my eyeballs were capable of it, but they were still so tired.

The only plan I had today had been . . .

Oh crap. I turned my head to find Amos standing in the exact same spot he’d been in when we’d stopped. His hands were on his belly, his mouth was slightly gaped, and he looked like someone had just told him he was two months pregnant.

“Amos,” I said carefully, everything suddenly clicking now. “This is my friend Yuki. Yuki, this is my friend Amos.”

He made a wheezing sound.

“Amos, are you sure it’s all right that I’m using your mix to make pancakes?” Yuki asked him with an earnest smile, all too familiar with that kind of reaction.

“Uh-huh,” the teenage boy whispered.

I, on the other hand, wasn’t so sure. Mostly because I knew his dad and how protective he was. “Am, can I borrow the house phone and call your dad real quick?”

He nodded, gaze still stuck on my friend of the last ten years. For someone who wasn’t a fan of her music—his words when I’d casually mentioned her during one of our sessions to test out the waters—he sure did seem starstruck. Then again, she was a household name who had magically appeared at his house, in the process of making pancakes while dressed like . . . well, like normal Yuki. The colored wigs she put on were nowhere in sight and neither were the colorful outfits and even more colorful makeup that so many of her fans tried to replicate.

She was just here, in a small town in Colorado, her sleek black hair cut shorter than it had been in a while, ending right at her chin, in jeans and an old NSYNC shirt . . . that she’d stolen from me and I hadn’t noticed until now.

I loved her. Thief or not.

But first, I needed to call and leave a message. Grabbing the house phone from the dock I found on the counter, I caught a big grin from Yuki, who at another glance looked worn the hell out, and then had Amos recite his dad’s number. Half expecting him not to answer—and praying he didn’t—I was surprised when Mr. Rhodes picked up.

“Everything all right?” was the first thing he said, sounding alarmed.

It was sevenish in the morning, and he had to be wondering what his kid was doing waking up early when he didn’t have school. “Morning, Mr. Rhodes, it’s Aurora,” I said, cursing in my head that of course he’d answer. “Am is fine.”

There was a pause, then, “Morning,” he greeted me back in a cautious voice. “Is there a problem?”

“No, not at all.”

“Are you fine?” he asked slowly in a grumbly voice that had me wondering what time he’d woken up.

We hadn’t done much more than wave at each other, which really consisted of me waving and him lifting two fingers or lifting his chin in response, since the day of the bat house. He hadn’t been outgoing or kind, but more just . . . back to putting up with my existence in the peripheral of his life. And that was all right. At least Amos had been keeping me company. I didn’t have any illusions.

“We’re both fine,” I replied, hoping he wouldn’t get too mad about having not just me but a stranger in the house too. “I was just calling to tell you that my friend showed up to surprise me and accidentally went to your house first, and we’re . . . here.”

“Okay . . .”

Okay?

Was this the same person who had mentioned at least ten times that I couldn’t have visitors over?

“She’s making us pancakes,” I went on, baring my teeth at myself.

That next “okay” sounded just like the first one had, trailing off and kind of funky.

I walked off toward the hall where Amos’s bedroom was so that they wouldn’t hear me and dropped my voice. “Please don’t get mad at Amos; he was just being polite. I would have let you know in advance or gotten a hotel room, but she surprised me,” I tried to explain just to be on the safe side. “I’m sorry we’re here.”

Did he just sigh in irritation?

“We’ll get out of here as soon as possible. My friend is one of the best people in the world, and I’ll keep an eye on Amos, I promise,” I whispered, eyeing Amos as he kind of strolled closer to where Yuki was busy trying to pour batter onto a skillet she’d heated up at some point.

There was another sigh. “I . . .”

Shit.

“I know you would, Buddy. It’s fine,” he said.

Buddy? Where had that come from? Not that I was complaining, but . . . I cleared my throat and kept my voice even. “Okay. Thank you.”

Silence.

All right then. “Okay, well, I’ll see you later maybe.”

There was a moment of silence. “I should be home around two.”

“Okay.” I considered warning him who she was, but decided against it. Based on the few times I’d heard music playing when he had the windows down in his truck or Bronco, he either wouldn’t know who Yuki was or wouldn’t give a crap.

I heard him breathe. “Bye.”

“Have a nice day at work.” I hung up then, confused by how weird he was being.

I glanced over to find my old friend staring at me intently from the kitchen, where she had a hip against the counter.

Too intently.

Especially when she seemed to be smiling all sneaky too.

And beside her, Amos was still staring at her.

At least until he asked, “Ora . . . ?”

I made my way over. “Yeah?”

“Jackie’s supposed to come over at eleven. To . . . you know . . .”

I did know. I was surprised he remembered too, especially when he seemed in the middle of a dead-eye stare aimed at Yuki.

For a brief moment, I thought about asking her if she’d care if his friend came over . . . but this was his house. And she wasn’t that kind of person.

“Of course she can still come over. We might as well take advantage of having Miss One Hundred and Twenty-Seven Million Albums being here. She can help.”

His head snapped over toward me, wide and alarmed.

“She’s the one who sent you that crystal in your room.”

I swear his coloring changed. Then he choked.

Yuki piped up, “Who needs help? How can I help?”

I grinned at her. “I love you, Yu. You know that?”

“I know,” she countered. “I love you too. Who needs help though?”

“We’ll talk about it later.”

Amos choked again, and his face started to get red at what I was implying, asking Yuki for “help” because we were supposed to work on his performance today. I’d begged him to try to sing in front of me. We’d put it off and put it off until he’d finally agreed . . . as long as Jackie was there too. He’d had to ask his dad for an exception since he was still grounded. I’d learned recently that he’d been supposed to start taking driver’s ed over the summer, but because of the apartment rental stunt, he was going to have to wait until he was forgiven.

“Yu.” I glanced at her. “How the hell did you get here?”

She turned to flip the pancakes. “Roger”—that was her main bodyguard who had been around for probably a decade; he was in love with her, and we were all pretty sure she had no idea—“drove me straight over after my show last night in Denver. He dropped me off and went to rent a hotel room to get some sleep.”

I noted the dark circles under her eyes again before glancing back at Am to make sure he hadn’t passed out. He was still standing there, in his own little world, terrified or shocked, probably both. I was pretty positive he wasn’t paying either one of us any attention anymore.

“Everything okay?” I asked her quietly, setting the phone back into the cradle and closing the space between us.

The breath she blew out was straight from her soul, and she lifted a shoulder. “You know I shouldn’t complain.”

“Just because you shouldn’t complain doesn’t mean you don’t have a right to.”

She bit her bottom lip, and I knew there was something going on. Or maybe it was just the usual stresses from touring. “I’m tired, Ora. That’s all. I’m really tired. The last two months have felt . . . really long and . . . you know. You know.”

I did know. She was getting burned out. That’s why she was here. Possibly to just be . . . this version of herself. Her normal person. Not the persona she put out for the whole world to see. She was sweet and sensitive, and bad reviews of her albums ruined her month. It made me want to murder people to protect her.

Sometimes you looked at a person and thought that they had everything, but you didn’t know how much they still wanted. What they were missing. Most of the time, they were things the rest of us took for granted. Like privacy and time.

And she was tired and here.

So the second we were close enough, I hugged her again, and she dropped her forehead into my shoulder and sighed.

I needed to call her mom or her sister tomorrow and tell them to keep an eye on her.

After a minute, Yuki pulled back and braved a tired smile. “Ora, where can I get some Voss water around here?”

I stared at her. Then I kept on staring at her.

She held up the spatula in her hand and muttered, “Okay. Forget I asked. I can drink tap water.”

Then sometimes I forgot she was a multimillionaire.

Nearly four hours later, Yuki and I found ourselves downstairs in the garage in two of Mr. Rhodes’s camping chairs while Amos sat on the floor, looking sick. It had only taken a stack of pancakes that were eaten at the table with my young friend not saying a word; a quick talk with the same teenage boy, who pleaded with me to take the day off, but I insisted that, no, we shouldn’t; and arguing about it for a second, which had surprised and amused me, to get to this point. I’d gotten to talk to Yuki in private while I’d gotten dressed about how the tour was going, which was just okay.

Jackie was on her way.

“We can wait another day,” the teenage boy insisted, his neck red.

Usually I didn’t like to force people to do things they didn’t want to do, but this was Yuki and she had the kindest soul in the world. “What if you turn around and pretend neither one of us is here?”

He shook his head.

“Neither one of us would ever say anything mean or bad, and I’ve heard you already. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of, Am, and One Hundred and Twenty-Seven Million Albums over here—”

Yuki grunted from where she was sitting in her chair, legs crossed, holding a cup of tea she’d somehow made in my apartment. Knowing her, she probably kept a couple of packs in her purse. “Would you stop calling me that?”

“Not after you asked for Voss water earlier.” I raised my eyebrows. “Would you prefer Eight-Time Grammy Winner?”

“No!”

Amos paled.

“You’re making Amos more nervous,” she argued.

But there was a method to my madness. “What about . . . I Puke Before Every Concert?”

She seemed to think about it for a second but nodded cheerily.

And that had Amos snapping out of it and asking quietly, “What?”

“I throw up before every performance,” my friend confirmed seriously. “I get so nervous. I’ve had to go to the doctor for it.”

His dark eyes flicked from side to side like he was processing her comment and having a difficult time doing so. “Still?”

“I can’t help it. I’ve tried therapy. I’ve tried . . . everything. Once I’m out there, I’m fine, but getting up there is so hard.” She uncrossed her legs and recrossed them. “Have you performed in front of an audience yet?”

“No.” He seemed to think about it. “My school has a talent show every February . . . I was . . . I was thinking about it.”

This was the first time I’d heard about it.

“Getting up there is difficult,” she confirmed. “It’s really hard. I know some people get used to it, but it’s fighting every instinct in my body to go out there every single time.”

“How do you do it then?” he asked, gaze wide.

She cradled her cup, looking thoughtful. “I throw up. I tell myself I’ve done it before and I can do it again, remind myself I love making money, and turn into Lady Yuki. Not normal Yuki, mind you, but Lady Yuki who can do everything that I can’t.” She shrugged. “My therapist said it’s a survival instinct that isn’t necessarily healthy, but it gets the job done.”

She set her cup down on her thigh. “Most people are too scared to ever put themselves in a position to be criticized. You shouldn’t care what they think if they don’t have the guts to do what you’re doing. You have to remember that too. The only opinion that really matters is your own and other people you respect. Everyone is scared of something, and perfection isn’t realistic. We’re humans, not robots. Who cares if you’re a little sharp or trip on national television?”

That had happened to her. Her sister had recorded it and cackled over it for at least a year.

Amos’s face was very thoughtful.

“So . . .” I trailed off to give him some time to think about her advice. “Have you written anything new?”

“Are you writing a song?” Yuki interrupted.

“Yeah,” I answered for him. “We’re still trying to figure out long-term what story he wants to tell with his music.”

She understood and puckered her lips together. “Yes. You absolutely have to figure that out. Amos, you’ve got the best person in the world right here to help you. You have no idea how lucky you are.”

I gritted my teeth, hoping she wouldn’t say much more, but the boy made a face.

“Who? Ora?”

That got me to snicker. “Dang, Am, don’t make it seem like it sounds that wild. I told you I’ve written a few songs.” He just didn’t know that some of them had done . . . well.

It was Yuki’s turn to make a crazy face. “A few?”

I had told her while we were upstairs that they had no idea about Kaden, that they only knew about her; at least Amos had been warned in a backward way with little hints. All they knew was about my . . . “divorce.”

“Hers? You wrote her songs?” my young friend wheezed, acting like he was floored.

Yuki nodded way too enthusiastically. I just bared my teeth at him in a noncommittal smile and threw in a shrug for the hell of it.

The confusion—and surprise—on his face didn’t go anywhere, and just as he seemed to think about what to respond with, a car started coming down the driveway, and we all turned as a familiar SUV drove by and did a three-point turn, a teenage girl coming out while it was still in motion. The window rolled down, and Clara’s familiar face appeared behind the driver’s seat. “Hi! Bye! I’m late!” And then she was gone as Jackie carried her backpack in one hand and headed toward where we were.

It was Am who held up his hand in a stopping motion and said, “Jackie, don’t freak out—”

And that’s when she stopped walking, the smile she’d had on her face dropping like a damn fly as her gaze landed on the person sitting next to me.

She fell over like a fucking tree.

So hard it was a miracle her skull didn’t smack against the concrete foundation as she passed out.

“Told you,” Am muttered as we all rushed over, crouching beside her just as her eyes shot open and she screeched.

“I’m fine! I’m fine!”

“Are you all right?” Yuki asked, kneeling beside her.

Jackie’s eyes went wide again, and her face went just as pale as Amos’s had earlier when I’d told him that we were going to recruit Yuki into helping today. “Oh my God, it’s you!” she shouted with another gasp.

“Hi.”

Hi.I almost burst out laughing. “Jackie, are you okay?”

Jackie’s eyes filled with tears, and I realized Amos and I were invisible now. “Oh my God, it’s you.”

My friend didn’t even hesitate; she scooted forward on her knees. “Would you like a hug?”

Jackie’s eyes were full of tears as she nodded frantically.

“I didn’t look like that, did I?” Amos whispered at my side as the woman and the teenager hugged and even more tears spilled out of Jackie’s eyes.

She was sobbing. Jackie was flat-out sobbing.

“Almost.” I met his eyes and grinned.

He gave me a flat look that reminded me way too much of his dad. I laughed.

But as I turned back, I happened to catch Jackie’s eyes as she pulled away from Yuki’s hug and saw something that looked an awful lot like guilt in them.

What was up with that?

Eventually, after Jackie had calmed down and quit crying—which ended up taking close to an hour because the second she would start to get herself under control, she’d burst into tears again—we all managed to take a seat in the garage. Amos and Jackie let us keep the seats while they sat on the floor, one of them looking nauseous and disgruntled at the same time, and the other . . . If my life were an anime, Jackie would have had hearts in her eyes.

“So . . .” I said, eyeing Amos especially.

He looked up at the ceiling, but I’d caught him peeking at me a second ago.

I wasn’t going to put him on the spot if he was really against it. He either wanted to perform, which we hadn’t really talked about much yet, or liked to write. He could just write for himself.

Amos had a beautiful voice, but it was his decision what he wanted to do with his gifts. Keep them to himself or share them with the world—it was his choice.

But I wanted Yuki to hear what he’d written, at least one song. Because maybe he didn’t admire her work, but without a doubt, I had a feeling that any praise she had for him would be good for his soul.

And if that meant me having to do it, so be it.

“Am, do you mind if I show Yu a little bit of your other song? The darker one?”

He peeked at me again, pink taking over his neck. “You’re not gonna make me do it?”

“I’d like it if you did because you know how I feel about your voice, but it’s 100 percent up to you. I just want her to hear it. Only if it’s okay with you.”

He lowered his head then, and I could tell he was thinking about it.

He nodded.

As he handed over his notebook, I pointed at the acoustic guitar he had propped up on a guitar boat at his side, and he passed that over too, along with a guitar pick. I ignored the raised eyebrow he was shooting at me. This child never believed.

Beside me, Yuki threaded her fingers together. “Oh, I love it when you sing!”

I groaned, propping the lightweight guitar across my lap, and sighed. “I’m not that great at singing and playing at the same time,” I warned the two teenagers, one of whom was staring at me intently and the other who I was pretty sure hadn’t heard a single word out of my mouth because she was too busy still staring at Yuki. “So it’s just an idea,” I said, even though we’d worked together enough to know that everything was just an idea until it had been tweaked to the second.

“You’re gonna sing?” Amos asked slowly.

I wiggled my eyebrows. “Unless you want to?”

That got him to stop talking, but it didn’t get him to look any less dubious.

“What about you, Jackie? You want to?” I asked my coworker.

That got her to snap out of it. She looked at me too and shook her head. “In front of Yuki? No.”

With the notebook propped on my knee, I closed an eye and whispered the words under my breath to get the timing of them okay. Clearing my throat, I heard the distinct sound of tires on the driveway.

I remembered the chords he played along with the lyrics the day his dad and I had overheard him and was going to stick to them. They were simple enough for me to follow since I wasn’t specifically talented enough to play difficult things and sing at the same time; it had to be one or the other. Figuring it was as good as it was going to get, I started. There wasn’t a nervous bone in my body. Yuki knew I wasn’t Whitney or Christina. Then again, no one was Whitney or Christina. I wasn’t Lady Yuki either.

I found a book yesterday

With stories I cannot speak

Empty and hollow

The words are nothing but bleak

Okay, this was going well. I smiled a little at Am, whose mouth was slightly gaped, before I kept going. There wasn’t much left.

Maybe there is a map

To find the happiness in me

Don’t let me be

Left to sink into the debris

I dipped straight into the chorus because it was what he had written since I hadn’t convinced him to save it for a little later.

We rise and fall with the tide

I cannot be led

Nowhere left to hide

The fire must be fed

Yuki caught on to the rhythm and started tapping her foot, smiling wide. “Do it again!” she cheered.

I smiled back at her and nodded, doing the chorus once more and then starting from the beginning, doing it a little easier, tapping my foot to keep the time. My friend gestured me to sing it once more, but this time, her sweet voice joined in, clearer, higher, and more piercing than mine.

Some people in life just had it, this talent embedded into their DNA that made them extra special, and Yuki Young was one of them.

And it was the same vibe I’d gotten from Amos. This ability to make me break out in goose bumps.

So I smiled as she sang along to the parts she’d memorized and eyed the two teenagers sitting on the floor, staring at us. And when I got to the end of the chorus, I grinned at my friend and said, “Good, right?”

Yuki was already nodding and smiling so wide, I couldn’t have loved her more for being so sweet to my new friend. “He wrote that? You wrote that, Amos?”

He nodded quickly, gaze going from her to me.

“Great job, teddy bear. Just great, great job. That line about being left to sink into the debris . . .” She nodded again. “That was really good. Memorable. I loved it.”

Amos’s eyes swept to me, and just as he opened his mouth, another much deeper voice spoke up from behind me.

“Wow.”

I turned to look over my shoulder to find Mr. Rhodes standing just inside the garage. Dressed in that incredible uniform with his arms crossed over his chest, feet wide apart, he was smiling. Faintly, but it was definitely there.

Probably because of Yuki’s beautiful voice.

But it was me he was looking at. Me that he was focusing that slim smile on.

I smiled right back at him.

“I didn’t know you sang!” Jackie shouted out of nowhere.

I turned my attention back to her. “I’ve sat through a lot of voice lessons. I’m not bad, but I’m not good.”

Beside me, Yuki snorted. I didn’t even spare her a glance. “What? I wish my voice was as husky as yours.”

That got me to blink at her. “Don’t you have a four-octave range?”

She blinked back. “Just accept the compliment, Ora.”

Standing up, I handed the guitar back over to Amos, who was watching me still pretty sneakily and then set his notebook down beside the pillow he’d been sitting on. My old friend had gotten up too, and I tapped her shoulder before gesturing to my landlord.

“Yuki, this is Mr. Rhodes, Amos’s dad and the man who owns the house. Mr. Rhodes, this is my friend Yuki.”

She instantly thrust her hand out. “Pleasure to meet you, Officer.”

Mr. Rhodes’s eyebrows rose up from beneath the sunglasses. “I’m a game warden, but nice to meet you too.” I hadn’t noticed until then that he was carrying bags in each hand. He shifted the one in his right hand over to the left and shook hers quickly, so quickly it wouldn’t hit me until later how quickly he moved on, before he turned his attention back . . . to me. “Not sure if you want to come over, but I brought the kids lunch. I’ve got plenty.”

What kind of weird game was he playing? Did he take some kind of happy pill every once in a while? My little heart gave a tight, confused squeeze. “Um, well—”

Yuki’s phone started ringing obnoxiously loud, and she cursed before walking away, answering with a “Yes, Roger?”

“I’ll ask her,” I explained, tilting my head in the direction she had gone. I threw out the first thing I thought of. “How was work today?”

“Fine. I wrote out too many tickets.”

He’d actually answered. Huh. “Did a lot of people play the dumb card and say they didn’t know something?” I asked, not expecting much more of a response.

“Half of them.”

I snorted, and the corners of his soft mouth went up just a little bit.

“I’ll take the kids,” he said. “You decide you want to eat, you know where we are.”

He was serious about inviting us over. I wanted to wonder why he was being so friendly but wasn’t positive I should find out. Instead, it was probably best to just accept it. “Okay, thank you.”

But Mr. Rhodes didn’t walk away. He stayed right where he was, just being all big and muscular. No big deal. “How’d it go today?”

“Really good. They know my friend.”

“The kids?” He didn’t ask how or why they recognized her though.

“Yeah.”

He nodded, but there was something very casual about the way he did it that didn’t sit right in my head, but I wasn’t sure why.

“Is your friend staying the night?”

“I have no idea, probably not.” She had a show tomorrow in Utah, so I highly doubted it. I just hadn’t wanted to ask.

His next nod, again, was a little too casual.

“Dad, can we eat now?” Amos called out from where he was lingering right outside the garage.

The older man replied just as I turned a little to catch Jackie by him, but this time, she was looking at me. Again. That funny, funny expression on her face. Little Rhodes and Mr. Rhodes headed out of the garage, not saying a word to each other, and it made me snicker.

Jackie wasn’t following after them though.

“You okay?” I asked her, hearing just a hint of Yuki’s voice from around the house, still talking on the phone.

“Umm, no?” she croaked.

I took a step closer to her. “What’s wrong?”

“I need to tell you something,” she said very seriously.

She was starting to scare me, but I didn’t want to put her off. “Okay. Tell me.”

“Please don’t be mad.”

I hated when people said that. “I’ll try my best to think about what you’re saying and try to take it with an open heart, Jackie.”

“Promise you won’t be mad,” she insisted, her slim fingers tap-dancing at her sides.

“Okay, all right, I promise not to get mad, but maybe I’ll get frustrated or have my feelings hurt.”

She thought about it for a second and nodded.

I waited for her to tell me . . . whatever it was she was scared to say.

And then she did. “I know who you are.” The words were rushed and so fast I almost couldn’t take them apart, so I squinted at her.

“I know you do, Jackie.”

“No, Aurora, I know who you are like I KNOW WHO YOU ARE.”

I had no idea what the hell she was trying to say.

She must have sensed that because she dropped her head back, squeezed her eyes shut, and said, “I know you were Kaden Jones’s girlfriend . . . or wife . . . or whatever you were.”

My eyes went wide.

She kept going. “I didn’t want to say anything! I . . . I saw your messages with Clara a long time ago . . . so, I . . . I looked you up. Your hair isn’t blonde anymore, but I recognized you the first time I saw you. There was like a whole page dedicated to women he was seen with, and there were pictures of you two together, like old pictures, I saw one or two of them before they got deleted—”

“Oraaa,” Yuki called out suddenly. “Roger’s being a party pooper, and he’s on his way to pick me up.”

I was going to need to ask Yuki if there was a crystal for mental clarity I could get.

“I’m not going to tell anyone, okay? I just . . . I wanted you to know. Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not,” I told her, stunned. Just as I opened my mouth to say something else, Yuki came around the corner, huffing.

“I wanted to hang out with you for longer,” she said, sounding exasperated.

Jackie hesitated. She took a single step back, braced herself, and spat out in a quick stream, “I love you so much. Today has been, like, the highlight of my entire life. I’ll never forget it.” Then, in the time it took me to blink, Jackie came forward, kissed her on the cheek, and took off running before suddenly stopping and turning around. “I’m sorry, Aurora!” she shouted before taking off again. Yuki watched her part of the way, a faint smile on her face.

“Is she okay?” she asked.

I swallowed. “She just admitted that she knows about me and Kaden and she isn’t going to tell anyone.”

Yuki’s head basically spun. “What? How?”

“Some fan page.”

She grimaced. “Want me to pay her off?”

Of all the things that could have made me burst out laughing, that was going to be it. “No! I’ll talk to her more about it later. What were you saying? Roger is coming to get you?”

She explained about her manager pitching a fit and wanting her to get to Utah tonight, so she had chartered her a flight that was scheduled to leave in an hour from the local airport. “He said he’ll be here in fifteen.”

“That sucks,” I told her. “But I’m glad you at least came and we got to see each other for a little while.”

She nodded, but her expression slowly turned funny. “Before I forget, why didn’t you tell me about Tall, Silver, and Handsome?”

I burst out laughing. “He is handsome, huh?”

She whispered, “How old is he?”

“I think early forties.”

Yuki whistled. “What is he? Six-four? Two-forty?”

“Why are you so creepy? You’re always measuring people.”

“I have to when we’re hiring bodyguards. Bigger isn’t always better . . . but most of the time it is.”

It was my turn to wiggle my eyebrows at her. “I wish. I mess with him all the time, and I don’t think he likes me much unless he’s in a good mood.”

My friend frowned. “How could he not like you? If I was sexually attracted to women, I would be attracted to you.”

“You say the nicest things, Yu.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “It’s true. It’s his loss if he doesn’t, but I swear I saw him staring at you the way I look at cupcakes when I see them in catering—like I really want one but my costumes say otherwise.”

“You’re perfect, and you can have a cupcake if you want one,” I assured her.

She giggled, and the following few minutes went by in a blur. The next thing I knew, a small SUV was pulling into the driveway and parking, and a man just a little bigger than Mr. Rhodes came out. Roger, Yuki’s bodyguard, gave me a hug, said he missed seeing me, and pretty much shoved Yuki toward the front seat of the SUV. It wasn’t until then that I realized she had gone upstairs to get her purse . . . and how the hell had she gotten service, now that I thought about it? I needed to switch providers.

She rolled down the window as the big ex-Marine went around the front. “Ora-Bora.”

“Yeah?” I called out.

She set her forearm across the frame of the window and propped her chin on it. “You know you can always come on tour with me, don’t you?”

I had to press my lips together before I nodded and smiled at her. “I didn’t, but thanks, Yu.”

“Will you think about it?” she asked as her bodyguard set the car into drive.

“I will, but I’m pretty happy here for now,” I told her honestly.

I didn’t want to live out of hotels anymore. That was the truth. The idea of living on a tour bus with my best friend didn’t bring me much joy or excitement anymore, even if she was the only thing that would make it bearable and fun.

I wanted roots. But that was something cruel to bring up to her when I knew that with each time she left home, she was more and more miserable. It was hard being away for months and months at a time, far from loved ones and peace and privacy.

And the little smile she gave me as Roger hollered, “Bye, Ora!” told me that she knew exactly what I was thinking.

If I could leave again for anybody, it would be her.

But I wouldn’t.

“Love you,” she called out, sounding way too wistful. “Buy a new car before winter! You’re going to need it!”

I was going to text her mom and sister ASAP, I decided as I yelled back, “Love you too! And I will!”

And she was gone. In a trail of dust. Off to fly high and nurture a career made from tears and guts.

And suddenly, I didn’t really want to be by myself.

Hadn’t Mr. Rhodes invited me anyway?

My feet took me to the house as I nursed the bittersweet visit that had lifted my spirits and made my day. I knocked on the door and spotted a figure through the glass making its way over. From the size, I knew it was Amos.

So when it opened and he gestured me inside, I managed a little smile for him.

“Did she leave?” he asked quietly as we walked side by side toward the living area.

“Yeah, she told me to tell you bye,” I said.

I could sense him looking at me out of the corner of his eye. “Are you okay?”

Sure enough, Mr. Rhodes and Jackie were sitting at the small kitchen table, demolishing plates loaded with Chinese food. They both sat up at Am’s and my voices. “Yeah, I just miss her already,” I told him honestly. “I’m glad she came. It’s hard not knowing when I’ll see her again.”

The chair beside Mr. Rhodes was pulled out, and it took me a second to realize he’d pushed it with his knee and it hadn’t been magic. He was chewing as he gestured to a stack of plates on the counter beside the containers of food. I picked one up, feeling a little shy all of a sudden, and loaded it up with a little bit of everything—not really that hungry for some reason but wanting to eat anyway.

“How do you know her?” Amos asked as I served myself.

My hand stilled for a moment, but I went for the truth. “We met at a big music festival in Portland about . . . eleven years ago. We both got heatstroke backstage and were in the infirmary tent at the same time, and we hit it off.”

I hoped they didn’t ask how I got backstage and was ready to explain . . . but neither one of them did.

“Should I know who she is?” Mr. Rhodes asked out of nowhere, sitting there eating quickly and neatly.

It was Amos who covered his face with his palm and groaned, and Jackie who launched into an explanation that I was sure made Mr. Rhodes regret asking.

I wasn’t sure why he’d decided to be so nice to invite me for lunch, but I really appreciated it.

He really was a decent man.

And I could not have asked for a friend better than Yuki.