The words settle between us, my abs contracting as my mind takes me back to her dorm room an hour ago. I’d barely finished touching her before I wanted to touch heragain.
“Seeing her again this fall, it’s like a part of me I thought was dead came back to life. And more of me came with it, a part that helped my music and made me feel more alive than I have in a year. She always got me like no one else, and even when I wouldn’t let her in, she’d find herway.
“When I tried to work for Zeke, he said something was missing. She brings something out of me that’s not there when she’sgone.”
“One thing I can’t figure out is why she’s here. Why doesn’t she get her dad to set her up with acontract?”
“Because she wants to build her own castles. I respect the hell out ofthat.”
Beck’s eyes gleam. “Girl’s got you thinking about the future,huh?”
He’s pushing my buttons on purpose, but the thought of a future with her has me aching. “She’s like a song. She can be across the country, but I hear her name, or see someone who looks like her, or read something that sounds like she wrote it, and in a moment, she’s back. I’m dropped into this world of feeling, trapped in the same place. And I don’t want toleave.
“The stakes now are higher than ever. But even if I know there’s a chance of breaking her heart or her breaking mine and ruining both our lives… I want her too much to walkaway.”
“Thendon’t.”
We turn back to the TV, where middle-aged contestants are racing through an obstacle course built over a pool to try to win acar.
When a balding man slips on a moving disc and tumbles into the water with a massive splash, I say, “I thought we were supposed to get smarter when we getolder.”
Beck holds out a hand for my beer again, and I pass it to him. “Propaganda.”
14
“You’requiet for someone who landed a spot closing the showcase,” Elle points out at breakfast. “It’s mind sex, isn’tit?”
I blink, ripping off a piece of my untouched bagel. “You meanfantasizing?”
“Don’t make it sound pretty. It’s hot and dirty, and you’re doingit.”
Rae drops into a seat next to us with her coffee, surprising both of us. “It wasn’t mind sex that kept me out of my room Mondaynight.”
It’s true, and for the last thirty-six hours, all I’ve been able to think about isTyler.
Not the showcase we landed, but the things I want to do with Tyler that have nothing to do with music and everything to do with his hands and mouth andbody.
Yesterday, we agreed to spend the day catching up on our schoolwork before launching back intorehearsing.
Still, we ran into each other accidentally-on-purpose in the halls at school, and he pulled me into a stairwell for a hot and too-short make-out.
If we hadn’t both had class to go to, I know we would’ve ended up in my roomagain.
I want that sobadly.
In some ways, it’s a good thing Tyler and I never sealed the deal in high school. Neither of us would’vegraduated.
My phone rings, interrupting my daydream, and I answer withoutlooking.
“Annie Jamieson?” the warm female voiceasks.
I straighten, but Elle and Rae don’t seem to be listening. “Yes.”
“This is Kelly Fox from Lighthouse Representation. I saw the schedule for the Vanier showcaseonline.”
My mind spins with a million questions at once—how she found me, how she got my number, but most of all,The showcase lineup is postedonline?
Of course itis.