up alone in my bed. When I asked her why she didn’t stick around until morning, she always said she was inspired and wanted to get something recorded before losing her enthusiasm. As far as I could tell, she was always creating something, always thinking of a song or lyrics. Her brain was busy, but she seemed genuinely excited about whatever it was she was writing and playing these days, so I tried not to give her a hard time about being a girl who came and went as she pleased.
I reached out a hand and pulled her fingers away from her poor tortured lip. I brought her hand to my lips and placed a little kiss on the digits.
“Why do you suddenly look so concerned?” The way she was staring at her phone and her body language told me she was worried about something. It was the opposite of how I wanted her to look after we’d just had some seriously incredible sex, and when we only managed to squeak out a few hours together after several days of missing one another.
She used her index finger to trace the bridge of my nose and to boop it on the tip. The way she touched me, the way we interacted, was totally different now that all our history was laid bare in front of us. Instead of ignoring all the problems and complications that used to terrify me, we faced them head-on. There was no place to hide anymore, and that changed the way we treated each other. We were forced to find kindness for each other when the option to run away was no longer on the table.
She gave me a crooked smile and waved her phone in her other hand. “Your cousin texted me a little while ago. I don’t know how she still has so many contacts in a city she hasn’t lived in for years, but she knows someone who owns a bar that has live entertainment. She wants me to go audition for them.”
I leaned back against the headboard and watched her carefully. “Are you ready for that?” She was kind of cagey and evasive when I asked her what her plans were going forward. I knew she didn’t want to think too much about what would happen when the summer was over and we once again had to face being two people with very different lives in very different cities. But I also wondered if she was hesitating because she was scared to commit to moving forward on her own without a band to back her. She always seemed so fearless and sure of herself, knowing exactly what it was she was supposed to be doing with her time and her talent.
She blew out a breath and pushed her hair over one shoulder. She looked at me out of the corner of her eye as she shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. I mean, I have the songs, and I can play them, but I’ve never performed alone before. If I fail again after going out solo, it means I have to face the facts that I’m not meant to be in the music industry. I’m not sure I’m ready to deal with the reality of that.” She gave her head a little shake and sighed again. “Failing at the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do,” she blinked hard, and I knew she was trying to control tears. “It’s a terrifying thought.”
I shifted closer so I could throw an arm around her shoulders and pull her into my side. She curled up next to me as I rested my chin on the top of her head. There was enough tension in her body that I knew she wasn’t kidding about being terrified.
“Isn’t this the kind of situation where you have to try before you know if you’ll succeed or not? You can worry about what will happen all day long, but until you jump in, it’s all speculation. If you don’t put yourself out there, you fail in another way, and you’re still giving up the thing that matters most.”
She pulled away and tilted her head back to look at me through narrowed eyes. “It kind of bugs me that your brain is as big as the rest of you.”
I chuckled and squeezed her tighter. “No one ever said chasing after your dreams was going to be easy. Putting yourself out there, baring your soul through your songs, you didn’t pick an easy route