I can think about.
Her on my bike.
In my lap.
Bending her over my arm while I rock my hips into her, against her, that red hair trailing over the handlebars.
Because the moment she told me she was single, the rules changed.
Not the rules for what happens next between us, but the rules for what goes on in my twisted head.
We go back to my place, and she heads for the pullout couch in my suite.
But I stop her, tugging her toward the bedroom. “You’re not sleeping on the couch.”
I go to the dresser and grab a clean T-shirt, tossing it at her. She lifts her hands in surprise, catching it. “Thanks.”
“Sure.”
I reach for the bottom of my shirt and strip it over my head, tossing it on the nearby armchair.
Her eyes widen on my body.
The last times we were together physically, I took my pain out on her. My fear. My frustration.
I want a chance to prove I’m not that guy anymore. Not because we have a future together, but because I want to show her the man I became while she wasn’t looking.
I want to know if I can still make her scream.
“What’s that?” Annie’s attention drags to something across the room.
I turn and see the object leaning against the wall by the dresser, the one that’s so familiar I barely notice it anymore.
“My guitar.”
“You still have it.”
“Of course I do. Twenty-four frets. Rosewood. I fucking love that guitar. Some love lasts a lifetime.”
“Just not ours.” She blinks fast. “I’ll change in the bathroom.”
She heads that way, closing the door quietly behind her, and I rub my good hand over my neck and wonder what the fuck I was thinking bringing her here.
I shift into bed in my boxer briefs and exhale the breath I’ve been holding for longer than I can count.
The way Annie looked at me a second ago, it was almost as if she was accusing me. Like the way I loved the guitar she gave me outlasted how I loved her.
It’s not true. The words feel as if they’re coming from inside me and outside at once.
But it is. I’m over her. I told myself that for the last two years, since before I believed it.
Eventually, I started to.
She returns a moment later, crawling in next to me. Her light floral scent has me itching to reach my good arm around her and tug her body against mine.
Instead, I fist my hand at my side.
I remember every time we’ve shared a bed.
From the first time after her party in high school when I wanted to know she was okay to the time after prom.
The time in her dorm room at Vanier when I made her come for the first time.
The hotel in LA when I showed up at her door, swore she meant everything, and we made love for hours.
I think about the beds I lay in alone, nameless hotels in cities I barely remember.
Getting to perform for big crowds, having money and fans and influence for the first time—at least a backup band that listened to me for once instead of the other way around—mattered, but not nearly as much as it should have.
In months of touring, the only woman who ever got me off was Annie Jamieson. Her face, her voice, her damned memory was the only one I wanted in my bed.
I never told anyone, and I’m sure as hell not going to tell her as we lie next to each other, staring at the ceiling, still buzzed from the music.
But her closeness has my heart thudding hard enough to bruise my ribs.
“I was thinking about what you said. How we wouldn’t have lasted on the road, and it wouldn’t have worked if I’d stayed.” My words echo in the dark. “You found yourself in New York and I lost myself there.”
For a moment, I wonder if Annie’s already asleep, until I feel the bed sink as she turns toward me.
“I replayed it in my head a thousand times. What I could’ve done differently. Giving you more space, or less. Trying to make it work from a distance.”
I exhale hard. “No. I wish I’d been better in those moments. The last few times we were together... it wasn’t good. I hate that you’ll always remember me like that.”
I feel her inch closer, her breath lightly fanning my lips. “I remember we used to dream about this. You having a recording career and me being on stage. And now we are. So it all