he headed toward center stage, facing me fully for the first time. There was no way I was taking the chance he’d see me until after the show—not with things so up in the air between us. I was too professional for that.
The lines of his face were tight with concentration as he adjusted the shoulder strap. It read Zoe’s. I couldn’t help but smile as hope blossomed in my chest. He still had it. Still used it at least once a show.
“He had one made for every guitar,” Monica said over the noise of the crowd.
My eyes popped wide, but she just nodded.
Nixon adjusted the microphone as the lights fell, leaving him in the lone spotlight. What was he doing? He never played without Quinn and Jonas. And was that…it was. The guitar was an electric acoustic.
“I lost a bet with Jonas earlier today,” Nixon said, his voice echoing into the stadium. “Turns out, there are indeed seventy-two steps up to the Rocky statue, not seventy.”
The audience roared, and I smiled. He always knew how to work a crowd.
“So, here I am, paying up, because I didn’t check Google…and he did. Cheater.” His thumb strummed over the strings. “So, I owe him a song, and this is the one he’s been trying to get me to play for the last eight months.” Another strum, changing the chord.
My breath hitched. We were in Colorado eight months ago.
“I’m one year sober today—” The cheer from the crowd was deafening and took a hot minute to die down. My eyes pricked, and I had to blink the blurriness out of them. God, I was proud of him, especially today. “Thanks, guys. Someone I love told me once that there was nothing more romantic than pouring your heart out in public. So, this one is called ‘Merciful Fire,’ and it’s about the person who made this last year possible.”
My jaw dropped as the song started—fully acoustic.
His hands moved across the strings, bringing the melody to life, and I felt it resonate in my chest—my very soul—as he began to sing.
“Wandering through the mountain air,” he began, his voice strong and clear. “Snow blanketing the ground, falling in your hair.”
My breath caught. Legacy?
“Your name is my only prayer to a God who stopped listening under summer’s glare.”
Every muscle in my body went tight, my fingers flexing with the need to touch him.
“Your warmth singes my soul. Brands me, marks me, welds me whole. Red strands of silk between my fingers, lace and desire—”
Red hair. Lace. Oh my God.
“You banish the pain, cleanse my sins with your merciful fire.”
The man who’d never written a song about a woman had written one for me.
My hands flew to my mouth as the emotions of the last year swept over me, filling every cell in my body with the simple truth that I loved this man. I would always love this man. There was no getting over Nixon Winters, even if I wanted to.
And I didn’t.
Not now. Not ever.
I paced back and forth in front of Nixon’s vanity about forty minutes later. I’d left the wings during the last song in the encore, which also happened to be the biggest hit off the new album—“Mad Alibis.”
I loved it just like everyone else in the country. I’d had the song on repeat enough times to know it word for word, had heard enough of the uproar at Berkshire when the group added it to the album last minute, but hearing it live, watching Nixon’s fingers fly over his guitar, took my love to a whole new level.
But this reunion wasn’t something that should take place in front of an audience, so I’d left during the second chorus, and here I was, waiting for Nixon to show up.
Hot mess. I was a flaming hot mess. Nervous. Excited. Terrified. All of it. I wasn’t stupid; I knew creatives wrote songs about ex loves and old flames. That could very well be the case with “Merciful Fire,” especially since he’d written it eight months ago. But he’d stood up there with my name across his chest, which had to mean something, right?
The door flew open, bouncing on the hinges.
“Call the car around back,” Nixon demanded, his voice rushed as he stripped the guitar off his very shirtless back. “I want to be at the airport in the next—” He froze, his eyes widening when he saw me.
Shit. I was interfering with his travel plans.
“Hey.” I swallowed, my eyes eating him alive. Sweat