“But that’s not what happened,” Will says.
“No.” I shake my head and lift my gaze to the ceiling. “I fell so hard for her. I mean, it’s like she looked at me and saw this amazing man, and suddenly I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to be better. To earn it. Does that make sense?”
“Been there,” Will whispers. “I get it.”
I blow out a long breath. “So I’d gone on a couple of dates with Hanna when Meredith talked me into coming over to see her. At that point, I still thought nothing would come of me and Hanna. I got over there, and as soon as Meredith and I started messing around, all I could think about was Hanna. I kissed Meredith and wondered what it’d be like to kiss Hanna. I got out of there, but…now Hanna knows. She knows I asked her out for all the wrong reasons, and she knows I went to Meredith that night. I hurt her.”
“Shit. So it’s over?”
I nod. “Yeah. But she’s so f**king sweet she swore me to secrecy about the breakup. She wants her mom to help me get that grant for the gym, and she’s afraid I won’t get it if her mom knows we broke up.”
“You’re going to stand for that? Some fake relationship just so you can get some grant money?”
“We both know this isn’t about the money.” I lock my eyes with his. “If you thought you’d lost Cally, wouldn’t you carry on in a charade of a relationship if it meant you got more time with her? If you thought it might mean a chance to win her back?”
Will exhales heavily and nods. “Fuck. Yeah. I would.” He drags a hand through his hair. “If Meredith sent Hanna those texts, you can count on her being a problem. Watch out.”
“I know.”
“You’ll let me know if I can help?”
I grimace. “Seriously? Your fiancée is outside that door, ready to take you home and get you na**d, and you’re still standing here trying to get me to take your money?”
Will grins. “Good point. See you later. I’m sorry about Hanna, but hang in there. She’ll come around.”
I pretend hearing her name doesn’t make me want to double over. I follow him to the door, shutting it behind him. When I’m left alone in the silence, I sink to the floor and cradle my head in my hands.
Because this is my life now. Alone in this shit excuse for an apartment, up to my eyeballs in debt and secrets, and in love with a woman who wants nothing to do with me.
5. Hanna
A YEAR ago, if someone had told me that my life would soon involve hanging out backstage with Asher “Sexy Beast” Logan right before one of his performances, I would have accused them of peeking into my fantasies. Of course, in those fantasies I would have been the one on the gorgeous rocker’s arm, not my sister, Maggie. Also, in those fantasies, I was grinning and joyful, not sipping my vodka cranberry and quietly nursing a broken heart.
Asher’s been touring to promote his new album, Unbreak Me, and though his fifty-show tour at small colleges across the US is small beans compared to the tours he used to do with Infinite Grey, he’s still on the road more often than he’s at home, and that’s hard on Maggie.
So I agreed to drive the four hours to the tiny liberal arts school outside of St. Louis so we could see Asher perform. Because that’s what I do. I make decisions that make people happy. Regardless of what I might need myself.
“Chin up, buttercup,” Maggie says. “I want to introduce you to Nate Crane.”
I lift my head and suddenly I’m sucking in air because my eyes are connected with the man who flirted with me earlier. He’d had a hat and sunglasses on in the bar, and I hadn’t recognized him, but this time his identity is clear.
“Hanna, this is Nate Crane. Nate, this is Hanna, my sister.”
His eyes sweep over me the way a guy’s eyes are supposed to sweep over a girl. The way Asher’s eyes sweep over Maggie every time she enters a room. The way William’s eyes sweep over Cally when he doesn’t think she’s looking. It sends a little buzz through me that’s not quite a chill but not quite electric either. Just a nice, warm shimmy of sensation that starts at my core and radiates out through my limbs.
Then I check behind me because I’m sure I’m mistaken. He was just playing around at the bar, right? I mean, guys don’t look at me like that. They look at my sisters like that; they look at my best friends like that.
“Maggie never told me her sister was so gorgeous,” Nate says, putting an end to any debate over his attraction to me.
My cheeks warm with a flush I can feel all the way from my chest to my hairline.
“Maggie, I did tell you I have a thing for sweet girls who blush, didn’t I? Is she my birthday present? I’d say you shouldn’t have, but I’d be lying.” He says all this without taking his eyes off me. His gaze drifts over me again, slower this time, lingering at my waist, my hips, my feet in strappy, heeled sandals. “I was a good boy this year. I deserve her.”
Maggie thumps him in the chest with the back of her hand. “She’s a woman, not some trinket or object that can be given.”
“Oh,” he says, his voice so low I can barely make it out, “I noticed she’s a woman.”
“We met earlier,” I say quickly. “In the bar. He’s just teasing.”
Maggie huffs. “Deserve or not, you can’t have her. Hanna has a boyfriend.”
Oh, no. No, Hanna doesn’t. But I didn’t tell Maggie about Max. It hurt too much to share what I’d learned. I’m too proud to share it. And if I want to keep our split a secret, I couldn’t really tell her if I wanted to. I can’t risk telling anyone.
Nate takes my hand, clearly undeterred by the mention of competition. “Tell me she’s lying. Please? It’s my birthday tomorrow.”
“And you wanted me to jump out of a cake for you?” I retort, but I let him play with my fingers and try to keep my breathing steady. His touch brings back something I didn’t think anyone but Max could make me feel.
“I wouldn’t complain.”
I’m fresh out of spunk, and stare stupidly. Nate Crane is six feet some-odd inches of deliciously tatted, freshly showered rocker. In ripped-up jeans and a Star Wars tee, he exudes a geekiness that’s only amplified by the tattoos peeking out from under the sleeves. The rest of him is essentially a catalogue of every woman’s fantasy. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, shaggy, dark hair still wet from his shower and curling slightly at the ends. Those intense eyes that seem to be smiling at me as he follows the lines of my palm with his calloused fingertips. He hadn’t really been on my radar until this year, when he started performing with Asher at a lot of his tour stops. They’re old friends, apparently.
“You didn’t tell me you were a rock star,” I murmur.
“You didn’t tell me you have a boyfriend,” he counters.
“Come on, Crane,” Asher calls. “It’s time.”
Maggie drags me back to the dressing room, shoves me toward the bar, and wraps herself around Asher. I’m not sure I’m up for watching them grope each other, but I don’t want to rush them either.
The concert was great. No, it was effing amazing. Standing on the side of the stage while watching Nate and Asher perform was the experience of a lifetime.
I’m glad I didn’t let my broken heart keep me at home.
I pour myself a vodka cranberry, deciding that, if she and Asher aren’t unglued by the time I’m done with this, I’ll get my own cab back to the hotel.
When I look up from my drink, Nate Crane is sauntering toward me. He takes my fingertips, lifts them to his lips, and then actually kisses the back of my hand. Who does that? And who the hell knew the gesture could be so sexy?
He’s in no hurry to release me, and I’m in no hurry to ask him to.
“Did you watch the show?” he asks.
“I did.”
“So?”
“So what?” I smile.
He looks almost insecure, like he’s seeking approval for something the world has applauded him for a thousand times over.
“What was your favorite song?”
“I really love ‘Unbreak Me.’” I have to bite back my smile when I name one of Asher’s songs and not one of Nate’s. The truth is that the song that rocked my world, the one that had me sitting at the side of the stage, my jaw slack, and chills racing up my arms, was Nate’s song “Lost in Me.” Tonight wasn’t the first time I’ve heard it. It’s a hit, and they play it on the radio all the time—almost as often as “Unbreak Me”—but tonight was the first time I’ve heard it live. Tonight was the first time I watched Nate’s face as he sang the words, the pain ripping across his features like the lyrics weren’t words but blades digging into his skin.
“I also really liked ‘Unforgiven,’” I say, naming another of Asher’s songs.
Nate narrows his eyes. “If you don’t want to talk to me, you can just say so.”
I shrug. “If you want me to stroke your ego, you can just say so.”
His lips curl in amusement, and he steps closer. “My ego could use a good stroking, now that you mention it. But not by just anyone.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
He makes a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a moan and drops his gaze to the little hint of cl**vage revealed above the neckline of my dress. I’m not the kind of girl who likes to show a lot of cleavage, but it’s kind of hard to avoid in anything that doesn’t accommodate an undershirt, and this black dress definitely doesn’t accommodate anything.
Nate lifts his eyes back to mine and sends a thrill rushing through me. Hot eyes. Hungry. I’m experienced enough to know those are the eyes of a man who has sex on the brain. Sex with me.
“You really have a boyfriend?”
I shift awkwardly. “Hard to believe?”
“Hard to believe he’d not want to be as close to you as possible when you’re dressed like that.”
My eyes seek out Maggie, but she’s in the corner straddling Asher’s lap and definitely not paying me any mind.
Saying the words out loud—saying that Max and I broke up—makes it too real, and I’m not ready for that. When I bought the dress to wear tonight, I thought Max would be by my side. I wouldn’t have had the courage to buy it at all if I hadn’t seen the heat in his eyes as I stepped out of the dressing room. That had been real, hadn’t it? And the way he responded when I touched him? Can guys fake that?
“Here…” Nate leads me over to the bar. He takes my drink from my hand and dumps it in the sink. After rinsing my glass tumbler, he fills it halfway with clear liquid.
“What’s that?”
“Tequila blanco. The good stuff.”
“You trying to get me drunk?” Not that I’d mind. A drunken night with Nate Crane? I could go for that. Especially after the week I had.
“It’s for me,” he grumbles. He shoots back the alcohol in two long swallows, watching me the whole time. When he puts the glass back on the counter, he says, “My consolation prize, since I don’t get to spend my night seducing you.”
“Why not?”
Our eyes lock, and I’m not sure who’s more shocked, him or me. I wrap my fingers around the glass, resting my hand over his for a moment before I pull it away. Something pulses between us, electric and hungry.
After grabbing the tequila, I add a generous shot to the glass. Not as much as he had, but enough to take away my worries for a bit when the heat hits my veins.
“Lime?” he asks.
I nod, and he grabs a couple of wedges from the little glass at the back of the bar.
He’s watching my every move like I’m the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. Like I’m some sort of erotic film he can’t look away from.
“We called these snakebites when I was in high school,” I say. “We’d do them at parties. What do you call them?” I bring my wrist to my mouth and wet the inside of it with my tongue.
“Sexy.” His voice is a low rumble. “But with your mouth, I might need to modify that name.”
Raising a brow in question, I grab the salt and sprinkle it on my wrist. We used to do these as body shots. In fact, I remember Will taking one off Cally before they started dating. I remember standing there and thinking, Someday, a guy is going to look at me the way Will is looking at Cally right now. I’m not feeling quite brave enough for body shots, though, so I carry on, knowing he’s watching me.
Slowly, I lick the salt off my wrist then shoot back the tequila. It’s high-quality stuff and drinks smooth, a silky rush of heat down my throat then circling in my belly.
I lift a lime to my mouth and suck.
Nate’s lips part. His pupils dilate. Max used to look at me like that.
When I pull the lime from my lips, I can see Nate’s pulse thrumming beneath his Adam’s apple.
I need this. I’ve been in such a dark place this week. Since I got that text message and my world imploded. I want to get lost in this man, to spend my evening reveling in superficial attraction—even if it’s completely irrational coming from a music god who dates celebrities and can have any woman he wants. But it’s there, thrumming between us as clear as the notes he played on his guitar. And that is exactly what I need.
“Hanna.” Maggie’s voice pulls my gaze away from Nate’s for the first time in too many heartbeats. “Asher and I are heading back to the hotel. You ready?”
I look at Nate and back to my sister.
“I’ll take her,” Nate offers. He shifts his attention to me. “If that’s okay with you. I thought we could hang.”
“No.” I shake my head and lift my gaze to the ceiling. “I fell so hard for her. I mean, it’s like she looked at me and saw this amazing man, and suddenly I wanted to be that guy. I wanted to be better. To earn it. Does that make sense?”
“Been there,” Will whispers. “I get it.”
I blow out a long breath. “So I’d gone on a couple of dates with Hanna when Meredith talked me into coming over to see her. At that point, I still thought nothing would come of me and Hanna. I got over there, and as soon as Meredith and I started messing around, all I could think about was Hanna. I kissed Meredith and wondered what it’d be like to kiss Hanna. I got out of there, but…now Hanna knows. She knows I asked her out for all the wrong reasons, and she knows I went to Meredith that night. I hurt her.”
“Shit. So it’s over?”
I nod. “Yeah. But she’s so f**king sweet she swore me to secrecy about the breakup. She wants her mom to help me get that grant for the gym, and she’s afraid I won’t get it if her mom knows we broke up.”
“You’re going to stand for that? Some fake relationship just so you can get some grant money?”
“We both know this isn’t about the money.” I lock my eyes with his. “If you thought you’d lost Cally, wouldn’t you carry on in a charade of a relationship if it meant you got more time with her? If you thought it might mean a chance to win her back?”
Will exhales heavily and nods. “Fuck. Yeah. I would.” He drags a hand through his hair. “If Meredith sent Hanna those texts, you can count on her being a problem. Watch out.”
“I know.”
“You’ll let me know if I can help?”
I grimace. “Seriously? Your fiancée is outside that door, ready to take you home and get you na**d, and you’re still standing here trying to get me to take your money?”
Will grins. “Good point. See you later. I’m sorry about Hanna, but hang in there. She’ll come around.”
I pretend hearing her name doesn’t make me want to double over. I follow him to the door, shutting it behind him. When I’m left alone in the silence, I sink to the floor and cradle my head in my hands.
Because this is my life now. Alone in this shit excuse for an apartment, up to my eyeballs in debt and secrets, and in love with a woman who wants nothing to do with me.
5. Hanna
A YEAR ago, if someone had told me that my life would soon involve hanging out backstage with Asher “Sexy Beast” Logan right before one of his performances, I would have accused them of peeking into my fantasies. Of course, in those fantasies I would have been the one on the gorgeous rocker’s arm, not my sister, Maggie. Also, in those fantasies, I was grinning and joyful, not sipping my vodka cranberry and quietly nursing a broken heart.
Asher’s been touring to promote his new album, Unbreak Me, and though his fifty-show tour at small colleges across the US is small beans compared to the tours he used to do with Infinite Grey, he’s still on the road more often than he’s at home, and that’s hard on Maggie.
So I agreed to drive the four hours to the tiny liberal arts school outside of St. Louis so we could see Asher perform. Because that’s what I do. I make decisions that make people happy. Regardless of what I might need myself.
“Chin up, buttercup,” Maggie says. “I want to introduce you to Nate Crane.”
I lift my head and suddenly I’m sucking in air because my eyes are connected with the man who flirted with me earlier. He’d had a hat and sunglasses on in the bar, and I hadn’t recognized him, but this time his identity is clear.
“Hanna, this is Nate Crane. Nate, this is Hanna, my sister.”
His eyes sweep over me the way a guy’s eyes are supposed to sweep over a girl. The way Asher’s eyes sweep over Maggie every time she enters a room. The way William’s eyes sweep over Cally when he doesn’t think she’s looking. It sends a little buzz through me that’s not quite a chill but not quite electric either. Just a nice, warm shimmy of sensation that starts at my core and radiates out through my limbs.
Then I check behind me because I’m sure I’m mistaken. He was just playing around at the bar, right? I mean, guys don’t look at me like that. They look at my sisters like that; they look at my best friends like that.
“Maggie never told me her sister was so gorgeous,” Nate says, putting an end to any debate over his attraction to me.
My cheeks warm with a flush I can feel all the way from my chest to my hairline.
“Maggie, I did tell you I have a thing for sweet girls who blush, didn’t I? Is she my birthday present? I’d say you shouldn’t have, but I’d be lying.” He says all this without taking his eyes off me. His gaze drifts over me again, slower this time, lingering at my waist, my hips, my feet in strappy, heeled sandals. “I was a good boy this year. I deserve her.”
Maggie thumps him in the chest with the back of her hand. “She’s a woman, not some trinket or object that can be given.”
“Oh,” he says, his voice so low I can barely make it out, “I noticed she’s a woman.”
“We met earlier,” I say quickly. “In the bar. He’s just teasing.”
Maggie huffs. “Deserve or not, you can’t have her. Hanna has a boyfriend.”
Oh, no. No, Hanna doesn’t. But I didn’t tell Maggie about Max. It hurt too much to share what I’d learned. I’m too proud to share it. And if I want to keep our split a secret, I couldn’t really tell her if I wanted to. I can’t risk telling anyone.
Nate takes my hand, clearly undeterred by the mention of competition. “Tell me she’s lying. Please? It’s my birthday tomorrow.”
“And you wanted me to jump out of a cake for you?” I retort, but I let him play with my fingers and try to keep my breathing steady. His touch brings back something I didn’t think anyone but Max could make me feel.
“I wouldn’t complain.”
I’m fresh out of spunk, and stare stupidly. Nate Crane is six feet some-odd inches of deliciously tatted, freshly showered rocker. In ripped-up jeans and a Star Wars tee, he exudes a geekiness that’s only amplified by the tattoos peeking out from under the sleeves. The rest of him is essentially a catalogue of every woman’s fantasy. Broad shoulders, narrow hips, shaggy, dark hair still wet from his shower and curling slightly at the ends. Those intense eyes that seem to be smiling at me as he follows the lines of my palm with his calloused fingertips. He hadn’t really been on my radar until this year, when he started performing with Asher at a lot of his tour stops. They’re old friends, apparently.
“You didn’t tell me you were a rock star,” I murmur.
“You didn’t tell me you have a boyfriend,” he counters.
“Come on, Crane,” Asher calls. “It’s time.”
Maggie drags me back to the dressing room, shoves me toward the bar, and wraps herself around Asher. I’m not sure I’m up for watching them grope each other, but I don’t want to rush them either.
The concert was great. No, it was effing amazing. Standing on the side of the stage while watching Nate and Asher perform was the experience of a lifetime.
I’m glad I didn’t let my broken heart keep me at home.
I pour myself a vodka cranberry, deciding that, if she and Asher aren’t unglued by the time I’m done with this, I’ll get my own cab back to the hotel.
When I look up from my drink, Nate Crane is sauntering toward me. He takes my fingertips, lifts them to his lips, and then actually kisses the back of my hand. Who does that? And who the hell knew the gesture could be so sexy?
He’s in no hurry to release me, and I’m in no hurry to ask him to.
“Did you watch the show?” he asks.
“I did.”
“So?”
“So what?” I smile.
He looks almost insecure, like he’s seeking approval for something the world has applauded him for a thousand times over.
“What was your favorite song?”
“I really love ‘Unbreak Me.’” I have to bite back my smile when I name one of Asher’s songs and not one of Nate’s. The truth is that the song that rocked my world, the one that had me sitting at the side of the stage, my jaw slack, and chills racing up my arms, was Nate’s song “Lost in Me.” Tonight wasn’t the first time I’ve heard it. It’s a hit, and they play it on the radio all the time—almost as often as “Unbreak Me”—but tonight was the first time I’ve heard it live. Tonight was the first time I watched Nate’s face as he sang the words, the pain ripping across his features like the lyrics weren’t words but blades digging into his skin.
“I also really liked ‘Unforgiven,’” I say, naming another of Asher’s songs.
Nate narrows his eyes. “If you don’t want to talk to me, you can just say so.”
I shrug. “If you want me to stroke your ego, you can just say so.”
His lips curl in amusement, and he steps closer. “My ego could use a good stroking, now that you mention it. But not by just anyone.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
He makes a sound that’s somewhere between a groan and a moan and drops his gaze to the little hint of cl**vage revealed above the neckline of my dress. I’m not the kind of girl who likes to show a lot of cleavage, but it’s kind of hard to avoid in anything that doesn’t accommodate an undershirt, and this black dress definitely doesn’t accommodate anything.
Nate lifts his eyes back to mine and sends a thrill rushing through me. Hot eyes. Hungry. I’m experienced enough to know those are the eyes of a man who has sex on the brain. Sex with me.
“You really have a boyfriend?”
I shift awkwardly. “Hard to believe?”
“Hard to believe he’d not want to be as close to you as possible when you’re dressed like that.”
My eyes seek out Maggie, but she’s in the corner straddling Asher’s lap and definitely not paying me any mind.
Saying the words out loud—saying that Max and I broke up—makes it too real, and I’m not ready for that. When I bought the dress to wear tonight, I thought Max would be by my side. I wouldn’t have had the courage to buy it at all if I hadn’t seen the heat in his eyes as I stepped out of the dressing room. That had been real, hadn’t it? And the way he responded when I touched him? Can guys fake that?
“Here…” Nate leads me over to the bar. He takes my drink from my hand and dumps it in the sink. After rinsing my glass tumbler, he fills it halfway with clear liquid.
“What’s that?”
“Tequila blanco. The good stuff.”
“You trying to get me drunk?” Not that I’d mind. A drunken night with Nate Crane? I could go for that. Especially after the week I had.
“It’s for me,” he grumbles. He shoots back the alcohol in two long swallows, watching me the whole time. When he puts the glass back on the counter, he says, “My consolation prize, since I don’t get to spend my night seducing you.”
“Why not?”
Our eyes lock, and I’m not sure who’s more shocked, him or me. I wrap my fingers around the glass, resting my hand over his for a moment before I pull it away. Something pulses between us, electric and hungry.
After grabbing the tequila, I add a generous shot to the glass. Not as much as he had, but enough to take away my worries for a bit when the heat hits my veins.
“Lime?” he asks.
I nod, and he grabs a couple of wedges from the little glass at the back of the bar.
He’s watching my every move like I’m the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. Like I’m some sort of erotic film he can’t look away from.
“We called these snakebites when I was in high school,” I say. “We’d do them at parties. What do you call them?” I bring my wrist to my mouth and wet the inside of it with my tongue.
“Sexy.” His voice is a low rumble. “But with your mouth, I might need to modify that name.”
Raising a brow in question, I grab the salt and sprinkle it on my wrist. We used to do these as body shots. In fact, I remember Will taking one off Cally before they started dating. I remember standing there and thinking, Someday, a guy is going to look at me the way Will is looking at Cally right now. I’m not feeling quite brave enough for body shots, though, so I carry on, knowing he’s watching me.
Slowly, I lick the salt off my wrist then shoot back the tequila. It’s high-quality stuff and drinks smooth, a silky rush of heat down my throat then circling in my belly.
I lift a lime to my mouth and suck.
Nate’s lips part. His pupils dilate. Max used to look at me like that.
When I pull the lime from my lips, I can see Nate’s pulse thrumming beneath his Adam’s apple.
I need this. I’ve been in such a dark place this week. Since I got that text message and my world imploded. I want to get lost in this man, to spend my evening reveling in superficial attraction—even if it’s completely irrational coming from a music god who dates celebrities and can have any woman he wants. But it’s there, thrumming between us as clear as the notes he played on his guitar. And that is exactly what I need.
“Hanna.” Maggie’s voice pulls my gaze away from Nate’s for the first time in too many heartbeats. “Asher and I are heading back to the hotel. You ready?”
I look at Nate and back to my sister.
“I’ll take her,” Nate offers. He shifts his attention to me. “If that’s okay with you. I thought we could hang.”
