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“When the tour’s over?” she prompts.
I take her hand, not caring who might see. “When the tour’s over, we figure out what comes next. Together.”
Her smile is all the answer I need.
Three days later, I’m waiting in my dressing room before our show when the door opens. Justine slips in, locks the door behind her, and leans against it with a mischievous smile.
“We have twenty minutes before soundcheck,” she says.
I set aside my guitar. “Is that so?”
She crosses the room in a few quick steps, climbs onto my lap, and kisses me deeply. “I’ve been thinking about this all day,” she murmurs against my lips.
“Just this?” I tease, my hands finding their way under her shirt.
Her breath catches as my fingers trace her ribs. “Among other things.”
We make the most of our twenty minutes, learning new ways to make each other gasp and sigh. When we finally emerge for soundcheck, flushed and slightly disheveled, Dana takes one look at us and snorts.
“Real subtle, you two,” she mutters, but there’s no judgment in her tone, just affection.
Justine squeezes my hand before heading to her mark on stage. I watch her go, the feeling in my chest expanding with each passing day.
I guess it’s probably time to tell my family that Nola and I are no longer together because something tells me Justine and I aren’t going to be able to keep this a secret much longer. I’d really like it if my mom didn’t think I cheated; that would break her heart.
TWENTY-ONE
The text from my dad comes in the middle of my show. I see the message during a quick break. Dana takes them to change clothes, but I use the few seconds to down water or change my shirt. I hate performing in a wet T-shirt, even though it reminds of the way Noah made us participate in the triplet’s gender reveal.
Elle’s water broke. Finish the set. Jet will be waiting.
This time, I ride to the airport by myself. I thought about asking Justine to come with me, at least to the airport, but her absence from the after-show dinner one of our sponsors set up for us would look rather suspicious. I already feel like I’m being securitized by Keane and with good measure. Mixing romance and work is never a smart thing to do, especially in this business. Relationships can go south so damn fast, and then what. It would be one thing if Justine didn’t have the same manager, but she does, which makes whatever is going on between us even more dangerous . . .
. . . nah, it’s not danger. It’s playing with fire. It’s taking a lit match to a can of gasoline and seeing how high Justine and I can make the flame. So no, not dangerous.
It’s deadly.
And I should walk away before either of dig a trench so deep a ladder won’t help us get out of the hole.
Walking away is the smartest thing to do. This is one of those life lessons: where you finally realize you can’t have everything you want. At one point in my life, I wanted Nola. I thought she was my everything, my reason for being who I am as a person and a musician. She was my muse or I thought she was. It took this tour to show me how wrong I was.
Actually, how wrong she was for me.
I wasn’t wrong for falling in love with her and asking her to marry me. Deep down, I truly believe she and I had to happen for a reason. Someday, I’ll wake up and know the reason. Right now, though, I’m not sad we’re over. I suppose maybe a part of me should miss her, but I don’t, and that’s because of Justine.
From the moment the tour started Justine was there, by my side. She sensed things weren’t right and instead of probing or pushing me to talk about my feelings, she supported me. Justine offered me a shoulder to cry on. She gave me something to look forward to every night when we’d perform together.
It’s not that I feel like I owe her a chance to be with me.
It’s that I owe myself a chance to be with her.
I owe myself a chance to not feel like I’m walking on eggshells. That’s how Nola made me feel, especially the last handful of months before she did us a favor and left me. Every time we were together, mostly with my family, it was like I had to be on my best behavior, that no matter what I did, she was mentally tsking my actions.
Never mind any time we ever spent with her parents, which was never. She didn’t have to tell me they didn’t approve of me.Toward the end, any time I would suggest we set a date to get married, I saw it on her face. It’s too bad she couldn’t say the words and save us all the trouble of pretending. Nola was never going to choose me over them.
And I would’ve never chosen her over mine.
Maybe we were doomed from the start.