Page 19 of Play the Last Track

“Four? I thought you were an only child?”

“I have a younger brother. He’s still in high school.”

“You never mentioned a brother.” He cocks his head to the side, brows furrowing together.

“I never mentioned a lot of things.” The silence engulfs us once again. “Moving in here would help. With getting some space, I mean.”

“Okay. Good. Great, yeah, of course you can,” Flynn mumbles, fingers burying themselves in his hair again.

“We need rules,” I say quickly.

“Rules?”

“Yes.”

“You hate following rules.”

“Not these ones.”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What rules do we need?”

I take a deep breath and count them out on my fingers. “No seeing other people.” He nods, leaning forward with his attention solely on me. “No acting like it’s real. Even when we have to kiss for a camera, no tongue and no roaming hands.” I hold up a second finger. “No sex.” Flynn’s eyes roll at that one. “And no catchingfeelings. Ever.”

“Catching feelings?”

“You cannot fall in love with me. It will only make a mess of everything,” I say, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“And what if you fall in love with me?” He raises one brow.

“I won’t.”

He considers me for a moment, holding my gaze and not wavering. After a beat, I break away as he speaks. “I will do my best to stick to your rules.”

“Do your best?” I ask.

“I promise to do my very, very best. But, you and I both know, neither of us are very good with rules, are we?”

Snippets of conversations play in my head. Laughter and games played under the Italian sun. Games with made-up rules that we broke every single time. Friends. We can’t touch one another. We can’t go any further than a kiss. Only once.

All broken.

Every single one.

“Fine,” I agree.

“Katie.” He follows me as I stand from the couch and head for my bag. It’s time to get the hell out of here. I can text him for the rest of the details I need. Or, I can go through Ivy. Yes, good plan. She wanted me to help so badly that she volunteered to ask me for him. I will put her right back in the middle and have her play messenger.

“Katie,” Flynn says again, catching my wrist as I’m halfway down the hall. A current runs from the place he makes contact, all the way through my nervous system to my heart. I still, looking down at his fingers curled around my wrist. “I want to be friends. Whatever I did in Italy to make you hate me after we—after that night, I want to fix it.”

Raising my eyes to meet his, I study him for a moment. Dammit. There’s that unwavering sincerity again. I slowly pull my arm out of his hold and head for the front door, closing it gently behind me without giving Flynn an answer.

Chapter Six

Flynn

Sweatdripsfrommyforehead, and I focus on counting my breaths.

In for ten, out for ten.