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He tilted his head to look at me. “You know, when I was asking around about how to make a comeback, my manager threw around a hundred names. I listened to a hundred songs. And none of them made me feel—at all. But then I heard about a songwriter named Joni Lark. How she’s brilliant.

How, if she’s on your team, she can spin anything into poetry, turn feelings into melodies.

They say she’s nice to work with, and she’s earnest, and soft, and much too good for this industry. ”

Those last bits got me. I curled my fingers into fists, feeling the impression of my nails in my palms. Another reason why LA never liked me—

“But they’re wrong,” he added, and leaned toward me, his voice low and rumbly. “Because how can someone who wrote these perfect notes belong anywhere else?”

And as he spoke, the dissonant chords drifted into “If You Stayed.” I’d heard it a thousand different times from a thousand different artists, all playing the same major chords and minor lifts.

But the way he played it, languid and wanting, made my stomach twist in the strangest way.

Because it finally sounded like it was meant to.

Yearning. Savoring. Indulgent.

Not the breakup ballad everyone thought it was, but the opposite. A sound like finding home.

He leaned so close to reach the notes, we were inches apart, and if I just went a little farther, pushed myself toward this bad idea, I could brush his hand, play a countermelody across them.

And I remembered the way his hands cradled my face, the touch of his calloused fingertips against my skin.

I remembered it so well I could write overtures about it.

It was a bad idea. The worst—

“What are you thinking?” his voice echoed in my head.

I realized I was staring at his perfect mouth. You surprise me.

He grinned. “I hope in a good way.”

Yes. No. Both of those answers scared me, so instead I said, “You play really well.”

“I’m classically trained, I’ll have you know.”

Then, in my head, he added, “And I’ve been told I’m very skilled with my fingers.”

A flash of heat pulsed through me as I thought about those fingers, about where else they could touch me—

I heard the same thoughts echoed, where he wanted to explore, what he wanted to taste, the course he wanted to chart across my body—the places where my trails of freckles led, the taste of cherries on my lips, the steady map of my body from mouth to chest to stomach to toes.

He wanted to see me, all of me; he wanted to know it all, as intimate as a favorite song—

“No.” I lurched to my feet, slamming my hand down on the keyboard. A cacophony of sound startled us both. “We are not doing that. No.”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Because of what we felt when we kissed?”

“That,” I admitted, and added, “and it’s too messy. It would be way too messy. Especially if you want to have a comeback, and you do, right? It’s not just rumors?”

“I do,” he admitted, the words calculated. “I want a comeback.”

“Then this cannot happen.”

“Have you told that to the thoughts in your head?” he asked, giving me a knowing look.

If my blush could get any redder, it did.

“It could make writing this song easier. We could be on the same page about it. It could be the best thing we’ve ever done,” he added, the possibility a growl on his tongue, and the idea of it made my heart quicken, though I wasn’t sure if it was in excitement or fear.

“ It —and what’s it to you?”

“Sex,” he replied easily. “Intimacy. Different kinds of music.”

“And then after?” I asked.

He cocked his head in a silent question.

“After the song, what then?” And in my head, I added, What would happen to us?

“Why think that far ahead?”

Because it matters , I insisted. “And it never works out. Look at Fleetwood Mac! Sonic Youth! Emma and Lachy Wiggle!”

He stared at me. “You’re comparing us to the Wiggles ? C’mon.”

I thought about it for maybe a second and a half before common sense took over. “No— no. This”—and I motioned between the two of us—“will just get messy, and I can’t have messy in my life right now. Not with everything else.”

“Okay,” he relented, sounding sincere. “I can appreciate that.”

“Good.” I took a breath, and grabbed my phone from the bench. “I’m going to take a walk. Clear my head.”

Because I certainly was not still thinking about us. About the way he growled the possibility of what we could be. About some other version of Joni saying yes.

I wasn’t thinking about that at all.

He sighed, leaning back on his hands. “Alas. I guess I’ll stay here.”

Unless he wanted another repeat of what happened at Cool Beans earlier.

I eyed his sleek black ensemble. In LA, he’d blend in, but here?

An idea occurred to me. “Hold on,” I said as I left the stage and dipped behind the bar.

I pulled out the lost and found box as he came over to see what I was digging through.

There were always errant shoes and hats, along with swim trunks and—“Ah! Here we are.” I pulled out a blue and yellow Hawaiian shirt. “This is perfect.”

He deflated a little. “I’ll look ridiculous, bird.”

I handed it to him. “But it’ll work.”

For a moment, he looked like he had half a mind to burn the shirt instead of wear it, but then with a sigh he reached down to the hem of his own shirt and began to tug it off, revealing that same puckered scar on the side of his abdomen, surrounded by smooth flesh and muscle.

I gave a yelp and averted my eyes, but I’d already seen too much of his chest. He wasn’t incredibly stocky, but was lean in the way that dancers were.

Well built like a musician who subsisted on almonds and old pop song routines.

There was no escaping the blush that crept from my ears to my cheeks, and what was worse was that he could see it.

“It’s nothing you haven’t seen before,” he teased.

I held the shirt up higher. “Just put this on.”

Thankfully, he didn’t poke at me anymore and took the shirt in question. He shrugged it on and buttoned it up. “Okay, I’m clothed. It smells like tequila.”

“Probably from a parrothead,” I supplied, and finally turned to look. The shirt was much too big on him, draping loosely over his shoulders, but somehow even that looked purposeful. Was there really anything that Sebastian Fell didn’t look good in?

“Want to find out?” he asked as a grin curled across his mouth.

I ignored him, grabbing the keys from the countertop. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Vacation Dad,” I said and left the Revelry. I didn’t know where I was going, but my feet did.

And they led me straight to the beach.

I followed the steady flow of tourists toward the boardwalk, the reassuring rush of the waves in and out rinsing my thoughts—well, most of them.

No matter how much I tried to think of anything, everything , else, I couldn’t get the sight of Sebastian’s bare torso out of my head, or the way he told me that us getting together could be the best thing we’d ever done—

Stop it, Jo , I told myself. He doesn’t mean it.

But … what if he did?

Tourists ambled from the ice cream shop to souvenir shops to the small permanent carnival at the base of the pier, and I followed them, wishing I could blend in like white noise.

I decided to count the seagulls so if Sebastian did overhear my thoughts, they wouldn’t be of the frighteningly clear fact that the thing he would look best in, in my opinion, was nothing at all.

God, I was just thirsty.

Thirty-two seagulls, thirty-three. Thirty-four.

Too thirsty to be in the same room with him—

Thirty-fi—

I didn’t see the man until he was right in front of me, and by then I couldn’t stop before I slammed into him. “I’m sorry! I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Joni?” asked a familiar voice.

I looked up at the man I’d run into. “Van?”

He smiled down at me. He looked handsome in a gray T-shirt, running shorts, and tennis shoes, his hair perfectly swept back, sweat glistening on his brow. Everything on him was glistening, actually. With sweat, but glistening nonetheless.

My mouth went dry. He really had gotten so much hotter in the nine years he’d been in Boston.

“Van, hi,” I greeted him nervously.

“Van?” Sasha asked.

I just ran into him.

“Ah …” His voice sounded strange. “I guess you’ll stop counting seagulls now.”

“You were really deep in thought there,” Van said. “I called your name a few times, but you didn’t hear me.”

“You did? Sorry. I just …” I waved my hand flippantly. “I was trying to distract myself.”

“And that’s why I run. Sort of makes everything level again.

I like level,” he replied. He wiped his forehead with the back of his arm.

His T-shirt was stretched tight across his broad shoulders.

I didn’t remember them ever being so broad.

Then again, he’d never been so fit when we were dating, either.

I wondered how much I’d changed to him, too.

The truth was, Van Erickson might’ve broken my heart when I was twenty-two, but I wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t.

We were high school friends turned college sweethearts.

I thought I had my whole life planned out with him—a house, a white picket fence, all here in Vienna Shores.

Then he told me he didn’t want to stay, that he wanted to see what else was out there— who else was out there—and then he left for Boston.

I had been so mad at him, I thought, fuck it, if he’s going to chase his dreams, I will, too.

So I ran away to LA, and I lived my dreams, and I couldn’t imagine that girl who wanted a white picket fence life anymore.

Because, in the end, he’d been right. We were barely in our twenties.

We were fresh out of college. We’d never dated anyone else.

And while that worked for some people, he knew before I did that it wouldn’t work for us.

Breaking my heart was the kindest thing he could’ve done for me.

It just took a little time and distance to figure that out.