Page 23 of When the Stars Rise

Me: Appreciate all the support, Zane. You’re still my favorite. Miss you too, buddy. We’ll spend some quality time together in Denver. Just you and me.

Gracie: Hey! What about us?!?! ur MOM’s kids?!?!?

Me: …

Okay, I’ll admit it doesn’t look good. Not the photos or the comments calling me a fuckboy. Or the backlash Everly is getting for stabbing her best friend in the back by hooking up with her ex.

That kiss should never have happened. Everything about it was so wrong, and I regretted it immediately. If I could take it back, I would. But I can’t. And now it’s out there for all the world to see which is the last thing I wanted.

A big part of the reason I agreed to join Hayley is because I’ve been hoping to get back to the way we used to be when I moved out to California.

Before Tragedy Number Two struck, and I lost Hayley for the second time because she couldn’t handle the thought thatnexttime, it could be me. That I’d draw the short straw and it would be game over. Lights out.

But I’m still here, still kicking, and I’m pretty sure I’ve been friend-zoned.Again.

I don’t know. It’s been a few days since that almost-kiss in Atlanta, and I’ve given up trying to figure out what we are.

I just know I love her and would never have been with any other girl if we were still together. But we’re not. She kicked my ass to the curb, and my heart took another beating.

Now we’re 0 for 2, and I’m losing hope that the third time will be a charm.

With the amount of baggage we have, I don’t even know if it’s possible for us to get our shit together.

“Is this shit for real?” Aiden asks, his eyes on my laptop screen. We’re hanging out in the lounge area of Hayley’s tour bus before tonight’s show.

Baltimore is gray and rainy. Fitting, really. Cloudy skies up ahead for me and Hales. Not even a glimmer of sunshine on the horizon.

Aiden scratches his head, trying to figure out what he’s seeing. “How are you going up instead of down?”

“I’m not. I’m just going slower than my cameraman.”

“You’re dancing on the fucking clouds, man.”

Julian flops onto the leather sofa on my other side and twists off the cap of an energy drink. He takes a long pull of his drink before commenting. “You’re changing the flow of energy.”

I nod, keeping my eyes on Hayley making herbal tea in the kitchen. From my spot on the sofa, I have a clear view of her back. Ramrod straight, shoulders rigid. But I can tell she’s listening intently. “That’s exactly what I’m doing,” I say, watching her spoon honey into the mug.

She’s wearing wide-legged cargo pants with a cropped T-shirt. I stare at her ass. At the sliver of skin above her waistband. At her perfect little dancer’s body.

It’s the first time I’ve seen her since we arrived in Baltimore this morning. As soon as the bus pulled in, she left to do a morning radio show, and I went for a run around Inner Harbor.

“It doesn’t feel like falling,” I say, referring to skydiving. “It feels more like you’re in an invisible force field. You just go with the flow. Feel the energy.”

“That’s how I feel about music,” Aiden says.

I nod, happy that he made the analogy. I’m hoping Hayley heard it because this is my music. “Exactly.”

Hayley carries her mug of tea into the lounge and curls up on the cream leather sofa across from me, tucking her legs underneath her.

I stare at her over the laptop screen while Aiden and Julian watch the video I’m editing. She blows on the hot tea, and I stare at her mouth. Then I scowl when I see she’s on her phone scrolling. I’m hoping like hell she’s not on social media. That would be a bad fucking idea right now. I woke up to hundreds of notifications, and I assume she did, too.

I crack my neck, my eyes still glued to her. She doesn’t so much as look up or acknowledge my presence, and if I didn’t know her as well as I do, I would assume it was indifference.

But I know Hayley. I can tell by how her brows pull together that she’s wrestling with her conflicting emotions. She doesn’t know what to believe, and since she refused to discuss what’s going on between me and Everly, she’s jumping to her own conclusions.

Fuck it. Time to cut to the chase. “You ready to talk about this?”

She looks up from her phone, brows arched. “What is there to talk about? You and my best friend were clearly going behind my back.”