Page 43 of When the Stars Rise

Chris gets into the car, and when the door closes, I look out the tinted-glass window just as Asher walks out of the club. Noah stalks toward him, fists clenched at his sides, and the paparazzi close in around them, blocking my view.

Great. Just perfect.

“We have to wait for Noah,” I tell Chris.

“He’ll be fine.” Chris tells the driver to go.

As the car pulls away, I crane my neck to see Noah, but I can’t see much past the paparazzi.

I hope he doesn’t punch Asher or break any cameras. He did that once a couple of years ago and had to go to court over it.

It was right after Zeke died, and we were about to leave for the memorial service. Some asshole was hiding behind the bushes and rushed over to us, snapping photos and asking stupid questions as we got into our car.

Noah was so broken up over Zeke’s death that he just snapped. He punched the guy and broke his camera, and I didn’t blame him for it.

Some things are private, and the paparazzi should have the common decency to back off and allow people to grieve in peace. But they don’t care about any of that. All they care about is getting their money shots.

I watch the neon lights blur past the window and wonder what Noah was going to say.

Truth is thatI spent most of the night thinking about us in Cabo two years ago.

I’m not stupid. I know that’s exactly what Noah wanted. But we were so happy then. We were drunk on love and tequila, slow dancing to Lana Del Rey under the stars, and I remember thinking that no one on the entire planet had ever known a love like ours.

I’d woken up early the next morning when the sun was just starting to rise and wrote a song about it.

My dress was on the floor, my shoes, bra, and panties flung across the room by Noah when he’d undressed me, branding every inch of my skin with his lips and the caress of his strong, capable hands until I was squirming beneath him, wet and so ready for him.

But he made me wait, and it felt like the sweetest torture.

I miss that dirty-talking boy who used to drive me wild with need and a hunger like I’ve never known.

“Sunday Mornings in Cabo” is about that perfect moment in time when life is better than your wildest dreams.

It’s about loving someone so much that you want to spend every minute with them. You crave them like a drug and can never get enough.

You want all their smiles and all their laughter, their highs and their lows, and all the little seemingly inconsequential moments in between.

The sleep-drugged morning kisses.

The lazy smile that used to grace his face before his eyes had even opened when he’d reach for me and tuck me into the curve of his body and say, “What did you dream about? Tell me everything I missed while I was asleep.”

Noah doesn’t ask me about my dreams anymore, but in the past, he always did.

We used to be able to talk for hours about everything and nothing, but now everything feels so loaded. And as much as I would love to believe it’s possible, I know that we can never go back to the way we were.

But maybe, somehow, we can find a way to rebuild something new and better.

Clearly, I’m delusional and overly optimistic to even think that way. We still have all the same old issues as we did before. But still, I cling to the hope that it’s possible.

Because without hope, we have nothing.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hayley

“Where’s Noah?”Liam asks when I slide into the orange booth next to him.

I grab one of the laminated menus off the table and study it before setting it down. We’re having a late lunch at the hotel diner before our show tonight.