“You’re welcome.”

I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.”

With that, I turned and boarded my flight, and with a heavy heart I left California and the most incredible summer behind me.

Chapter Twenty-One HARLOW

“You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last fitting,” the dressmaker complained, pinning the ice-blue satin closer to my hips. “It’s going to take a lot of work to have it ready by the weekend.”

“But you will be able to fix the dress before the gala, won’t you?” My mother looked horrified.

“It will be a stretch—”

“Of course we will pay whatever it takes—”

As this ridiculous conversation took place around me I stood on the small carpeted box lost in a daydream. My earbuds were stuck in my ears but I could still hear them over the music. In the mirrors that surrounded me I could see I had indeed lost weight. But it was hard to eat when your heart had died in your chest and you just didn’t know how you could continue to put one foot in front of the other.

“Well of course, Mrs. Montmarte,” said the dressmaker.

My mother smiled. It amazed me how she could make the warmest gesture feel ice cold.

She rose from the chaise lounge, crossed the dressing room and yanked the earbuds from my ears.

“Did you hear that? It’s going to take some effort, but your dress will be ready.” Her eyes were hard. Her face pinched. “At least some people are willing to make an effort.”

I looked at her. But her words, her sarcasm, her innuendos, didn’t make it past the abundance of heartache and indifference inside of me.

“I’ve already said I am sorry,” I replied. But my words—all of my words—were born out of a necessity to say something, anything, just to shut her up. “I am a week late, Mama. Not a month.”

“The season has already started and you aren’t ready,” she snapped, fiddling with the pins at my hips. She hadn’t forgiven me for delaying her enjoyment of the debutante season. Or for the tattoo. She looked at it as if I’d been marked by the devil and had changed my name to Damien.

“Someone died, Mama. My friend. I had to stay.”

She sniffed. “If he was dead then what does it matter to him if you’re there or not? Really, Harlow, you have responsibilities.”

I hated her in that moment. I shoved my earbuds in my ears to stop myself from saying something really hurtful, but was suddenly swung around and found myself looking straight at Colton.

“Colton!”

He pulled me into his arms and twirled me around. “Look at you Miss Beautiful. Goddamn, woman! You. Are. Hot.”

I stepped out of his arms. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled, conspiratorially. “I’m you’re date.”

“Date?”

“The ball. I’ve come back to escort the prettiest debutante to her coming out party.”

Colton was pure South. His accent. His words. Everything. I couldn’t help but smile. It was comforting to see him.

“Now, now, Colton Labousse, you’re not supposed to see Harlow until the gala. A lady has to keep some mystery about her for the big day,” Mama reproached him gaily in her thick Carolina dialect as she swept across the room.

She loved Colton. His family were rich. Filthy rich. And their golden son could do no wrong in her eyes. She swooped between us and kissed him on each cheek before playfully patting him on the chest, and batting her long lashes at him. I rolled my eyes. Ugh! Really?

“Thus with a kiss I die,” Colton quoted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as he kissed her on the cheek. Then offering her his most devastating smile, asked, “Not even a sneak peak?”

If there was one thing Colton was good at, it was twisting parents around his little finger. He played up to my mother’s ego and she loved it.

“Okay but just a quick one.” She grinned like a young girl and I rolled my eyes again.

He turned to me and offered me a more genuine, softer smile. He whispered, like we were playing some kind of conspiracy. “Come out and play with me tonight? Dinner at Alto’s?”

I did a quick tally of my options in my head. Another cold and stilted evening with my parents? Or forget my heartache with an evening of distraction with an old friend?

“You got a better offer I am unaware of, Miss Montmarte?”

He was so smooth. Yet comforting. Like a beacon in the darkness. I smiled and shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”

He flashed me that million dollar smile.

“Pick you up at eight?”

The smile disappeared from my face and the months peeled back so rapidly I felt dizzy. Suddenly, I was standing at the dessert bar at the café in LA, with Heath.

“You’re not going to let this go are you?” I said.

“No. Absolutely not,” replied Heath.

“If I agree, will you leave me alone?”

Two dimples flicked next to his floodlight smile. “Pick you up around eight?”

I shifted uncomfortably, bracing myself against the wave of heartache I felt swelling in my chest.

“Can we make it earlier? Seven?”

Another million dollar smile. Perfect. Handsome. “I’ll be there.”

* * * * *

HEATH

The knock on my front door didn’t rouse a response. I remained on the couch, unmoving, my hands behind my head as I stared up at the ceiling. It was how I’d been for days. At one with the couch.

Karma had won and I was all out of fight.

I just wanted to be left alone.

Now that the album was done, I was chasing some serious time out. Which apparently meant not shaving, showering, eating or functioning like a normal human being. Which was just fine by me. Vengeance would be heading off to promote the album in a few weeks and I’d be stuck on the road with my bandmates with little privacy between us. So, until then, I just wanted everyone to leave me the fuck alone.

The next round of knocking on the front door rattled the glass in the living room window. Whoever they were, they were persistent.

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then scuffed across the floor to the front door ready to tell whoever it was to fuck off.

But then I opened the door and saw her standing there in all her blonde beauty and mid-western innocence.

“Kelsey?”

She fixed those big baby blues on me but her smile faded at the sight of me. Almost a month had passed since she’d last seen me—at Armie’s funeral—and she probably wasn’t expecting the wreck of a man standing before her.

Yeah, I looked like shit. I had a week’s worth of stubble. And I wasn’t sure when I’d showered last. Yesterday maybe? The day before?

I would’ve hugged her if I wasn’t afraid of offending her with my current lack of personal care.

She shook her head and sighed. “I wasn’t sure about coming here today. But now that I’m here, I can see it was the right decision.”

The closed-lipped smile she gave me was sad.

“How about you invite me in and I’ll fix us a pot of coffee?” The bright blue of her eyes found mine. “I’ve got something to show you and I think it’s something you’re going to want to see.”

As I watched Kelsey make coffee I was reminded that the last time she been in my house she was with Armie, and a whole new world of hurt went through me.

While she poured cream into our coffee, I quickly sprayed deodorant to mask the stale smell of … self-pity.

We took our coffee back to the lounge room and sat on the couch.

“Armie kept a journal,” she said opening her large handbag. “Quite a comprehensive one.”

“Armie kept a journal?” I was surprised. But then, thinking about it, it made sense. He was our lyric master. Always scribbling down ideas on paper napkins, coasters, whatever he could get his hands on. Writing was an outlet for him, so I guess it was only natural for him to keep a personal journal.

“His mom found it when she packed up his room,” she said softly and the mental image of Armie’s mom having to pack up his things made my chest heavy with grief.