“You have to be careful if you don’t know where you’re going, Pete. You might wind up someplace else.”

My dad also called me Pistol Pete because I was kind of a wild child when I was little. I blame the red hair. As I got older he dropped the Pistol and just called me Pete. I can’t even count the number of times I had to explain that when I had a friend over.

With my dad, well, Yogi’s advice constantly in mind, I set my goals for myself extremely high. In high school, I was the valedictorian on my way to college. In college I was president of Pi Beta Phi and made damn sure we won the award for the most community service. I worked my ass off to get the marketing internship with Midnight Bay and once they hired me full-time I set my sights on a promotion.

That’s my thing. I know where I’m going.

“There’s Robyn Breeland,” people say when I walk down the street. “That girl knows where she’s going.”

Okay, so maybe they don’t say it out loud, necessarily. It’s enough that I know.

Or at least, I usually do.

When the cabdriver pulls up to the Hyatt Regency, I don’t get out right away. I weigh my options.

Pancakes with Dallas or lying in bed staring at the ceiling all night wondering how long he sat at that diner alone.

Neither option is particularly appealing. But at least with one of them I might actually get some sleep tonight.

“Um, did we happen to pass a diner on our way here?”

“A diner?” The driver turns in his seat to face me. He’s attractive, younger than I first realized. His head is shaved and there are tattoos on his arms that look like military insignia but it’s too dark to be able to tell for sure.

“Um, yeah. A friend of mine said there was a diner near the amphitheater where you picked me up and I was thinking of meeting him there instead of calling it a night. Would that be okay?”

He shrugs. “It’s your dime, lady. But there are two diners between here and the amphitheater.”

Crap.

“Is one of them open all night by chance?”

“That’d be Rosa’s. You want me to take you?”

Do I? Should I?

My head says sure. My heart is too pissed at me to even weigh in right now. I pray for a sign. Usually I look for them in songs on the radio or street names. But tonight the radio is off, and I haven’t paid any attention to the street names. So I go with my gut instincts.

“Sure. That’d be great.”

I should’ve changed clothes.

It’s the only thought I can hold on to as the cabdriver drops me in front of Rosa’s Diner, a small fifties-themed place tucked between a run-down hardware store and an all-night pharmacy.

For God’s sakes, I still have my Kickin’ Up Crazy tour sponsor pass dangling from the Midnight Bay lanyard around my neck.

Nice, Robyn. Very sexy.

I yank it off and shove it in my purse knowing that I should not care about being sexy. This is just pancakes with an old friend. An old friend who might not even show.

Just as I whip out my compact to check my makeup, I see him out of the corner of my eye. Dallas beat me here, probably because I took a twenty-five-minute detour of indecisiveness. Snapping the compact shut, I pace for a few minutes.

“It’s not a big deal, Robyn. Stop acting like a teenager having lunch with the varsity quarterback. It’s just Dallas,” I whisper-yell at myself. “You’re being ridiculous. Cut it out.”

I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I don’t know why, but it feels like this particular decision is much grander than its outcome warrants.

It’s pancakes. He’s a friend. No big.

But as I open the diner door and a bell chimes overhead, his eyes meet mine and the moment feels monumental. I check the steel cage I erected around my heart the moment I learned he was going to be on this tour. Seems fairly sound, no major breaches so far. That I can feel anyway.

I give Dallas Lark the best I-am-so-over-you, this-is-totally-casual-and-it’s-all-good-in-the-neighborhood smile that I can.

His answering smirk tells me that one thing definitely hasn’t changed—even after all this time.

I’m still a crappy liar.

9 | Dallas

THE WAY I SEE IT, I HAVE TWO OPTIONS.

Freeze Robyn out the way I’ve tried to do since she dumped my ass three years ago, or man up and accept the fact that I’m glad to see her on this tour.

Sitting alone in a diner wondering if she’ll show, I decide to quit being a pussy and let go of the anger and confusion I’ve held on to for so long. She ended things for one reason or another, reasons I may never know, and I have to shove my macho bullshit aside and deal with that like an adult.

I drum my fingers on the table impatiently while I wait.

“Patience, Dallas,” my granddad used to say when he was first teaching me to play the guitar. I’d get so damn frustrated when my fingers wouldn’t cooperate. “The music isn’t going anywhere,” he’d remind me. “Be patient with it, with yourself.”

I’ve just made up my mind to relax and let her know that I’ve put our past behind me when she breezes into the diner. A bell chimes at the door and all the progress I’ve made vanishes like a figment of my imagination.

Robyn Breeland is the kind of woman who steals your breath away just by entering a room and gifting you with a smile.

I shouldn’t be surprised—she’s pretty much always had this heart-stopping effect on me. But I thought the high from tonight’s show might curtail my reaction to her a bit.

It didn’t.

“Hey,” I say, standing to greet her. “You made it.”

“You know me,” she says with a shrug. “Can’t resist pancakes.”

I fake a wounded look. “And here I was telling myself you might’ve come for the company.”

I add “come” to my mental list of words not to say around Robyn, for my dick’s sake. He has some cherished memories of her that are fairly easy to evoke.

Robyn blushes as if she might be thinking something along the same lines.

“It’s good to see you, Dallas.” She says it like she means it and I grin like a lovesick jackass when she barely lets me give her a one-armed hug before we slide into the booth. “And I caught part of your show tonight. The crowd seemed really into ‘Better to Burn.’ I read that it’s been getting some radio play, which is great, right?”

I nod at an approaching waitress and avoid Robyn’s eyes. If I look directly at her, she’ll see the truth burning in them. She always could see right through me.

“Yeah, Dixie wrote that one. It’s doing well.”

Thankfully before Robyn can inquire any further into my songwriting, a waitress comes over to take our order.

“What’ll it be, kids?” Our waitress’s name is Kay and she has pens stuck in her hair, her shirt pocket, and her apron. Maybe if I kept pens handy like that I’d actually get a decent lyric or two written.

“The blueberry oatmeal pancakes and an orange juice, please,” Robyn answers after barely glancing at the menu.

“I’ll have the double bacon cheeseburger with loaded cheese fries and a large Coke.”

“Holy cardiac arrest on a plate.” Robyn reaches for the waitress before she turns away. “He was just kidding. He’ll have the black and blue steak salad with the dressing on the side and a Diet Coke.”

My mouth drops open and I am literally at a loss for words. Kay looks to me for confirmation. I shrug because what else can I do? Throw a tantrum and demand my fucking cheeseburger? That seems like a good way to make Robyn regret meeting me here.

Once Kay has corrected my order on her notepad and walked away, I make a face at Robyn. “Well, that was . . . emasculating. Thank you.”

She bites her lower lip and creases appear in her smooth forehead. “Are you trying to kick the bucket before thirty or what? Your grandfather just had a fatal heart attack, which probably means heart disease runs in your family. So maybe you should, I don’t know, have something other than a cow topped with a pig dipped in grease for dinner.”