“I’m Heidi, Mr. Simon’s personal assistant. Welcome, Mr. Beckham, Mr. Blake.” She nods. “Mr. Simon apologizes. He’s running twenty minutes late. He asks that you please make yourselves at home. There is a green room down the hall to the left. Van Mars is recording if you’d like to pop in and listen. Or there is a cafeteria downstairs. If you tell them you’re a guest of Mr. Simon’s, everything will be on the house.”

“Which one will you join me at?” Nolan asks with his usual cocky swagger. I roll my eyes; Heidi licks her lips.

“I’m going to head downstairs and get some coffee. The guy I bunked with last night doesn’t even have a coffee pot,” I goad Nolan.

“I don’t drink coffee…why the fuck do I need a coffee pot?”

“For when I stay over, asswipe.”

“Go back to your own place in Jersey. I’m not buying a damn coffee pot for you. If I keep you happy, you might stay over more often.” Nolan turns his attention back to Mr. Simon’s assistant. “Now if Heidi likes coffee, I might have to stop and get a pot.”

I chuckle, shake my head, and leave Nolan to his morning conquest.

The cafeteria is crowded, even though it’s somewhere between breakfast and lunchtime. But I suppose most people visiting Pulse generally consider morning to begin around noon.

I came in looking for coffee, but the smell of bacon wafts through the air and my body follows on its own. Coffee turns into two eggs, bacon and cheese on a roll, an orange juice and a chocolate pudding. Actually, two chocolate puddings. Because people who pass by fresh chocolate pudding without grabbing one just can’t be trusted.

Finally at the front of the long register line, I realize I’ve forgotten to grab the damn coffee. I leave my tray and tell the cashier to take the next person. I seriously shouldn’t walk around at only eleven in the morning with no coffee and Stevie Ray Vaughan ripping in my ear buds.

The sinuous riffs of “Texas Flood” have me lost to the music and it takes me five minutes to prep my coffee because of the constant need to stop and accompany Stevie on air guitar. Oblivious, I make my way back to the register to collect my tray and pay, when a woman’s voice shakes me out of my musical coma.

“Cutting the line?” she says.

I pull the bud from my ear and turn. “Lucky? What are you doing here?” For a quick second, I actually think I might be dreaming.

She smiles. “Apparently, getting cut in line by a guy who is going to lose his hearing from playing his music so loud.”

“Sorry. I was on line, but I forgot my coffee.” I hold up my cup as if evidence is needed. The cashier apparently isn’t as in awe of Lucky as I am; her face tells me to pay and move along. I take a bill from my wallet and motion to my tray and Lucky’s. “For both.”

“You don’t have to buy my breakfast.”

“I want to.” I’d rather buy you dinner and make your breakfast the next morning. I look down and smile seeing the contents of her tray. Chocolate pudding and coffee.

“Breakfast of champions.” She shrugs.

I know I probably shouldn’t, but I just can’t help myself. “Eat with me.”

She looks at the time on her phone, then back to me, and bites her bottom lip. Without thinking, I reach up and tug the flesh from between her teeth. “You’re going to bruise this pretty mouth.”

She flushes but agrees to have breakfast. I direct her to a quiet corner of the room. “What are you doing here?” The minute the words leave my mouth, I realize she must be here with Dylan. Fuck. I’m an idiot. Any second, he’ll be joining our table. Great.

“I work here.”

“You work here? I thought you owned Lucky’s.”

“I did. I mean, I do. Avery and I are partners now and she runs it. My last night managing it was actually the night you first came in.”

“What do you do here?”

“I’m a vocal coach.”

“I thought you said you don’t sing?”

“I don’t…not in public anyway, anymore.”

“You used to sing?”

“A little.” She seems anxious to move the conversation from her. “What brings you here today?” Her spoon dips into the chocolate pudding and rises to her mouth and I follow it with rapt attention.

“We’re signing the contract for the Wylde Ryde tour.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. About that. Sorry about the other night. I didn’t know you were with Dylan.”

She shrugs. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Maybe not, but I wanted to.”

Her cheeks pink up again. God, I love the color of her skin. The way it doesn’t allow her to mask any of her emotions, even if she tries.

“Well. It all worked out anyway. Avery is incredible.”

“Avery?”

“I thought you were interested in her.”

“I actually said I was into the bar’s owner.”

She looks confused, and then her mouth forms an O. Right before her cheeks flush again.

“Don’t worry…Dylan just assumed I meant your friend.” An awkward silence falls. “So how long have you two been together?”

“A little less than a year.”

I nod. “You eat chocolate pudding and coffee for breakfast often?”

She giggles. “I have every day since I started here. I just can’t seem to pass the damn display.”

“I know what you mean.”

“I better watch myself. I have no self-control around chocolate, and between not running around the bar all night and having a cafeteria with good food in the building, my ass is going to bear the brunt.”

“I’ll watch your ass for you. Make sure it stays in top form.” I wink.

“How chivalrous of you.”

“I’m good like that.”

She shakes her head. “So are you excited to go on tour?”

“I’m excited to play in front of an audience again.”

“You took a break?”

I nod. “Not by choice. Nodule on my throat.”

“Sorry. Strained from too much singing?”

“That’s what the doctor said.”

“Well, there’re a lot of things you can do to keep it from flaring up. Have you been to a voice coach?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you my number. Call me if your voice starts to show signs of strain. I might be able to help.”

I nod, lift my phone, and snap a picture.

“Hey. I’m eating. Why did you take a picture?”

“To go with your number in my phone.”

“And you needed it to identify me because you know a lot of Luckys?”

She has a point. “What’s your number?” I ask.

“Let me see the picture or I’m not giving it to you.”

I arch an eyebrow. “You’re going to injure my voice and most likely ruin my career because of one bad picture of you with chocolate pudding on your lip?”

Her eyes flash. “I have chocolate pudding on my lip in the picture?”

“Maybe.” I smile.

Lucky grabs for my phone, but I pull my hand back just as quickly.

“Let me see the picture!”

“Okay. But only if you give me your phone number first.”

“Is there really even chocolate on my face in the picture?” She licks her lips.

My eyes fall to watch her tongue. There’s a drop at the corner of her mouth. I lean forward and swipe it with my finger. Her lips part. Then I lift my finger to show her the tiniest of smudges…right before I bring it to my mouth and lick off the pudding. “Delicious.” Chocolate pudding and Lucky. My new favorite flavor.

“I shouldn’t even give you my phone number now.”

“Why, because I gave you a compliment?”

“What was the compliment?”

“I said you were delicious.”

“I thought you were talking about the pudding.”

A wicked grin on my face, I slowly shake my head back and forth.

“You’re dangerous.”

“Thank you.”

“That wasn’t a compliment.”

“Think you need to work on the difference between compliments and insults.”

Time flies, both our trays are long empty, and I’ve been gone for close to an hour, even though Heidi told us Simon would be only twenty minutes late. But I just can’t bring myself to walk away from her. She tells me a little about Lucky’s and her new job, and I’m actually enjoying the conversation—maybe even as much as I enjoy looking at her. There’s an odd familiar feeling that I get when we talk. It was there the first time we spoke, even more so today. It feels like I can finish her sentences, yet I don’t want to interrupt her because the sound of her voice slides over me in a way that I can’t describe. I just know that I like it. A lot. I like her. I like the way I feel when I’m around her.