“My favorite line of that song is the last one,” I say.

She lifts her eyes to mine, and we build a smile together.

“‘Now I see the light,’” we quote at the same time.

I roll up my sleeve, baring my forearm to show her the ink there. She traces the line from the song, creating mayhem on my skin under her fingers.

“Believe it or not, that’s my favorite from the album too. No one else has ever . . . well, no one ever says that’s their favorite.”

Her fingers drop away from my arm, and her eyes drop away from my face. I screw up my nerve to say what needs to be said before she walks away from me.

“Look, I don’t do this much, but I feel like we have a connection.”

“A connection?” One of her eyebrows elevates just a bit, but she still doesn’t look up from her lap.

“Yesterday after I played, I opened my eyes and I saw something on your face. I know what it was now.”

She looks up, but she’s already shielding her eyes, and I’m not sure why.

“What did you think you saw?”

“The music moved you.”

“Yes. I’m sure your music moves a lot of people.”

This shouldn’t be hard. I didn’t fabricate this pull between us, but she’s resisting it, rejecting it, and I don’t understand.

“I know we just met, but I’d like to get to know you better. Have dinner with me tomorrow.”

“I can’t tomorrow. I’m working.”

I can be flexible.

“Maybe the next night?”

She shakes her head.

I can be persistent.

“When’s your next night off?”

“I can’t. No.” She pulls in a breath, releasing it as a sigh, but still not looking at me. “I’m . . . I’m saying no.”

“Why?”

She considers me for a moment before answering, her eyes revealing even less than her words.

“Look, Rhyson, you’re not a jerk like I expected you to be.”

“Gee, thanks.”

At least we can both laugh at that.

“So it’s not you, exactly. It’s just . . . I’m not dating. I just can’t get sidetracked right now.”

The easy conversation. The effortless way we made each other laugh. The intimacy of my lyrics comforting her when times were tough. These aren’t things you ignore. So why is she?

“That’s it?”

“If you want to know the truth, no. Maybe it is you. I won’t date you.” She gives me a frank glance, folding her arms across her chest again. “I want to make it on my own. Not have anyone think I succeeded because of who I’m dating.”

“They wouldn’t. It’s obvious you’ve got what it takes.”

“Oh, you can’t be that naïve.” She lets out a husky, cynical laugh. “Besides, maybe I have things to prove to myself. I barely have time to eat, much less date, but outside of San and Grady, I don’t have any real friends.”

“You want to be my friend?”

“Yeah, you can never have too many friends.” Her smile, wide and hopeful, bounces back at me like a refraction of light.

“Actually, I have enough friends,” I say. “I’m attracted to you, Kai. Like really attracted to you.”

Her light fades into a frown.

“I’m not the first girl you’ve been attracted to.”

“No, but you’re the first I’ve wanted to actually get to know in a long time, and—”

“And we can get to know each other. Just . . . not the date. Is that okay?”

I squeeze at the tension tightening the back of my neck and train my eyes on the console between us.

“No. It’s not okay.”

The silence following my words is thick and heavy until her words cut through it.

“I don’t know what to say then, Rhyson.”

“Being my friend is a helluva lot more intimate than a date.” I finally look up, and the frown on my face matches the one on hers. “It’s more intimate than sleeping with me.”

My best friend, Marlon, and the few people who constitute my inner circle earned that closeness. It was hard knowing who to trust once I broke away from my parents. Two albums and several Grammys later, it’s even harder to know. I stopped counting the girls I slept with long ago. That just seems douchey anyway—the counting. But ask me how many friends I have that I can count, and I only need one hand.

“So you’re willing to go on a date with me, even sleep with me,” Kai looks down, twisting her fingers around the strap of her bag, “but becoming my friend is too intimate?”

“That and I think it’s impossible for us to be just friends. I’m very attracted to you.” I reach out and tip her chin up, searching her eyes for the truth, a reason, whatever would make her resist this thing that has been tugging on me like an undertow since our eyes locked across Grady’s studio. “You telling me you don’t feel it too?”

Her eyes stay with me, but she eases her chin away from my fingers and lifts it an inch.

“Thanks for asking, but I’m gonna stick with no.”

I swallow a groan, frustrated as hell that this girl has me on the verge of begging when I’m not the guy who ever even asks.

“Kai, it’s just a date.”

“And I’m just saying no.” She opens the passenger door and steps out into the parking lot. “I need to get inside. Thanks again for the ride.”

She closes the car door and starts off toward the restaurant.

What am I supposed to do now? I put all my cards on the table. Cards I’ve never even held, much less shown a girl, and this is her response? She turns me down hard and offers me the fucking hand of friendship. I watch her slim back, the dark hair, and the tight curve of her ass. All that’s great, but it’s more than physical. That moment when we talked about “Lost” showed me how deeply we could connect if she would only give us a chance.

I jump out of the truck, lean my forearms on the hood, and yell across the parking lot from the driver’s side.

“Hey, Kai.”

I wait for her to face me before finishing my thought.

“Let me know if you change your mind.”

She starts walking backwards, and her smile says that’ll be the day. Her words yield no more ground.

“Let me know if you change yours.”

GRIEF TAUGHT ME TO LIVE NUMB. Death takes more than just the one life. It thieves tiny particles from the ones left behind until you feel only half alive. In some ways, that’s how I’ve lived, how I’ve felt, even since moving here to L.A. San and Grady see it. That’s why they worry.

Last week, I felt something. It started with that music Rhyson played. Each note was a tiny needle shooting adrenaline into my barely beating heart, jolting me awake and heightening my senses. My heart races when I remember every moment, every word we exchanged, every time we looked at one another as long as we could stand it before we’d looked away.

Meeting Rhyson was like being in a darkened room where someone lights a match. He was a flare of light that illuminated everything around me and showed me just how dull my existence had become. Then before my eyes had time to adjust to the light, it was snuffed out again

But that’s okay. I’ll find my way out of this dark room. The stage is my path to the light. It always has been. I’ve always known it. I’ll make my own light. I’ll find my own way.

A bill marked with blood-red past due notice warnings grabs my attention on the corner of my dresser. As soon as I can pay off some of these medical bills, I can actually focus on getting to the stage. I pick up the notice, reading over the dire warnings that I’ve learned to ignore. The hospital is a bloated beast satisfied by small payments as long as they’re consistent. Especially from a dead woman, or at least her daughter left holding the bag.

“That came yesterday,” San says from my bedroom door. “I’m not even the one paying those bills, and I get tired of seeing ‘em.”

A rueful grin shapes one corner of my mouth, but I don’t bother responding. I tighten my ponytail and tug at the cut off T-shirt that is standard issue at The Note. It doesn’t quite reach the waistband of my jeans, exposing a few inches of my midriff.