She was already talking when I pressed the green button. "… studio full of highly skilled, highly paid technicians and musicians, all getting paid to twiddle their thumbs waiting for you to show the fuck up. Where the hell are you, Jaxson?"

"I'm right around the corner," I lied, tearing down the stairs. "Calm down, Bev."

"Calm down? Do you know how much this is costing right now? Get here. Now."

"Yeah, yeah." I was sprinting down the lawn, but I didn't want her to know that. "Go take a Xanax, or something."

She hung up, but not before I heard her distinctly hiss, "Asshole."

I stopped in the middle of the lawn and stared at the phone. I had nothing ready. Bev had handled everything, booking the studio time and the musicians on nothing more than my promise that I'd have the album written by then. Then, meaning now. Today.

Fuck.

Maybe I was the flash in the pan everyone claimed I was. Maybe “Cocky” was an anomaly and I really wasn't a songwriter. Because fuck me if I'd been able to write a decent song since.

Part of me wanted to just skip it. Bail on them all and go get drunk with Annie's roadies. Pussy out and let them believe I sucked. I certainly believed it myself.

But I knew I couldn't do that. I had a reputation to maintain. Ever since “Cocky” dropped, the press wanted to see me swaggering. I wasn't allowed to fail. It would ruin everything.

I grabbed my keys and hopped into the 1985 Ferrari 288 GTO I bought myself with “Cocky” money and had painted a custom shade of electric blue. Like my hair. Image. I'd go to the studio and brazen it out. Fuck, maybe something would come to me on the drive.

Even I knew I was lying to myself. I was a panting wreck by the time I double-parked outside of the studio, a full hour and a half later than I was supposed to be there. Banks was standing on the sidewalk, smoking one of his hand-rolled cigarettes that smelled like dirt. I lifted my chin at him.

"You know, I honestly wouldn't give a fuck, since I get paid either way," he said coolly, letting a wreath of smoke billow around his head. "It's the fact that I have to show up to get paid." He stubbed out his cigarette against the building. "Must be fucking nice."

"Oh, give it a rest, Banks. You might think you're better than me, but who the hell is paying your bills right now, hmm?" The keyboardist my label had hired still clung to his classical training like it meant something in this world.

"Whatever. I turned down a pretty big name for this, Blue. I just want to get to work."

Bev was on the other side of the door. "You ready?" she asked crisply.

"Whaddya got for us, Blue?" Toad hopped up from the sofa in the lounge, his bass flopping around dangerously.

"Were you finalizing, or something?" Casper asked. He was trying to cover for me. I could tell. "That's why you were late?"

I nodded. "Absolutely."

"Well, everybody is ready to get down to work, Jaxson. Ready when you are."

I nodded again, feeling like I was moving upstream… or maybe caught in the undertow, the current dragging me toward that sound-proof booth with nothing to sing. I searched my head, wracking my brain for some little snippet to pull from the noisy static… but there was nothing there except a door shut in my face.

Chapter Seventeen

Liliana

Jaxson didn't come home last night.

I wished I didn't know this, but I did. I would have heard him if he had, because I spent the rest of the day locked in my room, writing like my fingers were on fire.

I wrote down exactly how the kiss felt, the press of his lips against mine, how they parted without my meaning to. How I sagged into him like I lost the ability to stand. How the bottom of my stomach dropped out like I was on a roller coaster and pleasure that was close to physical pain coursed out from every touch of his fingers on my skin. That's all that happened in the hallway—just a kiss—but on the page I was free to let it go further, just the way my body had wanted. On the page, I was licking and sucking a trail of kisses down his bare, glistening chest while his blue eyes never left mine—ah, fuck.

I swore I could feel his lips on mine a day later, like he had burned or bruised me. But that was ridiculous. This whole thing was ridiculous; he was going to be my fucking stepbrother in two weeks. I should fucking know better, but the minute I saw him, all of my carefully laid defenses fall apart.

I sat up from my laptop like it had scalded me. I needed to nip this train of thought in the bud. With my mind made up, I changed out of my schlubby clothes and emerged from my room.

"Mornin', Lil," Diggs croaked over his coffee. His big body was perched ludicrously on the small stool at the breakfast bar. "Didja sleep well?"

"Coffee?" I croaked back. My throat felt raw and hoarse with disuse.

"I'll take that as a no." His ruined face crinkled into a wide smile and he slid off the stool and patted it. "Have a seat."

"Thanks," I whispered and settled into the stool, grabbing an orange from the fruit bowl across from me. "How about you? Did you sleep okay?"

"Like a baby," Diggs chuckled, grabbing the coffee pot. "Doctor's got me on these new pain meds and they knock me the fuck out."

"Your hand looks good!" I suddenly noticed.

"Yeah?" He smiled proudly, gripping the coffee pot in his right hand and extending his arm straight out at the shoulder. "Can barely see it anymore, can you?"

There was a ghost of a tremor, but that was it. "Wow, that's a whole lot better. You're barely shaking at all."

"Grip's stronger, too."

"You finally found a doctor who doesn't have his head up his ass?" I accepted the mug gratefully and cupped my hands around it."

Diggs leaned against the counter. "New guy, young, barely out of diapers. Hell, he might be your age." I swatted him and he chuckled. "Doesn't seem right to call him ‘Doctor’ since he's barely old enough to shave, but he listens and he's willing to try new things. Turns out I had nerve damage in my wrist, of all the shit luck." He shook his head ruefully. "Falling off rigging will fuck you up pretty properly, you know, but no one took the time to really figure up how properly. He's the one that discovered the nerve damage that caused the tremor in the first place. Everyone else wanted to believe there was something wrong with my head."

"Well, there is something wrong with your head," I teased.

"Ooh, good burn. Where'd you learn to roast a guy like that?"

I grinned at him. "From the best."

"Damn straight," he puffed proudly. "Now how's my girl?"

I sipped my coffee and considered. "Really fucking confused, Diggs."

"Yeah? About what."

"Pick a topic."

"Heh, yeah, being young sucks that way."

"How would you know?" I smiled.

"Little shit. I was young once, you know. I remember how it felt."

"Did your dad suddenly decide to get married when you were nineteen?"

Diggs inhaled deeply. "Nah. Never had that to deal with, thankfully."

"What the hell, Diggs?"

He shook his head. "Guess they figured it was time."

"It just seems so… out of the blue."

"Well, you know Annie; that's how she works. Makes a decision one day, and suddenly, that's how things are going to be forever more. My guess is that she woke up one day and told Nails to either get a ring or get the fuck out. And we both know your dad ain't going anywhere."