Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“I don’t. Pretty much every weekend after that though.”
Campbell grinned. “Then pack your bag. I’m taking you to New York.”
Or maybe not.
Maybe there would be even less distance.
We carefully avoided eyes until Campbell finished his spiel and headed out. Finally, Nora looked up at me.
“Well, that’s amazing for you. Playing The Tonight Show with Cosmere. That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t deny it.
“It is.”
She bit her lip. She looked so uncertain in that moment.
“Are we still cool?” I asked her.
“Oh yeah, of course,” she said quickly. Quicker than I would have liked. “Last night was fun.”
“It was more than fun.” I stepped up to her and drew her chin up to look at me. “It was incredible.”
“But Campbell still can’t know, right?” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I don’t want you to get your face punched in for no reason.”
“It’s probably best if he doesn’t know what happened.”
She opened her mouth, as if she wanted to say more, and then closed it.
“Tell me what you’re thinking, Nor.”
“Does that mean…it can’t happen again?”
And God fucking help me, I wanted to carry her right back into my room and fuck her all over again.
“Do you want it to happen again?”
She didn’t move for a moment, and then she slowly nodded. “Don’t you?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to hurt you. I’m still planning to go back to LA. My job is volatile. I don’t know what I can give you.”
“I know you’re leaving,” she said, running her fingers up my chest. “I know you can’t give me anything. But I want it anyway.”
I could feel it in every fiber of my being that she was going to be the death of me. But I wanted every ounce of her, even knowing it had to end.
So, I hoisted her beautiful body into my arms and carried her back to my bed, where she belonged. We didn’t resurface for a good long while.
Part IV
Secrets, Secrets
19
Weston
“You ready for this?” Campbell asked at my side.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
He clapped a hand on my back. “It’s just another show.”
I nodded as he wandered back to his wife. Blaire snuggled into his side as we waited for our chance to get onto The Tonight Show stage. Nerves bit into me. It was just another show. And that might have been true for the rest of the band. They’d played The Tonight Show. They’d played hella bigger shows than this.
But me? No way. No fucking way.
I’d never played anything like this. And I felt grossly out of my league.
Even though we’d had a rehearsal on the stage earlier that morning. Everything had felt surreal then, but it had been easier. No expectations. Just playing “Rooftop Nights,” like I had with the band a hundred times before this. Now, the host was onstage, the audience was waiting, and the performance would be broadcast to millions.
“Hey,” Nora said, coming to my side.
Nora at my side made sense. Made all the voices of inadequacy quiet. They might come later, but right now, she was here.
“Hey.”
“You excited?”
“Uh,” I said, looking back to the stage.
She looked around once and then touched my arm. “Hey, back to me.”
I jerked back to her face. Drowned in those big blue eyes. Let her ground me in the ocean of her eyes. “I might be out of my depth.”
She laughed softly. “No, you’re not. You’re going to be incredible. You don’t know how to be anything else.”
“I’ve never done anything like this. My first performance with Cosmere, and it’s this?”
“Yeah, and everyone will see what I see in you. That you’re talented and you deserve your spot.”
“And here I thought, we were talking about something else.”
She smacked my arm. “Let’s hope the rest of the world isn’t sleeping with you.”
I grinned down at her. “Only you have that privilege.”
She snorted. “Privilege,” she said with mock derision. “Men. Always so sure of themselves.”
“I don’t hear you complaining when you’re moaning my name into the night.”
“Give me credit,” she said. I arched an eyebrow at her. “I moan your name during the morning and afternoon, too.”
I chortled and realized what she’d done—she’d set me at ease. Now, I was thinking about having her morning, afternoon, and evening, as I had for the last two weeks. No one was any the wiser about what was happening with us, but fuck, it was amazing.
I still worried sometimes that I wasn’t giving her everything she deserved. But I couldn’t offer more. I didn’t know when I’d be yanked back to LA, and it didn’t seem fair to her to begin a relationship when it could be stolen at any moment. We weren’t Blaire and Campbell. This wouldn’t end in a happily ever after. No matter how over-the-moon happy I was to be with her.
“You’re a good distraction.”
She grinned. “Then I did my job.”