Page 55 of I Just Want to be Yours

I kiss her forehead. “Yeah, just give me a few minutes to pack up.”

Margot releases me and leans around me to call out to the guys. “Great show tonight!”

A chorus of “Thanks, Margot,” rings out behind me, but I can’t take my eyes off her. I can’t believe she came all this way just to see me. She’s not bothered by the fact that I can’t spend a ton of time with her alone. She isn’t trying to rush out of here now that our set is finished. She’s like the perfect missing piece to this crazy puzzle, and I love her even more for it.

She turns on her heels and heads back for the table, and I blink when I feel Dave clasp a hand on my shoulder.

“She’s a good one,” Dave says. “Don’t fuck it up.”

I look over my shoulder and lift a brow at him.

“Speaking from experience. You know, since I fucked my shit up with Lynn.”

“Yeah . . . want to tell me what happened there?”

Dave rubs the back of his neck, his shoulder length blonde hair damp with sweat like my own. “I wish I knew. I think she thought the band was winding down, and when it started picking up . . . it just went against her expectations, I guess.”

This is the most he’s opened up about his breakup since we’ve been on the road, so I try to tread carefully. “She wanted a white picket fence?”

He lets out a huff of laughter. “Exactly.” Lifting his gaze, he quickly adds, “And I want that, too. Eventually. But to pass up on all this? I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, and she didn’t want to wait around more than she already has. I get it. We’re not as young as we used to be, but you’ve got to go when the lightning strikes, you know?”

I don’t know. Not really. Settling down feels like some distant, far-off place that I may or may not go. Sometimes I forget that as long as I’ve wanted this, Dave has wanted it longer. Hell, all the guys have. I lucked out. My band gotpicked up to go on tour after mere weeks, but these guys have been waiting for this same chance foryears.

Reading through my hesitation, Dave laughs. “You and Margot are lucky. You’re both young. You’ve got nothing tying you down or holding you back. You haven’t built a life yet—in a good way. You’ve got nothing but time and freedom.”

“I guess I never thought of it like that.” Balancing the tour and my relationship with Margot feels hard, but hearing Dave talk about it makes it sound like we have the perfect setup. Maybe we do. Maybe it isn’t a bad thing that Margot and I got together right before I left. Maybe it was perfect timing.

32

margot

Mya’s facefloods with relief as soon as I’m back at the table. “Margot! Thank God!”

I slip through a gap in the line and make my way around the side of the table. “What’s up? Everything okay?” I do a quick scan of the scene to see if anything stands out, but the line is nowhere near as busy as it was when we were both working.

She frantically waves me over before handing a guy his T-shirt with an award-winning smile. In the time it takes for customers to swap places, Mya leans in and says, “The cash box is missing. I thought I put it in that box to hide it under the shirts, but now that box is empty and it’s not there.”

My eyes widen before looking at the cashbox she just put money into.

“This is the second one,” she quickly adds with panic rising in her voice.

“Okay,” I say with a nod. “We’ll find it. It will be okay.”

She nods too, but her green eyes are almost glassy like she’s trying to hold back tears.

Starting with the box at the end, I rifle through its contents,hoping to feel the cool metal against my fingertips, but there’s nothing but shirts and more shirts.

There’s no way someone could have rifled through the boxes without either of us noticing. We’re practically backed up against the wall. Someone would literally have to step over boxes just to get to most of them.

With each box I check, my anxiety spikes. Even if the money is locked up, I don’t think it would be too difficult for someone to break it open. We have two tables set up perpendicular to each other, basically making an L shape that would bar anyone from coming in on one side. I’m assuming this is how Mya sets up for all the shows, and I don’t think she’s ever had an issue with missing merchandise or cash boxes before, but what do I know?

A hand on my back makes me jump, but I look up to find Jackson’s storm-like eyes scrutinizing me with a slight crease of worry as he crouches down next to me. “What are you doing?”

I’m kneeling by one of the final boxes and digging through it. “Mya can’t find the cash box.”

Resting his elbow on his knee, he looks over at Mya who’s still handling customers like nothing is amiss.

“The other one,” I clarify.

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