Page 30 of Edge of Forever

“Absolutely.”

TWELVE

Sam

June rushes past in a blur of sex, love, and rock and roll.

Kirsten and I are together all day, almost every day. She stays at the hotel with me most nights, hangs out at the studio part of the day, and she or Sydney feed me—and the rest of the band—several times a week. I don’t know what I was expecting, but getting involved with Kirsten has been great.

Better than great.

Other than playing live, there’s nothing I enjoy more these days than hanging out in her living room after dinner, playing guitar with Owen, while Kirsten sings. Sometimes Ford joins in. Other times we play kids’ songs and they have a sing-a-long that makes me wonder if Kirsten wants babies someday.

Not for at least five or ten years, but eventually.

I can picture us in a house of our own, a few rugrats running around, maybe hosting Christmas or something.

I don’t know where that line of thinking came from, so I do a mental head shake.

Love has me all twisted up inside.

It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it can bedistracting.

It’s hard to think about anything but Kirsten.

Her smile.

Her pretty face.

The way it looks when I’m inside her… images zip through my subconscious as my fingers crawl up and down the frets of my guitar.

Usually, I can zone out when I’m playing, but today it’s not working for me. I hit the wrong notes, and skid to a stop.

Fuck.

“All right, let’s take it from the second verse,” Jimbo calls out. “Sam, you good?”

“Yeah, sorry. Just need a minute.”

“His muse isn’t here.” Tate laughs, and I flip him the bird.

“Let’s take five,” Jonny says. “I need to hit the head anyway.”

I put my guitar down and head for the bathroom too.

I know why I’m distracted today but I don’t know what to do about it.

We’re going to finish the album either today or tomorrow.

And in four days we leave to go on tour.

Which means leaving Kirsten behind.

She has a lot going on, both getting ready for college and plans with her friends, so I know she’ll be fine. We’ve talked about opportunities for her to fly out and see me, but it’s impossible to make plans until she knows what her class schedule will be for the fall. She starts at the end of August, which is less than two months from now.

But then she won’t be home until Christmas.

And home formeis Minnesota.

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