Page 147 of California Wild

And fuck.

Everything in him just… stopped.

Hayley Fox.

Waist-length auburn hair flipping around, his oversized plaid shirt, mic in hand. She moved like she owned the stage. Like she always had. But now—now she moved different. He could see it. Feel it.

Softer around the edges.

Sharper in the center.

She was more woman than girl now. Pregnant with his kid. Carrying a future neither of them had planned but both of them were trying like hell to figure out.

She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t have known he was there. But the moment she stepped to the mic, the crowd lost it.

And when she sang?

Jesse felt the same punch to the ribs he’d felt the first time. That night in some shitty dive bar, years ago, when she got up and ripped the world open with nothing but her voice and a secondhand guitar. That was the night he fell. For real.

And now?

Now she was his.

Kind of.

Maybe.

He didn’t even know anymore.

Her voice cut through the bar like smoke and velvet, low and raw, chasing pain into the light. She wasn’t just singing songs—she was bleeding onstage. Jesse could see it in every note, every sway of her hips, every fucking lyric she’d probably written at 3 a.m. when the world was too loud and too quiet at once.

He watched her all through the set. Couldn’t take his eyes off her. The way she grinned mid-verse at her guitarist, how she closed her eyes like she was somewhere else entirely. Song aftersong, she let it pour out, and Jesse stood still, steady, throat tight.

Because shit had changed.

Because they weren’t just Jesse and Hayley anymore.

They were Jesse and Hayley and a baby and a past and a maybe and something so much fucking deeper than it used to be.

She was still his girl.

But now she was about to be the mother of his kid.

And somehow, she was even more of a rockstar now than she’d ever been.

When the set ended, the lights faded and the crowd screamed. Jesse exhaled, finally.

He glanced at Isaac.

Isaac smirked. “Lock that shit down, man. She’s fucking gold.”

Jesse rolled his eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

They pushed through the crowd. Zach had a girl on each arm, laughing at something, and waved them off with a grin when Jesse passed by. Isaac and Jesse stepped outside into the cool night air.

Jesse lit a cigarette.

Leaning against the side of the building, he let the smoke fill his lungs, his head. His heart was still racing. She’d killed it up there.

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