Page 127 of Deliverance

Yep, there’s definitely a parallel.

Santiago shakes his head and scans my work in progress. “I don’t know how you managed to get a manwhore like him to take you to another city—on a plane, no less—then didn’t give it up and still have him texting you every second of every day.”

“Manwhore might be a bit strong of a word to describe him.”

“Oh, he’s definitely a manwhore. Reformed perhaps, but he had a gazillion girlfriends before you.”

“Do you think that makes me feel better?”

“It should since you seem to have caught his fancy.” He arches a brow. “So on a scale of one to ten, is he a solid fifteen?”

“All you think about is sex.”

“Who said anything about sex?”

I stop stirring as recent memories crash into me. It’s been almost two weeks since New York and with all the holiday madness coming up, my own Thanksgiving trip to Colorado to see my mother, the preparation for the tour, and several projects hanging over my head, I haven’t been able to find the time to see him again. But we’ve been talking on the phone every day, which has become a must—hearing his voice before going to sleep.

“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “We just had a really good time and while things certainly…progressed as the evening went on, we agreed it would be a good idea to wait.”

I pause because I feel like a shit friend. I never told Santiago about what happened in the hospital that night after one of my neighbors found me in the middle of the road. In the pool of blood, the snow around me deathly crimson.

Mrs. Jacoby, the internal bleeding is very serious. There’s some hemorrhaging in the uterus area and your left ovary…

My stomach tightens and the pain—although I know it’s not real—slices through me like the sharpest knife. It cuts clean and deep and, as always, there’s no blood or bone or flesh underneath.

There’s just emptiness.

“Babe?” Santiago leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, his eyes searching mine. “You okay? You’re pale.”

His voice snaps me back to attention. “I’m fine. Just need coffee,” I lie. That twisting in my belly…

“You want me to order some?”

My phone buzzes somewhere across the room, interrupting us.

“Shit.” I set my tools aside and rise to my feet to check my messages, the phantom ache slowly fading away into nothingness. “I totally forgot. I have someone coming.”

Santiago’s eyes follow me as I carefully step around the canvas. “Drummer?”

“You need to stop calling him that. He has a name.”

“But I like it.” A smug grin splits his face.

“You’re horrible.”

“You know what else I am?” He wiggles his brows and stands. “The newest addition to the upcoming Ada Kelley stadium run.”

“I still don’t understand why you kept it a secret. She’s only the biggest pop star on the planet.”

Reaching the table, I snatch my phone and scan the text from Preston, then send her instructions on what number to call to get buzzed in. There are several texts from Tina too, but I ignore them. For now. “I have an intern,” I explain on my way to unlock the doors as Santiago falls into step beside me.

“Since when?”

“Since today. Remember Preston from the group meetings?”

“Oh yeah.” He shoves his hands into the front pockets of his loose jeans and leans his shoulder against the wall of the corridor leading up to my space. “That teeny girl with brown hair.”

“She’s twenty.”

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