Page 6 of Second to None

“You thought it might be the end of Neon Circuit,” he finished for me, his tone far too gentle.

“Yeah. Turns out it was the end of it anyway.” Because Levi and I hadn’t been able to keep it together, not even for the others. I’d hated him for making me choose, hated myself for being too much of a coward to choose him. And he’d been... hurt, mostly. Drained. Boozing it up, hardly even looking at me unless it was for the cameras, and even then it was just flickering glances. I’d fared no better. The end had come as a relief.

God. What a fucking mess we’d made.

“If you could do it all over again…” Mason raised his beer but didn’t drink, watching me with heavy eyes. “Would you do it differently?”

I didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“You’d pick Levi?”

“Yes.”

Mason was quiet for a beat. “And that’s why you want to get us back together?”

It sounded selfish. Itwas. Levi had stepped clean into the shadows as soon as he could—some rumors about rehab, and then I’d stopped checking, too twisted up in guilt and regret. I’d lost Ellis and Jace for a bit too, promoted their solo efforts but didn’t talk to them because what if they blamed me? As they should.

Mason was the only one who refused to let me be, a boomerang that kept coming back until I stopped trying to lock him out. I loved him for it. One night, I’d come over to his place only to find Jace and Ellis already there, and it had been... fuck. I’d missed them like a phantom limb. And it turned out they didn’t hate me, so I threw myself back into those friendships like we’d never stopped, even as both of them left the stage behind and Jace moved to London.

I didn’t ask how Levi was, and the others didn’t offer.

The idea of rounding them up for a charity performance? Sure, it was for cancer research. But it would be for me, too—assuage my guilt, see Levi again without exposing myself to his immediate rejection. Selfish, yeah.

“I just...” I tipped my head back, the city lights throwing a hazy glow up into the sky, the outline of distant hills melting into inky blue. “It’s like I didn’t really know myself back then. Fame, fans, tons of money rolling in—I thought I needed that to be happy.”

“Easy mistake to make.” Mason’s tone was wry.

“You never seemed to be terribly hung up on it.”

“I’m a man of simple needs,” he stated grandly, then snorted. “Nah, seriously—it’s all nice. Not about to kick a great paycheck and a round of applause out of bed, if you know what I mean. But at the end of the day, I’d rather not tie my sense of self-worth to something so temporary.”

Been there, done that, made the bad decisions to prove it.

“When did you become the smart one?” I asked.

“I hide it well.”

I managed a smile that lasted just a second. “It’s, you know. Not fun, realizing that you’ve wasted years chasing after the wrong thing.”

Mason stretched to tap our bottles together. “To growing up?”

“Whatever that means,” I said.

“Understanding that more often than not, it’s the things we didn’t do that we regret?”

“Amen.”

Silence fell between us, offset by the quiet hum of the city and the occasional rustle of a night breeze in the trees. It felt peaceful even as wistfulness clung to the tips of my thoughts.

“Talk to Ellis and Jace,” Mason said into the lull. “If you get them on board, I’ll talk to Levi.”

Oh God.

“Really?” My voice shook slightly, and Mason tossed me a quick, sweet smile outlined by the shimmering pool lights.

“Well, hey. It’s for charity, isn’t it?”

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