Page 77 of Second to None

Sunglasses protected me from the staccato brightness of flashing cameras. Frank carved a path for me, but his bulk couldn’t hold back the noise. I raised my head and smiled, not a fucking care in theworld. I wasn’t a pretty crier anyway, all red, hectic splotches on my cheeks and swollen eyes.

“This way,” Frank said, and I followed on autopilot, everything disconnected, reality a blur each time I blinked. One foot in front of the other, and it somehow jolted me back to that moment I’d caught sight of Levi again for the first time in five years—how he’d looked both different and the same, sharper and more confident yet achingly familiar, like all he’d done was take a quick walk around the block.

Frank steered me toward the car. I sank into the backseat, grateful for this slice of silence and the tinted windows that blocked out the world. Tried to grasp at slipping thoughts, a beginning I hadn’t taken anywhere.

The last time Levi and I had broken up, the only time, we didn’t lean on the other three guys so we wouldn’t drag them down with us. Which, yeah—roaring success there. But in some twisted sense, he and I had still had each other—the way we’d clawed and bitten and torn at skin, the words we’d swallowed, because at least he’d beentherefor those final, terrible months.

This time, I just… couldn’t.

But sharing friends meant that sometimes it was a rotation of confidants. Band fights had been like that—if Jace and Ellis squabbled like teenage siblings, one would vent to Mason and the other to Levi or me, and sooner rather than later, it would blow over. This was worse than a stupid fight caused by cabin fever. It cut right to the core, but our invisible treaty held true.

‘Did Levi talk to you?’I asked Mason, tired letters winking at me as I typed them.

He replied almost immediately, just as the car pulled into traffic.‘Yes. But Ellis is on standby, and Jace can fly over.’

I blinked stupid, hopeless tears from my eyes.‘Best friends ever.’

‘You’d do the same.’

‘Any time, any day.’

‘We know. Sleep first?’

My body was one big, tired ache, thoughts like molasses.‘Yeah. I’ll call El tomorrow, see if he can do breakfast.’

‘He says he’ll be there at nine.’

‘Thank you,’I wrote, and what I really meant was,‘Love you, you’re the best.’

‘You too,’he replied, which really just proved how well he knew me. They all did.

I pressed my head back against the seat, closed my eyes, and tried to stop thinking.

* * *

Beverly Hills,Sunday, August 31st

This coffee was absolute fuckingcrap.

Or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe my taste buds had been permanently altered by, what, six days in Sardinia? The moka pot there hadn’t even been that fancy, nothing like my top-of-the-line barista marvel that Levi had researched because he cared about things like that, was much better at making a place into a home. Our bedroom—my bedroom—still looked like he’d only just stepped out.Pathetic.

That was how Ellis found me—out by the pool, glaring at my coffee as though it had personally wronged me.

He carried a mug of his own, must have stopped in the kitchen first after letting himself in, smiling a little behind his sunglasses as he sat down next to me on the lounge couch. It was the same spot where Mason and I had first discussed the idea of a band reunion, mere weeks ago. Back when I’d somehow, stupidly, dared to hope.

“Morning,” Ellis said, easy as anything. No grand announcement, just here to be company.

I cleared my throat, voice scratchy like I’d swallowed too many sharp-edged words. “Morning.”

For a minute, we sipped our coffees. Sunlight filtered through the cypresses, the air just starting to warm as my mind drifted, pulling at loose threads like a sweater about to unravel.

“Luca thinks that five a.m. is the new six,” Ellis said into the lull—matter-of-fact, like a nurse administering a gentle sedative that took the form of a toddler anecdote. “And then he decided that cereal looks better on the floor than in the bowl. So that was fun.”

His calm air settled something in my chest. “Creative expression?” I asked.

“If so, he’s in his ‘paint the world with milk’ phase.”

“Did he try to get it in your shoes again?”

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