Page 14 of Second to None

I was. And my resolve to play it cool folded like a house of cards, stomach trapped halfway through a slow-motion somersault as his gaze flickered up. Our eyes met.

One second only, then he looked away. A hitch in his step? Maybe. Or maybe I’d imagined it.Fuck. I forced myself to stare past him, studying the iridescent light that danced across the water, heat prickling on the back of my neck.

What thehellwas I doing here?

CHAPTER4

Cass

Marina del Rey, Thursday, August 14th

Levi.

I’d had days—no,weeksto prepare myself for this moment. I’d laid it all out in my mind—how I’d send him a soft smile that would hint at everything I was going to tell him.I’m sorry. You’ve never left my mind. I wasn’t ready then but now I am, so if there’s even a snowball’s chance in hell that you still care, even just a little… Let me take you out. Whenever, wherever. Just say the word.

And then our eyes met.

It felt like a gut-wrenching drop. My entire body weightless, caught in a rollercoaster that dipped over the precipice, heart suspended in this infinite second. He looked older, sharper, face unreadable. Something about the tilt of his head and the way he angled his shoulders signaled a confidence that tripped me up. Want knifed through me, not sure whether it was nostalgia or this, him, now.

I dropped my gaze. Too fuckingmuch. Jace was still talking, words like the gentle drip of rain against the window of a tour bus.

Somehow, I kept walking, each step a ripple in my blood. Up the ramp and onto the boat, sun in my eyes and shadows in my heart. Followed Jace’s lead just like I had on the very first song we’d ever recorded, his voice soaring higher as I wove around it and then took over. Levi came in on the chorus, Ellis and Mason and Jace harmonizing about our butterfly girl, about sunshine kisses and summer skies. Even then, I’d found my attention straying to the delicate bow of Levi’s upper lip, some feeling I had yet to name twining around the base of my spine, impossible and radiant.

The boat swayed with each step I took, at odds with the Pacific’s silken calm. Feverish warmth rose to my cheeks.Don’t fucking blow it.

I exhaled, inhaled. Smiled at the woman who pressed a drink into my hand, condensation a cool touch against my palm. Turned to the others—Ellis and Mason.

Levi.

“Cass,” he said, as if I’d spoken out loud.

I drew another breath. “Levi.”

Neither of us moved. We stared at each other, brief darkness shading the green of his eyes before he blinked and it was gone, like a closing shutter. I forced the corners of my mouth into an upward tilt he didn’t mirror.

Yeah. I hadn’t thought he’d make it easy. I didn’t deserve it.

“We ready, then?” Mason asked, voice deceptively light. Could have fooled me.

“Oh captain, my captain,” Ellis intoned, saluting Mason as Jace followed it up with, “Arr, mateys.”

God, I fucking loved them for trying. Tension still hung thick in the air, but it felt bearable now.

Levi cracked a grin so small it hardly counted, and I pinned my hopes on that tiny twitch of his lips, the faintest give in the tightness around his eyes.

After all—well. He was here, wasn’t he?

By the time we left the marina, the thrum of the engine a low hum in my bones, the day had burned through the morning haze. A clear, sunny sky arched above us, seagulls sailing on the stiff breeze.

We ate breakfast on the lounge deck, laughing at random shared memories, just friends hanging out, faking obliviousness as a photographer, tipped off by Mason’s assistant, circled our yacht in a much smaller boat. My gaze kept snagging on Levi and then sliding past, heart clenched into a fearful lump. It dredged up memories of that final, awful year—empty smiles for the cameras, throwing ourselves into each performance as though it might be our last. As soon as the curtain fell, our ever-moving bubble blocked from public view, silence had spread like fog, creeping in around the edges of our friendship, heavy with all the things we didn’t talk about.

But that was then.

* * *

“Can I talk to you?”

My question landed like a whisper, quiet and timid, yet Levi snapped around as though I’d punched him. Just the two of us, alone on the top deck. His attention fell to my naked chest and lower—to the curl of a tattoo on my left hip.

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