Page 17 of Second to None

CHAPTER5

Levi

Marina del Rey, Thursday, August 14th

I had thought I’d tested the limits of what Cass could make me feel. Pleasure and pain, longing, betrayal, resentment, a bottomless pit of despair and inadequacy. I’d been wrong.

‘I know I fucked up, and I’m sorry.’

The words didn’t heal, exactly—they didn’t erase our past—but they echoed somewhere deep. Not a resolution, but a gentle shift, like a puzzle piece slipping into place without completing the picture. Sweetness tinged with an ache I couldn’t name, a weight lifted only to register as its absence.

We slotted back in with the other lads, the conversation lighter now that we weren’t performing for a camera. Jace reclaimed his shirt from Cass, which prompted a spirited discussion about how the tour bus had pretty much been one big communal wardrobe.

“You’ve all borrowed my shirts at some point,” Cass said. “Let’s not lie.”

“But I made them look best,” Jace threw in.

“Hey,” Mason said, nodding at me. “Remember that hoodie I used to wear all the time? Turns out it was yours.”

“Turns out?” I arched a disdainful brow, refusing to let my attention drift back to the inked constellation on Cass’s hip. The way he was sprawled on a sun lounger, all toned muscle and bronzed skin that gleamed with sunscreen, was of no concern to me. “You knew. You just hoped I wouldn’t notice.”

“The grey one that looked like a dress on Mason?” Ellis asked.

Jace reached over to poke Ellis in the chest. “That’s rich, coming from the guy who stole my leather jacket and stretched it out.”

“Okay,” Ellis said. “So we all shared. It’s called team spirit.”

“It’s calledtheft,” I said, only to be reminded of the leather belt I’d lifted from Jace and had yet to return. It still served me well.

From there, the conversation meandered. We recalled the weirdest fan gifts we’d received, tour pranks that helped us pass the time, and that one time a hotel alarm had gone off at 3 a.m. and we ended up in the lobby in nothing but our boxers, with fans pressing against the glass to capture the moment. Mason talked about his next album while Jace and I shared stories of the artists we mentored. Ellis recounted his first experience with a blowout, which was apparently a thing that happened when a baby’s diapers just couldn’t contain the, uh...volumeof the situation—a true rite of passage that I’d been lucky to skip.

No one mentioned Emily.

I’d have to tell Cass; I just didn’t know how. At the time, it had made sense to lock him out. Now that something between us had cracked open? Fuck.

‘I was in love with you, too.’

‘Just not enough, huh?’

‘You’re wrong.’

To combat the midday heat, we took a dip in the shallows off Palos Verdes, a sun-bleached paradise with cliffs that rose jagged and proud above the cobalt water. The ocean was startlingly clear, a pane of glass that stretched until it deepened into navy and finally melted into the sky. A couple of other boats drifted nearby—close enough that the occasional peal of laughter or splash reminded us we weren’t quite alone, but far enough that we could claim the space as ours.

The water was cool and sweet as I slid in. Around me, the others were already splashing like kids let loose in a park fountain, like we were right back in that music video we’d shot in Las Vegas, partying it up in front of the dramatically lit Fountains of Bellagio. Mason shouted something unintelligible, his voice bouncing off the cliffs, while Jace floated on his back, arms spread like a ritual sacrifice. Ellis attempted some kind of fancy leap off the side of the yacht, only to come up coughing and laughing.

And Cass—well. He cut through the water with smooth, unhurried strokes, his wet hair slicked back, leaving his face clean and open. When he dove under, swallowed by the shimmer of sunlight on water, I held my breath until he broke the surface again. Closer. Droplets clung like diamonds to his jaw, its contours sharpened by how the years had settled into him.

I was staring.

He noticed just as I did, obvious in how his lips curled up into something small and private. The weight of his gaze didn’t match the teasing lightness of his words. “Feels a bit like old times, doesn’t it?”

Did it? He’d used to make a show of everything—a flourish to how he threw on his jacket before a performance, the way he draped himself over the arm of a sofa during interviews, always with one eye on me as if daring me to react. Grin cocky, eyes too bright. And I’d force myself to stay steady, to keep my smile in check even when every nerve in my body had felt that pull—sharp, warm, crazy. But he’d been younger, just testing the waters, and I couldn’t be the one to push him in.

This wasn’t then.

“Because you’re still showing off?” I asked, aiming for easy. My voice caught around the edges.

He seemed to hesitate, indecision shadowing his face. When he smiled, it was sudden and real. “Yeah. And you’re still watching.”

---