Page 4 of Second to None

My dad heaved a dramatic sigh that was belied by the twinkle in his light blue eyes. “Ah, hell. It’s like one child raising another.”

“I’m a proper grown-up,” I informed him. “One, I’ve got a tax accountant. Two, I don’t go to bed without a mental to-do list. And three, I wake up before my alarm.”

Emily peered up at me from where she was cuddling Alba. The latter tolerated it with the immense patience of a cat who knows there’ll be a reward in the form of tuna treats. “You slept until nine yesterday.”

A traitor, living under my very own roof.

“Yesterday was aSunday,” I said with measured emphasis.

My dad snorted. “I was still up at six, my lad.”

“Probably judging the lazy sparrows for sleeping in, were you?”

“Someone’s got to hold down the fort in the early hours.” He gave a mock-heroic pose that made Emily giggle, her eyes bright.

It still hit me sometimes, how far we’d come. Two years ago, she’d been a silent, lonely shell of a girl, floundering after my sister’s death. Fucking brain tumour, God. And Emily had just… shut down. I hadn’t been able to reach her, and neither had my parents, lost in their own grief. The only one who’d been able to get through? Alba. Sleeping in Emily’s bed, demanding attention until Emily had taken out one of those cat toys that came with a mouse-like thing attached to a string.

When Alba had pounced, Emily had cracked her first smile in a month. Just for that, I loved that damn cat something fierce.

“Does holding down the fort mean there are pancakes?” Emily asked, and I shook my head at her.

“Like you’d get up early even if the house was on fire.”

“I would forpancakes,” she said with the kind of innocently wounded pride only kids could manage. I bit my cheek against a grin as she added, “Or a fire, I guess.”

“That’s very reassuring.” I pointed at the smoke alarm above the kitchen island. “So. This goes off? You scramble.”

When she asked how it worked and my dad jumped into an explanation, I checked my phone again. Still nothing from Jace.

Oh well. Guess I’d wait for Mason’s call.

CHAPTER2

Cass

Beverly Hills, Sunday, July 20th

It was madness.

Temporary insanity, aided by booze and the gentle strum of Mason’s guitar. Just like old times on the bus—the never-ending thrum of the tires flowing in my blood, Mason humming some song he was working on, Jace and Ellis battling each other at FIFA, and Levi’s tired warmth right next to me, shoulders to hips to thighs.

“A band reunion?” Mason sounded as though I’d suggested we shave our heads and join a monastery. The lights from my backyard pool shone on the bridge of his pointy nose and gave his blond hair an almost surreal glow.

“Just for one song. Forcharity.” It came out defensive. I modulated my tone into something more casual. “It’d be a big surprise, right? They think it’s just me, and then I bring out the rest of you. Get people talking, donating.”

“You want to resurrect Neon Circuit.You.”

Guilt slammed into me. I gulped a mouthful of beer to mask it, a little bitter at the back of my throat, and let my gaze slide from the sparkle of LA’s lights in the distance to the Pacific’s deep purples and pinks, fading with the last of the day’s light.

Maybe I hadn’t done such a good job at faking indifference because Mason’s next words were low and soft. “Hey. Not how I meant it, man.”

Yeah, I knew—he didn’t work like that, didn’t assign blame when he could be cheerfully ambling along instead. And he was right in how objectively, out of all the guys, I’d be voted least likely to round us up again. Had it all, didn’t I?

Except for how it hadn’t felt that way in a long,longtime.

“Well.” Another mouthful of beer, no less bitter. I wasn’t drunk, only just buzzed enough that the sharp edges of reality seemed slightly muted. “I did kind of break us, though.”

I’d said it so many times in my head that I didn’t realize I’d never admitted it out loud—not until Mason set his guitar aside and turned to face me fully. In ratty jean shorts and a tank top so big it kept sliding off his shoulder, he didn’t look like a guy who still filled concert halls. “And by ‘us,’ you mean…”

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