Page 14 of Before Now

“You don’t need me spouting bullshit at you, Sinner. You know how to get your shots, and you have better vision than anyone I know—other than me. Just do what you do and don’t let anyone give you shit about it, got it?”

“And if they spend the entire tour hating me?” I ask. But they is Foster. His parting words have started to sound like a threat the more I’ve replayed them in my mind. I thought enough time had passed that he would have forgiven me.

I guess I was wrong.

“Who the fuck cares if a bunch of musicians hate you or love you?” Heath pauses to take a long drag. Then he gives me a, “You good?”

I inhale and toss my last bag with the other two beside my door. “The best.”

“Now we’re both liars,” he mumbles.

The world’s full of liars and the oblivious.

“Send me footage every few days,” Heath tells me. “Stay the fuck out of their hotel rooms, and I’ll see you in four months.”

He ends the call, and I sigh, letting the phone slip from my ear.

It took a lot of time to learn to sift through for the praise buried deep in talks with Heath. The takeaway from this little convo is he thinks I’m the person least likely to fuck this up. And it shockingly helps more than anything else anyone could have said.

* * *

Forty minutes later,I’ve got my suitcases by the door, and I’m fidgeting on the couch.

I’m digging through my messenger bag for the stack of index cards I have all of my notes for the documentary on when the bedroom door across the hall from mine opens. I look up at the bare back slipping through. Xander spins and walks down the hall, dragging a hand through his pink hair. He disappears toward the bathroom, but then he backs up and stops at the open archway to the living room. His eyebrows rise in surprise, and I give him a little wave.

“Hey,” he says before glancing back at his closed door. He braces in the archway for a second and then steps into the living room, rubbing a red mark on his shoulder. “I thought you’d still be asleep.”

He drops onto the cushion beside me, and I pull my feet up between us.

“They called last night and changed my pickup time to this morning.”

“That’s why you disappeared early last night?” His lips pull tight, and he groans, scrubbing his hands over his face. “You should have told me, Rem. I thought you left with someone.” His amber eyes set on me, his long lashes brushing his cheeks. “I would have come with you.”

I shrug as he slides his hand onto my knee. “No point in ruining both our nights.”

He glances at the door again, but his gaze darts right back to me. He drops his voice to keep it between us. “Definitely wouldn’t have ruined it.”

His fingers drag across the back of my hand until the door to his room opens, and I pull away. A girl steps into the hall in nothing but the shirt he wore out last night. She gives an awkward smile when she spots us on the couch together. Xander keeps looking at me, though, so after a second of being ignored, she scurries into the bathroom.

I push him in the chest once she disappears. “Dick.”

He chuckles and tips his head back on the couch, closing his eyes. “She knew that’s all she was signing up for.”

One eye peeks open at me, and I try to fight off a smile but fail.

“You’re terrible,” I tell him.

I swipe my bag off the floor and leave him and his hangover on the couch. He lifts his head so his heated gaze can trail me across the room, reminding me why I left early last night without telling him.

When we moved in together last year, our relationship was far less blurred lines. I’d needed a new place; he had a steady girlfriend. Since he’d taken over as Heath’s TA after I started interning, we already knew we got along. Then his relationship ended, and we realized we got along in other, naked ways.

It usually happens when we’re drunk and neither of us has brought someone home. A backup body when another falls through. But last night his eyes stayed on me, his hand sinking low on my back and pulling my body against his at the bar.

Iwasthe girl he wanted to take home, the toy he wanted because soon he wasn’t going to be able to have me. Isn’t that part of the human condition? Wanting what we can’t touch.

“Hey.” Xander follows me to the door and tugs me against his hot chest. “I’m going to miss you.”

I sigh, allowing myself to relax into him. “Just keep the girls out of my bed.”

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