Page 4 of Heart Beats

“In your pants would be my guess. Or in Jagger’s pants. Did you see the bulge he was sporting? Holy shit, he must be packing an anaconda.” She takes her eyes off the road to shoot me a hubba-hubba expression. “You could be taming that trouser beast right now if you hadn’t insisted on leaving.”

“No,” I say, dropping my hands onto my lap. “He politely offered me to watch the rest of the concert from behind the curtain and said we could ‘talk more’ after the show. That’s not a man who wanted me totame his trouser beast.”

“Oh, sweetie, did you not see the way he looked at you while singing that song? Or before and after it, for that matter?”

“It’s an act, Mya. I was a prop.”

Focused on the road, Mya shakes her head. “Nope. I disagree. He was into you.”

“Want to bet on it?” I retrieve my phone from the depths of my purse, and typeJagger Marsh pulls a fan onstage during a concertin a Google search. A page of video links populates my screen, which I wave at my sister, even though she can’t look closely enough to see the proof. “See? I win.” And lose, as the tiny sliver of hope I might’ve been wrong withers and dies.

“Well… to hell with Jagger Marsh.” Mya glances over long enough to locate my hand, from which she plucks the phone, then tosses it into the backseat. “His anaconda’s probably poisonous and his show was a snore.”

“Anacondas aren’t venomous, and he’s an amazing performer.”

Mya sighs, shaking her head when her pun flies over my head, as so many do.

A knack for humor isn’t one of my gifts. Imightbe able to tell a joke if my life depended on it, but I hope it never comes to that.

“Aside from super-dorking yourself out of a backstage pass with the sexiest rock star of our generation, did you enjoy the concert?”

“I did. You would’ve had a better time if Bailey could’ve gone instead, but thank you for talking me into it.”

“You mean guilt-tripping you into it, but whatever. I have no shame.” She snorts, then glances over. “And stop about Bailey. She’s my best friend, yes, but I had a great time with you. We should do more stuff together now that I’ve moved back to Hope Harbor.”

“I like that idea.”

“Me too,” she says, smiling at me. “Tonight was fun. Plus, if you hadn’t taken Bailey’s ticket at the last minute, I wouldn’t have gotten that awesome free publicity for my store. Thankyoufor being gorgeous and irresistible—even if you are a dork when you talk to rock stars who want to bang you.” She laughs when I respond with a hard poke to her shoulder, nearly veering into the other lane when she returns the gesture with competitive sibling gusto.

I sigh as our shared laughter tapers into comfortable silence. Having different personalities and lifestyles hasn’t prevented us from becoming close, even if it took a while to get here.

“Do you think Jagger will actually show up at your store tomorrow afternoon?”

“Nah,” she says, flapping a hand. “He was working the audience. And maybe trying to impress you. He probably won’t even remember saying it. But the diehard fans will, and I bet some show up. Maybe lots.” She shrugs. “Anything’s possible.”

One thing that’s not just possible, it’s definite—that at two o’clock tomorrow, I won’t be anywhere near Mya’s store. I’ve had all the crowds and excitement I can handle. Plus, the sooner I put tonight’s dorktastic encounter with a rock star in my personal rearview mirror, the better.

two

jagger

As expected,I caught hell from my manager about last night. For disappointing the fans who bought tickets to the afterparty, where I failed to make an appearance. For telling the audience to visit an unknown, small-town t-shirt shop and promising to meet them there. I’m not sure which thing pissed Norton off more, but I know what pushed him over the edge—my intention of keeping that promise.

Today is a travel day. Our next show is in Montreal and the schedule is down-to-the-minute tight. As in, everyone’s ass needed to be on the tour bus by ten this morning, and don’t be fucking late, not even by a minute. Skipping the bus ride entirely means I wasn’t late, right?

My manager didn’t share that viewpoint. To quote him, I couldn’t have picked a worse time to go off the fucking rails. He’s not wrong about the shitty timing. He’s one hundred percent wrong about me going off the rails.

I left the stadium last night with a vision of what happens next. Starting with sitting at the piano in my hotel suite and writing a brand-new song—the one that came to life when Maria sat next to me.

Inspiration hasn’t flooded me since… Fuck, I can’t remember the last time a song just came to me like that. In the beginning, maybe. Sure as hell not anytime recently. I’ve had to fight for every song I’ve written in the last decade. It’s amazing I’ve pulled as many out of my ass as I have. A damn miracle they turned out decent.

Last night, though… No miracle required. No struggling to find the right notes or words. That song fucking flowed. I did some serious drugs back in the early days of fame and fortune, and I never felt as high as I did last night. It was like a fucking out-of-body experience.

Now it’s time for the next part of my crystal-clear vision—finding Maria.

I’m bound for her hometown in the only rental I could get on the spur of the moment. Fame and money open a lot of doors, but they can’t magically make more cars available, and waiting wasn’t an option. I’d rather roll up in my Maserati than this base-model Hyundai hatchback, butshowing upis what counts.

A roadside sign welcomes me to Hope Harbor—population, six thousand. She wasn’t kidding when she called it a small town.

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