Page 75 of Sky Full of Stars

“I was an asshole,” I tell her. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, I get it. Things didn’t end well for us.” Her shoulders hunch slightly.

“Yeah, it was a long time ago, forget it,” I tell her.

She raises her eyes to me and I see a lot in them. We had two whole years of feeling on top of the world, the laughter, the love, the sex, we had a lot of good times and despite the pain, I can’t forget I loved her back then. It all comes back to me in a rush. She is still beautiful, with her auburn hair and hazel eyes. She looks a little thinner than she was but it suits her, she looks more elegant and not like the California girl I knew. She looks like someone who has spent three years in Paris. With another man.

I take a step away from her. “Listen, I’ll try to tone down being a full-on prick, I just wanted to say it’s good to see you and I’m glad you’re, you know, uh stepping in for Brady.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she says.

Our eyes hold for a few seconds. Then I shake my head, run my hand through my hair and glance away. Jenna is standing by the door looking over at us. I take another step back from Erica, who notices my sudden movement and turns her head to Jenna too. I raise my hand in a wave and she smiles at me.

“I’ll see you in Berlin,” I say.

“Yeah, see you there.”

I walk hurriedly away from her. I don’t know why I feel like I’ve done something wrong. I smile as I reach Jenna.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“It is now you’re here,” I lean down and kiss her. She smiles up at me. “There is a coffee shop just across this courtyard.”

“Sounds good.”

I take her hand and walk to the door. As we cross over to the coffee shop, Jenna looks at me. “That was the girl from the party?”

“Who? Oh yeah, that’s Erica.”

“Does she work for the label?”

I look at her, there is nothing suspicious in her tone, she’s just asking. “She’s the voice coach, she’ll be on the tour with us.” I don’t see the point in explaining our history, it’s over and I don’t want to do anything to worry Jenna.

“You need a voice coach? I thought you knew how to sing,” she elbows me.

I wrap my arm around her waist and smile. “She doesn’t teach us how to sing, dopey. She helps us if we strain our voices, shows us how to hold ourselves to alleviate any stress on the vocal chords, throat exercises to keep things ship shape.”

“Wow, I didn’t even know that was a thing.”

“I doubt I’ll need her. But she’s there if anyone has issues, the other bands or backing singers. Last thing we need is singers with no voices.”

“That would be pretty bad for business,” she agrees.

I open the door to the coffee shop and we go inside. It’s owned by the record label and not open to the public, I know we’re safe in here, so I lean down and kiss her. “I missed you.”

“It’s been three hours, Adam.”

“Your point?”

“Needy much?”

“Only for you,” I kiss her again. With just a few words and hearing her calling me Adam, I’m back where I need to be. I made a dick of myself in there but Erica seems okay about it, even though it was a stupid childish scene, Bianca will sort out the arrangements. As much as I realise my mistake, I’m not backing down on that.

“Well, I actually made good use of my three hours,” she says as we go to a table. “I caught up with some work, finalised our London stop,” she winks at me. “And I went out and got some groceries.”

“I needed groceries?”

“You didn’t have what I need.”

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