Ivy and Natalie had always joked about me getting a rock star boyfriend of my own.
Did I finally have one?
I didn't dare bring up the topic. Not yet. Noah was still so prickly, so touchy. If I went too far, too fast, he'd push me away. Going slow — at least emotionally — was the key to a successful relationship with Noah.
Still, my heart beat a small thrill at the thought of Noah being my boyfriend. Of Noah being more than my boyfriend. Although he was still a bit of an ass, I'd gotten to know the man he was inside underneath all that snark.
His Royal Highness liked to keep people at a distance. Somehow I'd managed to find myself on the other side of his castle walls. Now I needed to figure out how to make my way across the moat.
Or figure out a way to get him to lower the drawbridge.
Noah had to be at the concert venue early again, so I decided to team up with Natalie and Ivy and attend the concert as a trio. I'd been so busy working, I'd had to cancel our last few lunch dates. I knew they were dying for more information about Noah, especially Nat, being the ultimate fangirl she was.
When it was just sex with Noah, I hadn't known what to tell them, so saying nothing was easier. Now that there was the possibility of something more, maybe it was okay to talk about it.
At the very least, saying that Noah and I were kind-of sort-of dating was less embarrassing than admitting I was letting a rock star use me as his sexual muse.
"I can't believe I get to watch Darkest Days perform from the front row!" Natalie brought her clenched fists to her flushed cheeks.
Despite the rock star boyfriend, Nat had never gotten over her excitement at seeing her favorite bands perform.
"Who's playing first?" she asked, shouting so we could hear her over the noisy crowd of people surrounding us.
"Does it matter?" Ivy shouted back.
"I need to save my energy for Morris," she said, referring to her boyfriend Morris Edwards, Feral Silence's drummer. "but I'm afraid if Darkest Days goes on first, I'll end up fainting from sheer awesomeness."
"You might end up fainting from the heat." Ivy scanned the concert venue. "Ren said it's going to be a full house. It's already cramped and it's probably going to get very hot. Why couldn't we watch from backstage?"
"Because!" Natalie and I both insisted.
"Being in the audience is a million times better," Nat explained.
"The viewing angles are all wrong backstage," I said. "You don't get the full concert experience."
"It's not as much fun if you can't cheer and scream and dance and rush the stage."
"There's nothing better than being in the middle of a rock concert surrounded by the energy of thousands of fans."
"If it's that important…" Ivy looked befuddled.
Ivy wasn't a rock music fan like Nat and me. Her preferred instrument was the cello. She was only here because her childhood sweetheart and current boyfriend Ren Sada was the bass guitarist for Feral Silence. Her first rock concert had been where she'd met Ren again after five long years.
"And what about you?" Nat grinned at me. "Are you going to be saving your energy for Noah?"
I stammered, not knowing what to say.
"You're blushing!" Nat pointed an accusing finger at me. "Is there something to blush about? Have you been holding back on us? Is there something going on between you and him? How dare you not tell your best friends every detail of your life!"
"Nat, calm down," I hissed, batting her finger out of my face. I looked around surreptitiously. We were surrounded by throngs of fans. "Noah and I—"
Nat and Ivy leaned in close, eyes wide.
"I think we're sort of, maybe, in a kind of relationship," I hedged.
Nat gaped at me, astonished.
"What's amaybe, kind of, sort ofrelationship?" Ivy asked.
