But he is here.
There’s a part of me that doesn’t mind. When Waverly found out that my latest apartment wasn’t working out well, she insisted on helping me find a place she knew I’d be comfortable, and the next thing I knew,Cash fucking Riverswas texting me about renting his pool house.
There was definitely some freaking out going on. I’d once joked to her that I should date Davis Remington to increase my visibility in the world by bringing him out of hiding and making a big splash, but I never imagined she’d hook me up with another former Bro Code member to live with.
It was definitely anI’m out of my leaguemoment.
But our conversations quickly turned easy and friendly, like we’d known each other forever.
On one level, he’s my friend.
And then we met in person, months after I moved into his pool house, and everything changed.
At least for me.
I started having dreams about him.Weirddreams, but good dreams. Dreams where he was kissing me. Talking dirty to me. Telling me I was his designated sex partner for alien explorations. Sometimes he’d strip me out of my trench coat in the middle of a mall that was actually a nursing home, and then we’d have sex in the food court while the elderly petstore employees rated our performance, which squicked me out becauseew, but also, in my dreams, Cash Rivers is exceptionally good at giving me orgasms.
And then I wrote “Forget Christmas.”
My anthem about hating everything about the holidays…untilhearrives.
Abouthimshowing me the magic of the season.
I’ve told absolutely no one that Cash was my muse. Not only am I a hot mess of a rising pop star who breaks things in every house, condo, apartment, or spare room that I move into, but I’m also too busy for relationships.
Besides, he sees me as a little girl who needs guidance, and he’s promised his friends he’d watch over me.
If life has taught me anything, it’s that you put your energy toward the practical and possible.
It’s still astonishing to me that having a career as a singer-songwriterispossible, but it is.
The other thing life has taught me is to accept kindnesses when they come your way.
Waverly is that kindness.
And if all of this—the songs, the albums, theviral sensation, the tours and performances—if it all goes away,I will be okay.
But if I let myself love someone and they don’t love me back, I won’t.
I left that behind the minute I turned eighteen and moved out of my parents’ house.
No one willeverbreak me like that again.
No matter how handsome and charming and sexy he is.
And that’s probably why I’ve broken up with every man I’ve ever dated. I don’t have it in me to be the level of vulnerable you have to be in order to have a relationship.
I straighten my spine and look him dead in the eye. “We should probably get that food out of your car before it gets harder to get to your car.”
The number of times he’s winced or cringed in the four minutes that we’ve been talking is a bad sign.
“What?” I say.
“You…aren’t a fan of the holidays.”
“So?”
“In my defense, I was working with what I had and historical knowledge of other women in my life, and I didn’t know you didn’t like the holidays. Also, you were at a holiday party, and you looked like you were having fun.”
