His brow furrows, and his mouth gapes. “But that’s not—I thought you couldn’t deal with dating a rock star. Which I get, and I don’t want to make you feel like—”
“Kevin,” I say, putting my other hand on top of our joined ones. “Yeah, maybe I couldn’t handle dating a ‘rock star.’ But I want to date the guy who’s my best friend and who I’m in love with, and whohappensto be a rock star. And a damn good one, too.”
He smiles but shakes his head like he’s still going to protest.
“I want to be with you,” I continue, before he can jump in, “and I’ve thought about it a lot since last night—in addition to thinking about a lot ofotherthings—” Here he gets a knowing look, which tells me he’s been thinking about that, too “—and this makes the most sense. You have a career that’s still on the rise and that you love, and I’m still working slowly towards mine, but the location of that doesn’t matter so much.”
“But what about your degree?” he asks. “You’re so close.”
I let out a breath. “Two more classes.The two I’m in right now. So, yeah, I’d want to say here and finish out the semester. Which puts us doing the long-distance thing for a few months, which isn’t my favorite idea. But a few months seems so much more doable than, like, this indeterminate time period that could be years.” I tug my lip between my teeth. “And I think we’ve proven we can do lots of things long-distance.”
He runs his thumb over my knuckles, which sends goosebumps all along my skin. “True. But I’m definitely looking forward to doing lots of things up close and personal, too.”
There’s an ache deep in me that absolutely agrees and longs to finish this conversation and go back to his hotel and rip all his clothes off already. I smile back at him. “What do you think, though? Would you want me to be out there with you?” I can’t believe I’m still nervous asking this, after what he was willing to give up for me, but I am. Maybe because the whole thing still feels surreal—him and me, here together.Talking about our future, together.
“Of course,” he says. “God, Maya, I would love that. But what about your family and your friends?”
I pause. I want to just dismiss that concern, give some off-handed comment about how I see too much of them, anyway. But Kevin knows me too well for that.
“It won’t be the easiest, being so far away from them,” I admit. “But it’s not like I can’t keep in touch with them, or come back and visit. And I’ll have a few months to get them all used to the idea.” I cringe. “It might take my mom some time.”
He studies me, still running his thumb over my hand, back and forth, and it’s somehow both soothing and turning me on. Both of which he seems to be pretty good at.
“If we did do that,” he says cautiously, “I could get an apartment here while you finish school, and I could be here most of the time. I would need to fly back to LA a decent amount, but we’re not on tour in the next few months. So we wouldn’t even really have to do too much long-distance.”
“Yeah?” I can’t hide how excited that idea makes me. I was willing to do long-distance for a little bit, but the thought of him being here for so much of that time . . .
“Yeah,” he says. “Definitely. I don’t want to be away from you, well,at all. But at least not any more than I absolutely need to.”
“That’s how I feel, too.” We smile at each other—both of us, I think, just basking in this moment, in being able to finally say these things to each other.That doesn’t mean I still don’t have a twinge of that nervousness. “I am a little worried, though, about being the lame girlfriend who needs to sleep a lot. Like, I probably won’t be going to all the parties and events, and I don’t want you to feel like you can’t.”
“I don’t know, I think I’d enjoy the excuse to miss those things,” he says with a small laugh. “But yeah, if I’m still in the band, I’d have to do some of that stuff. You definitely don’t, though. You wouldn’t need to do the parties, the concerts, any of it you weren’t up to. You could stay in bed whenever. And I’ll be trying to join you there as much as possible.” Another twist of those lips, and god, the need to kiss them is near overwhelming.
But I’m pretty sure once I start that, I’m not going to be able to stop.
“I want to come see you play,” I say. “So I’ll want to go to the concerts.” I pause, thinking of what he told me about their crazy tour schedule. “Sometimes, at least. Maybe not every day fortwo months.”
He laughs. “It’s cool. I always knew you weren’t a groupie.”
“Speaking of which,” I say teasingly, though my gut twists the tiniest bit just thinking about this, “you’re going to have to give up sleeping with all those groupies, you know.”
A throat clears, and we both look up to see our waiter, holding two plates of food, and looking, once again, more than a little uncomfortable.
Seriously? Does this guy have the worst timing, or is it me?
He sets the osso buco in front of me, and Kevin gets his lasagna, and the waiter gives us a small smile and scurries off.
“Oh my god, the things he’s telling the rest of the waitstaff,” I say with a laugh. I notice then, that while Kevin’s got a smile on his face, he also looks kind of serious, too. He pokes at the lasagna with his fork.
“I haven’t been, you know,” he says. “Sleeping with groupies. Or anyone.”
My heart feels like it’s in my throat. “Really? Like, at all?”
He shrugs with one shoulder. “I did the first week after we met. I slept with a couple girls, because I thought I could prove to myself that I was okay with us just being friends. But it proved the opposite.” His smile goes so sad that my chest aches. “I knew how much I would always want more.”
I blink, stunned again.This whole time I’d thought there were girls—that therehadto have been girls. He’s a rock star, for crying out loud. I’veseenthe way he and his friends get mobbed. I was the one who insisted we just be friends, so I knew I couldn’t let myself be jealous of that. So I’d just done my best to not think about it, and definitely never ask about it. I’d thought that was just our style, you know?That we didn’t talk about stuff like that and . . . oh shit.
I close my eyes briefly. “So when I told you aboutTed . . .”
