It was pretty much all I’d been imagining for weeks now.
And I could do the math.
It had been four and a half months since the end of their relationship. Before that, Jesse said there had been several months of a “prolonged breakup.” My breakup with Josh had taken two years of my life, and I couldn’t even imagine how I would feel if during that time his new girl had shown up at my door to eat my corn bread and wave a white flag.
I had a lot of respect for Jesse’s ex-girlfriend just now.
“Thank you for the corn bread.”
“You’re welcome,” she said. “Don’t ask for the recipe.”
Then she smiled at me, slightly, for the first time, and I got a glimpse of the girl behind the rock star. The girl Jesse Mayes loved like family.
And it killed me a little.
Because if this girl was family, and so many others were all but forgotten... where did that leave me?
CHAPTER 37
JESSE
Katie was sitting on the front steps when I pulled into my driveway. When I saw her there, the tightness in my chest released. As I parked the Ferrari, I felt like I could draw my first full breath in days.
“Jesus Christ, Katie,” I said, getting out of the car. “Did you know we were looking for you?”
I’d spent the last three hours driving between Nudge and Devi’s office and Katie’s apartment and any other fucking place they told me I might find her, around and fucking around—never mind that I was supposed to be at sound check like an hour ago—because she’d pulled a Houdini on Flynn at the airport when they landed and I was going out of my mind. If she was avoiding me this fucking hard, it didn’t exactly bode well for me ever getting to talk to her again.
Thank fuck Jude had finally found her, at her parents’ place.
“I’m sorry,” she said, getting to her feet. She looked from me to Jude, who’d just stepped out of the house behind her. Her eyes went wide and I realized we were probably scaring her, more than she’d scared us.
I flicked my chin at Jude. “Why don’t you head to the venue, man. Give Brody a hand and tell him I’ll be there. Raf can cover for me ’til then.”
“Sure, brother. See you, sweetheart.”
“Bye.”
I waited for the Bentley to pull out of the drive as I collected myself, blew out a breath between my teeth, and turned to Katie. Man, she was a fucking sight for sore eyes in her ripped jeans and little white top, her dark hair blowing loose around her shoulders.
“Hey,” she said softly. “Did I just get Flynn in trouble?”
“Don’t worry about Flynn. He can take care of himself.”
Her eyebrows pinched together. “And I can’t?”
“That’s not what I meant. Shit.” I raked my hand through my hair. It had been a long fucking day, a long fucking week, without her.
I walked up the steps, but she didn’t meet me or rush into my arms. She just stood there, leaving a space between us. It was only a foot, but it felt like the whole fucking world.
“I got all your messages,” she said. “I could’ve come back sooner, but Brody said it was okay to stay in L.A. a couple of days, and I felt like I really needed some time to think about everything. You know, on my own.”
“Yeah,” I said. Turns out I did, too. Even though I wanted her back by my side and in my bed, the time apart had given me crystal fucking clarity. It had also scared the shit out of me. What if she decided she really didn’t want this? Didn’t want me?
“It was my first chance to be truly alone in six weeks and—”
“Me too,” I said. “Kind of hated it.”
She hugged herself against the breeze coming off the water behind the house, and the corner of her pink mouth twitched in the hint of a smile. I’d missed that look. I’d missed her sweet face. I’d missed every fucking thing about her. Even the way she was always “tidying up” my things so neither of us could find them, and the way she ate food off my plate without asking if I was going to finish it, and the way she always seemed to be losing a shoe. Even the way she sangBohemian Rhapsodyin the shower really, really badly.
