Page 34 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

I take a sip of coffee. “There it is.”

“There what is?”

“The part where you stop pretending this is a moral discussion and admit you just think he’s hot.”

Grace gives me a beatific smile. “I contain multitudes.”

Nina nearly chokes laughing, and I can’t help but join in.

It’s been about a week since the diner incident. A week since Xander Harlow stared at me like I’d become the most interesting thing in his day, then proved beyond question that he’s the kind of man who assumes the world will move if he leans on it hard enough.

A week since I started noticing Julian around town with that easy grin and zero respect for personal space. A week since Gabe, somehow the most polished of the three, managed to say the least and still unsettle me the most.

A week, and I still haven’t decided what to do with any of it.

Or with the tip.

Or with the stupid amount of time my brain has spent replaying details I absolutely didn’t ask it to keep.

“Okay,” Nina says, reaching for her phone. “Set the tip aside for a second. We need to address the much more important question.”

“I don’t like your tone.”

She ignores me. “He’s famous, right?”

I shrug one shoulder and tear a corner off the coffee sleeve around my cup. “It seems like it. Crazy, right?”

Grace makes a soft sound into her coffee like she’s trying not to laugh.

“Besides,” I continue, “the version people talked about and the man sitting across from me at dinner didn’t feel like the same person.”

Nina points at me with her phone. “And no one told you he was a member of The Lonely Ones?”

“No one said that.”

She shoots me a look, then brightens when the search results load. “Aha.”

I groan. “No.”

“Oh, yes.” She angles the screen toward herself, eyes scanning fast. “Okay, so. Xander Harlow. Thirty-six. Cofounder and CEO of Redemption Records. Former frontman of The Lonely Ones.”

Grace lifts her brows. “Well, there we are.”

I stare at her. “You know them, too?”

Grace looks offended by the question. “Willow Jameson, I’m fifty-eight, not dead.”

Nina snorts into her latte. I press my lips together, because correcting Grace’s age has only ever gone badly.

“Right,” I say carefully. “Of course.”

Grace smooths one hand over the front of her sweater and settles in with the serene confidence of a woman about to enjoy herself. “The Lonely Ones were everywhere for a while. Covers, awards, late-night television, the whole tortured rockstar machine. I had at least three customers back then who stopped pretending to browse and just stood near the register so they could stare at magazine photos of them.”

“That’s horrifying,” I say.

“That’s merchandising,” Grace replies.

Nina keeps scrolling. “Julian Rochester was lead guitar. Gabe Stockton was drums and production. And they all helped write.”