Page 38 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

“No,” I say, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “You’re just nosy.”

“Also true.”

Nina stands too. “I’ll walk with you.”

We say goodbye to Grace, who calls, “Try not to fall into any musicians today!” after us, because public humiliation must be a community service, and step out into the cool afternoon.

Main Street is doing its usual weekday thing: not busy, exactly, but alive. Bill Smith is outside the mercantile arguing with a delivery driver over pumpkins. A couple of high school kids are pretending they aren’t smoking behind the alley beside Falls Pizza. Somebody’s dog is barking at a bicycle for reasons known to no one.

Nina hooks her arm through mine as we walk.

“You know,” she says casually, “if you ever did decide to date a rockstar, this town would never recover.”

“I’m so glad you’ve found a hobby.”

“I’m serious.”

“I’m not dating anyone.”

“You went to dinner.”

“I was ambushed into dinner.”

“Still counts.”

I sigh. “Nina.”

She grins. “Okay, okay. But admit it. You don’t hate them as much as you want to.”

I stop at the curb outside the diner and give her my flattest look. “I don’t even know them.”

“You know enough.”

I think about Julian’s easy smile, Gabe’s intense stare, Xander’s impossible attention.

I shake my head hard enough to physically dislodge the thought.

“Go back to your books,” I tell her.

She hugs me anyway. “Text me later.”

“Fine.”

She smiles in that infuriating little sister way that means she thinks the universe is on her side.

Inside the diner, everything is already in full swing.

The lunch rush is tapering off, but only in the sense that people have stopped actively arriving and started hanging around. Coffee refills, pie, checks, extra ranch, somebody wanting their burger medium even though Marius has said for twenty years that all burgers come one way and one way only.

Lara spots me the second I come through the door and points at the counter like a general assigning someone to the front line. “There she is.”

“You say that like I’m armed.”

“You are. With competence.” She shoves the delivery clipboard into my hands. “First order’s almost ready.”

I knot an apron around my waist and glance toward the pass.

Then I stop.