Page 60 of My Three Billionaire Rockstars

Willow pauses on the threshold, glancing back at us one last time. Then, she sighs, and I just know tonight is going to be fun.

ELEVEN

Willow

Iregret agreeing to this almost immediately.

Actually, no. That’s too generous.

I regret agreeing to this the second we step through the doors of Bennett’s and the entire room changes shape around us.

One minute, it’s exactly what Friday Night Live always is. Warm, noisy, familiar. Glasses clinking. Somebody laughing too loudly in the corner near the dartboards. The buzz of a local guy murdering a Springsteen cover on the small stage while half the room politely pretends not to notice he’s in a different key than the guitarist backing him up. The smell of beer and fried food and old wood, wrapped up in a hundred Friday nights just like it.

The next minute, it feels like someone has dragged a spotlight over my head and pinned me to the floor with it.

Because I’ve just walked into Bennett’s Tavern with three men who are impossible to ignore. And unfortunately for me, the town doesn’t ignore them.

Or me.

The warm noise in the room doesn’t stop, exactly, but it shifts. Dips. Ripples. Heads turn, one after another, in that horrible wave that starts on one side of the bar and spreads before you even have time to pretend you haven’t noticed.

My face goes hot so fast I’m surprised I don’t combust.

You know that nightmare where you show up to school naked, except somehow, it’s worse because everyone is fully clothed and you’re just visibly making terrible life choices?

This is that.

I stop short just inside the doorway, my pulse way too loud in my own ears, and for one deranged second I think about turning around and leaving them all here. Just walking right back out, getting Daisy, and moving into the woods where no one can perceive me ever again.

Beside me, Julian leans in, clearly delighted by the whole thing.

“Okay,” he murmurs, “you may have understated the atmosphere.”

I shoot him a glare over my shoulder. “Don’t talk to me.”

“That feels hostile.”

“This is your fault.”

“Technically,” he says, glancing around with way too much ease for a man who has just triggered a town-wide reaction by existing, “I think this is everyone else’s fault.”

Damn him for being so charming.

Xander steps in behind me, close enough that I feel the heat of him at my back before he shifts to my side, and I’m very aware of how boxed in I am by six-feet-plus of expensive, unfairly attractive former rockstar on every side.

Perfect.

Absolutely ideal.

Gabe, of course, is the only one who seems to register that I’m about half a second from either bolting or committing a felony. His gaze flicks over the room once, quick and assessing, then lands on me.

“You okay?” he asks.

No. Not remotely.

I smile through clenched teeth. “Having the time of my life, actually.”

His mouth twitches.