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Kat turned the book over in her hands. It was an ordinary copy, the spine bent and the corners of the cover soft with repeated handling, but an ordinary copy nonetheless. She flipped it open and the book easily fell open to a scene towards the end of the book. The page was covered in handwritten notes, passages underlined, circled, highlighted in a rainbow of colors, the margins so packed with Beckett’s musings that, in places, the words overlapped, making them difficult to read.

“I always notice you, love, especially when you’re wearing jewelry I gave you,” he’d written next to the passage where the heroine removes her earrings, a gift from the hero.

In another color pen, on the opposite page, “I miss you, Luna. So much sometimes it’s hard to breathe.”

Every page of the book, covered in messages to her—responding to the jokes woven throughout the text, the memories she’d used as the basis for the story, filling in details she’d omitted or changed. Sometimes the notes drifted off into musings, what she might think about something that had happened that day or how she might have reacted to something. Towards the end of the book, when the hero plants the rose garden, the name of the flower was circled, a date penned in the margins, mere months after the book had been published, and she realized, with a start, it was the date he’d inked those flowers onto his skin.

“Woah,” Jo breathed, glancing over Kat’s shoulder at the marginalia. Her friend grinned, bumping her shoulder against hers. “I told you that man was in love with you.”

Kat blinked back tears, turning towards Jo. “I have to see him.”

Jo’s smile widened, and she handed Kat a second envelope, the kind that was hand delivered by a courier service. “Then you might want to open this one.”

She ripped open the envelope and a pair of tickets fell out, along with two shiny VIP passes and a folded piece of hotel stationery from the swanky hotel on the outskirts of Boston, only a half hour drive from Jo and Derek’s brownstone.

Kat,

There’s something you need to see.

Derek

“But I thought I wasn’t allowed near the tour,” Kat said, staring in disbelief at the tickets in her hands.

Jo plucked one of the VIP passes from her friend and slipped the lanyard over her neck. “Sometimes my husband just needs help to remember that bending the rules a little can be a good thing.”

“You knew he was sending these?”

Her friend shrugged. “I had a hunch. Now come on,” she said, getting to her feet and tugging Kat with her. “We have just enough time to do your makeup and still get to the concert on time.”

Beckett paced the length of the green room. “What if she doesn’t come?”

“She’ll come,” Logan said.

“Of course, she’ll come!” Nico said, looking up from his downward dog pose in the center of the room.

“You need to get your mind off of it. It’s out of your hands at this point.” Zach plucked a cookie from the catering table, holding it up as if he were inspecting it. “Did you know the chocolate chip cookie was invented in Boston?”

“Don’t care,” Beckett grunted.

“Is that true?” Nico asked.

“At the Toll House Inn,” Zach confirmed before taking a bite of the cookie.

“How’s Jackson,” Logan asked. “Anyone talk to him today?”

Beckett shook his head. “I spoke to him yesterday when he got to the rehab in Arizona. There’s a five-day blackout period—no outside phone calls while he adjusts.”

“How did he seem?” Nico asked.

Beckett stopped pacing. As hard as it was to think of his brother across the country, facing one of the hardest fights of his life, without him, he was so damn proud of him he could hardly contain it. “Good. Optimistic. Like the old Jackson.”

“That’s really great, man.” Zach patted Beckett on the back on his way past to join Logan on the couch.

The door to the green room opened and Derek strode inside, smiling as his fingers flew over the screen of his phone. “Everyone ready for the last show of this tour?” he asked without looking up from his phone.

“Have you heard from Kat?” Beckett asked.

“No, but I heard from Jo.” Derek waved his phone before tucking it into his pocket. “They’ll be here.”