Prologue

Liam Stone

I felt a sharp jab to my shoulder, startling me awake as my heavy feet fell to the floor of the tour bus. “Wake up, man. We’re here,” Dax’s gruff voice broke through my sleepy haze.

I sat up in the seat where I’d fallen asleep, rubbing the heels of my palms over my eyes before running my hands roughly over the top of my head. I wasn’t even sure when I’d fallen asleep. I didn’t sleep most nights—not well anyway. Nights on the road between cities resulted in a lack of sleep. That’s a fucking lie. 

It wasn’t easy to sleep on a tour bus—true—but it wouldn’t have mattered if I was in a five-star hotel with the plushest mattress. It wasn’t the nights on the road that kept a good night’s rest from my grasp. I had an endless number of sleepless nights well before we hit the road.

No, it wasn’t the late-night concerts, the afterparties, nor the endless miles of road. It was her. Her absence. The absence of her face, her body, her voice, her smell, her fucking cute grin when she was up to something. I missed it all. Every damn thing about her. The way her cheeks flushed when she was turned on, the way her nostrils flared slightly when I aggravated her, and the way her finger would twist in her hair when she tried to lie—a sign of her immediate guilt. Everything about the lack of her presence in my life left me sleepless and feeling void. It was a hollowness that could only be filled by her. A hollowness that may never be filled by her again.

She’d refused to answer my calls for over a month now. I’d been calling her daily, hoping every time that it would be the time she picked up. I longed to hear her voice, even if it was yelling at me, cussing at me in her own, inoffensive way. The thought of hearing her sweet mouth release a verbal assault on me had a moment of amusement surfacing, causing me to crack a small smile. I loved pushing her buttons, breaking her out of her refined disguise, revealing the feisty, stubborn, headstrong woman I’d fallen for.

I pulled out my phone to connect the call. When the ringing stopped and the prerecorded voice picked up, I ended the call, throwing my phone across the seat in frustration. Fuck! This happened every time I heard that damn robotic voice. Every. Damn. Time. I’d lose a little more hope and the anger would creep in—anger at myself.

She had changed her voicemail to an automated response in the last few months. It was as if she knew my desperate need to hear her voice and wanted to torture and punish me. She denied me any part of her, the way I had denied her having every part of me. I couldn’t blame her, but it didn’t mean it didn’t piss me the hell off.

I never bothered leaving a message on her voicemail. When I talked to her for the first time, when I explained things to her, I wanted her to be present in the conversation. Voicemail and texts were too impersonal. They wouldn’t be enough. If she did answer, I hoped to convince her to meet me face to face, so I could explain things, beg for her forgiveness, see her, touch her, breathe her, kiss her with the hope that she would come back to me.

Rhett had offered to talk to her, but I refused the offer. I wanted it to come from me. It needed to come from me. The fucking truth should have come from me in the beginning. I was a fucking selfish bastard before. I know I still am, in a way. I denied her the choice before. I didn’t trust she would want me if she knew all of me. Or maybe I feared she would. There was still darkness in my past that could potentially harm her. Harm us. Maybe us being over was for the best...but if that’s the case, why do I still feel like I’m lying to myself? Shit. My head fell back against the seat.

As the guys moved around the bus, grabbing their belongings to check in to our hotel for the next few days, I stared out the window at the bustling streets of New York City. My gaze traveled over the hurried pedestrians, searching. Searching like a fucking desperate idiot. As if she would just suddenly appear on the sidewalk below me.

This was the closest I’d been to her since I let her walk out of Frankie’s a few months ago—like a damn stubborn fool. Yet, we still had over eight million people and who knew how many blocks, miles separating us. But we were in the same city. That thought, knowing she was close but still unobtainable, had a contradiction of emotions colliding inside me. Hope and fear. Determination and hesitance. Strength and vulnerability. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, burying my face in my hands.

“Any luck?” Dax asked, stopping beside my seat, his bag hanging over his shoulder.

“No,” I answered in a clipped voice, looking up at him.

He responded with a sympathetic nod, shifting his bag up higher on his shoulder before moving forward toward the exit. “Get your shit. Let’s go.” He didn’t allow me to dwell on it any further.

We both knew he could easily help me get in touch with her through his girlfriend, Lexie. But I didn’t want that. Much like Rhett, I didn’t want Lexie and Dax in the middle of it. This mess was all mine to clean up. I stood, gathering my bag and guitar, stepping off the label’s tour bus and into the extravagant hotel they had reserved for us and the other bands we were traveling with.

We were the final opening act before the headliner, Augustine. We had joined their tour a month earlier, along with two other bands. We had quickly gained a following and were now the final band to take the stage before their show. If our fan base kept growing at the rate it was, the label planned to set up our own tour and release our new album sooner than initially planned. We had recorded our first single of the album, and it would be hitting the airwaves soon. 

The prospect was exciting, but I couldn’t fully enjoy reaping the reward we had worked so hard for. Without Val in my life, nothing really seemed to matter. I wanted her in my arms when the new album released. She was who inspired most of the songs that would be on it. When she left, I buried myself in my music—the way I always did—letting my thoughts of her write the lyrics and compose the melodies.

We planned to debut our new single live tomorrow night, and I had hoped by this point, I would have been able to convince her to come to the show. With the show less than twenty-four hours away, my optimism was dwindling. Even worse, I had less than forty-eight hours before thousands of miles and more than the current eight million people separated us. Again. Fuck. I couldn’t let that happen.  

* * *

After practicing at the venue for tomorrow night’s first show in the Big Apple, we headed back to the hotel to hang out in Dax’s room. Blaine and Trent were throwing back shots, playing video games, acting like a bunch of adolescents, while Dax locked himself behind a closed door to talk to Lexie. I sat on the couch, stewing in my own misery after calling to check in on Frankie and trying Valerie again. Only one of the two calls was answered. Bet you can guess which one.

“Cheer the fuck up, man! We’re livin’ the dream right now.” Trent lightly punched me in the shoulder, knocking me out of my self-loathing thoughts. “You and Dax are acting like a bunch of bitches these days.”

“Fuck you, man.” I narrowed my eyes at Trent.

He laughed off my empty threat. “I’m serious. Let’s hit one of those fancy night clubs and find us some hot-as-fuck girls to bring back.”

“No.”

He continued to ignore me, seeming not to notice that the more he talked, the more pissed off I got. “That’s what you need to get over her. You need to get laid. Or at least a blow job. Like the good ole’ days. Pre-Valerie.” He laughed at his own unwelcome assessment, oblivious to the ass beating he was guaranteeing would happen. Blaine had enough sense to keep his mouth shut.

I slammed the beer bottle I had been nursing for the last hour onto the table in front of me, rising to my feet. I’d had enough of Trent running his mouth over the last few weeks. “I’m warning you, Trent. You mention her one more fucking time, it will be the last time you’ll be able to physically open that fucking mouth of yours.” I followed my threat with clenched fists, pinning him with my narrowed eyes.

“Shit, man. Chill the fuck out. I was just trying to cheer you up.”

I turned my back to him, walking toward the door. “Yeah, well don’t. Mind your own fucking business.”

As I swung open the door of the hotel suite, Dax stepped out of the bedroom where he’d been hiding. “Where are you going?”

“Out,” I growled and slammed the door behind me. Screw them all. I needed some space. We had been together way too much lately. The three of them were like brothers to me, and just like brothers, they could annoy the fuck out of me more than anyone.

I didn’t get any farther than the hotel restaurant bar. It was far enough and good enough for what I wanted: to drink in silence, alone. I ordered a beer from the bartender and focused my eyes in front of me on the basketball game playing quietly on the TV surrounded by shelves full of various liquor bottles.

A cute blonde took the seat next to me, ‘accidentally’ brushing up against me and immediately giving me her flirty smile and fuck-me eyes as an invitation. I ignored her. Less than a year ago, I would’ve had her back in my room, naked and screaming my name within fifteen minutes of exchanging superficial introductions. But that was “pre-Valerie,” as Trent had put it. I wouldn’t agree that they were the “good” days, though. The good days were when Valerie was mine.

I leaned into the bar, shifting slightly, using my shoulder and arm to block her inquisitive stare and blatant perusal, hoping she’d get the hint. She didn’t.

“Hi. I’m Corrine,” she offered in her most seductive tone as her eyes continued to travel down my body.

“Not interested.”

“I didn’t offer you anything other than my name.”

“Maybe not verbally, but the way you’re desperately flaunting yourself and fucking me with your eyes is offer enough.” I turned my head toward her, giving her a pointed stare. I let my eyes travel the length of her, assessing her scantily clad body before returning them to meet hers. “Not. Interested,” I said, delivering the words slow and hard.

“You’re an asshole,” she scoffed, before gathering her drink and removing herself from the stool. I smirked, watching her walk away. At least she finally got the hint.

I turned back to face the bar, taking another drink of my beer. The bartender who had been nosily observing the whole exchange gave a shake of his head as he quietly chuckled. He was smart enough to keep any comments he had to himself.

I trained my eyes back on the game, hoping for no more intrusions. As soon as I had refocused, the ringing laughter of a table of people dining in the restaurant across the room grabbed my attention. The lyrical laughter had my body rigid and alert. I knew that laugh. I knew it well. And had I been a few more drinks in, I would have thought I was imagining it.

I turned my head in search of the origin of the laugh. My eyes immediately focused on her—and the man who was not only making her laugh, but also had his arm draped behind her over the back of the booth they shared as he leaned in intimately to speak with her. Shit.

My body tensed with simultaneous panic, jealousy, and rage. Valerie was more gorgeous than I remembered. Her long, soft curls flowed over her shoulders as she tucked a few strands behind her ear. She smiled and blushed as she giggled at whatever the asshole was saying to her.

Watching their flirtatious interaction made every ounce of hope I’d held on to start to dissolve into the darkness that always seemed to inundate me. It made me want to pound the shit out of him, throw her over my shoulder caveman style and march her right out of this restaurant, straight back to my room.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet. They were carrying me to her without a thought or a plan. I had no fucking idea what I would say or how she would react to my presence or to my interrupting her date. But I didn’t fucking care. All I knew was, this might be my only chance, and I wasn’t wasting it.

The moment I approached her table, her eyes landed on me, slowly widening with recognition. Seeing the emotion in them, I knew. She did her best to recover. She changed her facial expression, using her skills as an actress to try and deceive me, but it was a useless effort on her part. I had momentarily caught her off guard. She had already revealed what I was hoping. She was still my girl. And I would do everything in my power to get her to admit it.