“I slept with Evan.” My cheeks burn harder as the words spill out of my mouth. “It happened in Hawaii. I didn’t plan on doing it. I mean, yes, I had a crush on him back in high school, but—”
“You did what?” Courtney’s eyes go wider than I’ve ever seen them go before. “When?!”
I swallow hard. “The night of your wedding.”
Courtney covers her mouth with her hand. She mumbles something, but the words are too muffled for me to understand.
“Look, Court, I know I messed up. I know your brother is the last person I should have hooked up with. If I could go back in time and undo it, believe me, I would.”
She shakes her head in disbelief. I brace myself for the berating I know I’m about to get from her. All those warnings she gave me over the years, and I let my stupid horny desire override my common sense…
But all Courtney does is keep staring wide-eyed at me.
Finally, she drops her mouth from her hand. “Okay. Uh…to be clear, I do not want to know how the sex was with my brother.” She shudders. “But do you want to do it again?”
I gape at her. “Do I want to do it again? Aren’t you pissed that I did it the first time?”
“Pissed?” She shakes her head. “No. Why would I be pissed?”
“I mean…” I blink, trying to absorb the fact that she isn’t freaking out. “He’s your brother. There’s an unspoken rule that he’s off-limits. Besides, you’ve always said stuff about how he’s such a player.”
She laughs a little. “He’s not actually one, though, Rose. I just like to give him shit because he’s a musician and girls are always flinging themselves at him. That’s all. If I’d known you were taking that seriously…” She shakes her head. “God. This is crazy. You’ve seriously had a crush on him since high school?”
I nod.
“Argh! That makes so much sense now why you always wanted to have sleepovers at my house instead of yours.” She breaks out in a grin. “You little sneak. You probably hoped to bump into him in the middle of the night on the way to the bathroom or something, didn’t you?”
“Wait, Court…tell me the truth. Is Evan truly a good guy?”
“He is. He’s a great guy.”
“What about all his groupies, though? What about all the ‘little Evans running around’?”
“I was just kidding about that, Rose.”
“No, I know you were kidding around, but…isn’t there also a grain of truth in every joke?”
She shrugs. “In this case, there’s not. Seriously, Rose. He’s not like that at all. If I ever made him out to be a sex-crazed rock star, I sincerely apologize for giving you that impression.”
“Oh,” I say, letting it all sink in.
“The truth is, I really look up to my brother. He’s talented, kind, funny, sweet…” She makes a face as she picks up her martini glass again. “Don’t tell Evan I said that, though. The dude will never let me hear the end of it.”
Later, after I part ways with Courtney, I pull out my phone and scroll through the texts Evan has sent me over the past two weeks. Regret fills my chest as I think about all the time Evan and I could have been spending together if I’d just talked to Courtney sooner. Or if I’d trusted Evan more.
But there’s no point in wallowing in regret.
I scroll back down to the most recent text he sent me—the one from today that I ignored.
Hey – I’ve got a gig downtown tomorrow night and I’d love for you to come. If I don’t see you or hear from you, this will be the last time I contact you. Promise.
My fingers type out a message to him without having to give it a second thought.
Chapter Eight
Rose
The following night, when I arrive at the club that Evan’s band is playing at, I’m shocked to see a line winding completely around the block. I knew his band was getting popular, but this is beyond anything I’d imagined.
Instead of getting in line, I head to the backstage door, as Evan told me to do. There’s a huge tattooed doorman standing guard there, keeping a group of girls from crowding the door. The girls grumble as he waves them off.
After a quick check of the list, the doorman hands me a paper pass to hang around my neck and opens the door for me.
“Third door on the right,” he says in a gravelly voice.
Down the hallway, I find the door ajar and peek my head in. Evan is sitting in a dressing room by himself, fiddling with an acoustic guitar. He’s playing a song I don’t recognize, totally absorbed in what he’s doing.
Damn, he’s sexy when he’s singing.
Especially when there’s no one he’s performing for.
I lightly clear my throat to get Evan’s attention. He glances up and a smile breaks over his face when he sees me.
“You made it.” He pushes the guitar to the side and crosses the dressing room in a few quick strides. When he reaches me, he looks like he wants to wrap his arms around me and give me a hug, but he restrains himself.
“I did,” I say. “Hey, I need to apologize again for not responding to your texts. That wasn’t cool of me.”
“It’s okay, Rose.”
“It’s really not.” I chew on my lip as I look up at him. His eyes are kind as they stay focused on me. “This is embarrassing to admit, but I was convinced you were a different type of guy.”
“And what type did you think I was?”
“A girl-crazy type.”
“I see.”
“It was because of the whole musician thing, as well as some stuff Courtney has said over the years. And, I mean, you did take two girls to your senior prom…”
He laughs. “I knew that was going to follow me around for years. It was their idea, not mine. I guess they got in some big argument about both wanting to go with me, and that was their solution, to share me. I dunno. I just went along with it.”
“So you didn’t hook up with both of them?” I say, then immediately grimace. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”
“I didn’t hook up with them. Even my dumb eighteen-year-old self knew that would have been sleazy as hell.” He cocks his head slightly to the side. “So what kinds of things has Courtney said about me, exactly?”
“Oh, just…about you having tons of girls flinging themselves at you, that kind of stuff.”
“Ah.”
“But I talked to her yesterday, and I know the truth now. I know you aren’t the kind of guy to take advantage of it.”
He nods. “Did you tell her about us?”
Us. God, I love the sound of that word coming from his lips.
“I did,” I say.
“How’d she take it?”
“She was shocked. But not mad.”
“Okay. Good. Guess that means I need to have a conversation with her, too.” He laughs softly, then focuses those gorgeous eyes of his on me again. “So does all of this mean that we can be together now, Rose?”
My heart stutters. “It does.”