Chapter 3
3
REMI
When my phone dings, I sigh, flopping back on the bed.
I’ve been editing video all morning, avoiding Heath’s messages. Shockingly, I’m not eager to explain to my mentor that I somehow screwed up the chance of a lifetime he handed me. Plus, part of me is still holding out for the band’s manager to call, telling me it was all a misunderstanding.
Of course I have the job. I’m perfect for it.
I know I am—even if Adams North doesn’t agree.
In case it is Christian trying to get ahold of me, I sit up and reach for my phone on the mattress beside me. Only instead of finding a threat or salvation via text, my entire body takes an electric shot to the nervous system. The last notification I ever expected to see again floats in front of me, my thumb hovering over top of the purple W .
I hadn’t planned on using Wanderer when I downloaded the virtual tourism app last night. I don’t even know why I bothered, other than a need for something familiar after that travesty of a meeting. Even if the familiar was from another life.
It was like déjà vu when I typed in my old login info and it still worked, a little nudge from the universe. Now it’s practically holding my head under water, the past recreated while I stare at my screen, rereading.
WestF has signed on and is available.
It borders on overwhelming, the spike of adrenaline I get at seeing his name again. Then the ache of regret follows right behind. All the what-could-have-beens bombarding me at once.
The should- have-beens.
I close my laptop and open Wanderer . Muscle memory kicks in after five years, and I tap on his username to see where he is. Where in the world his life has taken him. Only then, everything turns to a light hum around me as my body fully disconnects from the rest of the world.
Foster’s in Prague.
Again or maybe still or I don’t know that it matters. He’s here. In the same city where I left him. And now, so am I.
I swallow, my mouth dry enough I could choke.
We’re in the same place.
All the conversations come flooding back—all the promises—and my legs are unfolding from under me, my body making the decision before my brain. I shouldn’t be surprised, though. When it came to Foster, it was never my head leading the charge.
I grab my bag on the way out of the hotel room, and once on the elevator, I check where in Prague he is right now. The app only gives me a general location, but it’s enough. There are a few places nearby, and I pick the one closest to him. I input my payment information so the app can charge me, and then I return to his profile, clicking the Wander button.
The W flashes on the screen, fading in and out with my pulse thrumming harder as I cross the hotel’s lobby. He’ll be getting the notification now, seeing my username and deciding whether to accept the tour.
I stop on the large concrete staircase outside, holding my breath until the purple dialogue box pops up.
You’re now wandering with WestF.
The screen fills with a busy sidewalk, and I swear my heart falls out of rhythm as I watch the world through Foster’s eyes. He’s maneuvering around people, heading toward the Charles Bridge—then to the museum where I sent him.
I rush down the steps. He’s not far, so I bypass the hotel employees and the waiting taxis at the curb. My eyes constantly flick to my phone, watching Foster cross the historic bridge. He flashes me the view, showing me what he’s already shown me.
Every step he takes after the bridge, I know. He’s taken me there before, and a few minutes later, I’m walking the same path. I spin around, my blood on fire when I recognize this part of the city, even though my feet have never touched the ground until now. There’s no screen between me and the air or the sun shining down through breaks in the clouds.
Then I stop, staring down at the screen. Foster’s walking into the museum, and when I look up, I see the burnt orange tiles in the distance. By the time I reach the doors, he’s wandering a long hall, works of art on either side. I’m paying for entry when he pauses, pointing the camera at one of the paintings.
A little girl sits on her father’s lap, playing with a porcelain doll. The girl’s hair is long and red, the doll’s dark and curly. The oils swirl, the colors mixing and fading from one to another to create their features and dresses and precious faces.
I hesitate, my body not quite my own while it occupies the space he was just in.
We’re sharing the air.
“Excuse me,” I say, turning back to the woman at the entrance. “Could you tell me where this painting is located?”
Her gaze lowers to my phone when I hold it out. Then she gives me a soft smile and shows me a map of the museum, pointing to a hall not far from the entrance. I thank her before making my way there. I stop in front of the girl and her doll, the colors less subdued than the screen would lead you to believe.
“ You’re not really seeing the art, ” Foster told me once. “ Not until you’re standing in front of it have you truly seen anything. ”
He’s moved on to an open room, streaks of light visible from large windows set high above. I wander farther down the hall until it widens into the same room. The same light wood on the floor and the same white on the walls with black beams vaulting in the ceiling.
The screen shows a statue of a man on a horse, and when I look up, the same bronze catches my eye, only I’m seeing the opposite side. My pulse spikes, my feet once again moving before I’ve decided what to do. But I’ve come this far, and all he’d have to do is look at my profile to see I’m in Prague.
I scan the faces as I move through the room, trying to pick him out. But I’ve only seen him in pieces—never all of him at once. A glimpse of eyes in a reflection. His lips, turning up in a smile when he’d talk about a new song. The stubble of his jaw when he’d tell me all the things he’d do to me if we ever truly met.
After moving to where he was before, with the bronze horse and man in front of me, I look down, and I suck in a breath.
It’s me. On the screen.
My head jerks up, and I search the opposite side of the room before referencing the screen again. He’s watching my profile now, catching the fountain in the center of the room in his shot. When I lift my gaze, it lands on a guy in a bomber jacket with a phone in his hand. A cap is pulled down, low on his face, and sunglasses cover his eyes, but my gut tells me I’m looking straight at Foster West.
He starts moving, and the shot drifts to another piece of artwork. It’s of a dog and a picnic, sunny sky and green, green grass, but the image shifts within seconds, showing me a new angle of myself. This time, he’s behind me. I close my eyes, my heart threatening to rip out of my chest.
I wander away from him, to the hallway and the painting of the little girl. After a minute, the frames he passes on screen look familiar. He’s following me. My limbs tingle as I climb the grand stairway to the second floor.
The slight crowd from downstairs thins the deeper into the building I go. When I glance down, I see the carved wooden banister stretching to the second level, a flash of his shoe, and then another shot of me by a sculpture of the female form.
I slowly make my way into a large, empty hall with nothing but baroque-style art. Foster’s entering the room as I pass the directory signs against the far wall. I check over my shoulder, making sure he’s watching and no one else is around before I turn down a narrow corridor. Then, I slip through the door halfway down, letting it swing shut behind me.
My heart threatens to beat out of my rib cage as I watch him follow, down the hallway, pausing by the sign on the door. It creaks open, and my eyes lift to the row of mirrors in front of me where they hang above the sinks. I catch a quick peek of myself, cheeks flushed, eyes wide when the switch clicks, the room around me and the screen in my hand going dark.
A strip of safety lights kicks on along the baseboards, barely enough to see by and casting the space in a cool hue of blue. Barely enough to see him walk around the corner behind me. I swallow, my fist clenching tight around my phone, and when he steps behind me, my eyes close.
“Hi,” I say, weakly.
And I didn’t realize how desperate I’ve been for his voice until he answers, “Hey.”
It sounds the same and yet so different, deep and gravelly.
I feel the heat of him first, then a brush of his chest against my back. My body screams for him to touch me, like he promised he would if this moment ever happened.
The first sweep of his hand might as well be an electric current, every part of me settling in the line of contact he draws up my arm. I can’t think—only fall into this moment, his skin warming mine. He presses closer behind me, his fingers wrapping over my hip, and I feel his breath against the side of my face, then the light scrape of stubble against my bare shoulder.
I open my eyes to watch him through the mirror. He’s taken off the hat and sunglasses, but all I can make out are the lines of his nose, the curves of his cheekbones, the edges of his jaw, with the details just out of reach.
“Foster…” I trail off when his other hand skims up my arm to my neck. The tips of his fingers graze up my jawline before his thumb stops on my pounding pulse.
“Remi.”
The tension breaks the second my name leaves his lips. He tightens his grip on my neck and pulls me around, already backing me across the room by the time I face him. He dips down, his mouth grazing my collarbone and moving to my neck as my back hits the bluish-green tile beside the paper towel dispenser. My hands creep up his hard chest and then around to the back of his neck. I still have my phone clutched in one when my fingers push into his hair, and he groans, pinning me to the wall with his hips.
None of this can be real. The wandering boy I wasn’t supposed to fall for was long gone. No one I would ever hear from again, no one I’d ever touch.
“Foster.”
His name falls out, like my mouth has been waiting to say it again.
“Remi.” He nips at my neck, wrapping his hand around the back of my thigh. “Fuck,” he whispers, grinding his erection into me.
I keep breathing in more than breathing out—as if my body were more concerned with memorizing the scent of him than using the air. Cedar and leather.
“Foster.” It’s on an exhale, my lips grazing the side of his face.
He hasn’t even kissed me yet when his mouth works its way over my skin to my jaw, and I’m about to wrap my legs around him for more contact when his tongue glides over my skin, and he hums out a satisfied sound.
“Remi Sinner.”
I still—all of me in a free fall that feels even less real than everything else.
Foster stops moving too, bringing his face to hover in front of mine. “What’s wrong?” Even in the mostly dark room, I can see his mouth hitch up on one side. “That’s your name, right? Your real one?”
My lips part on a shaky breath, my fingers still in his hair. The lines of his face begin to come into focus, the features piecing together.
“ She’s a sinner, pretending to be a saint .” His voice is still his, but now it also sounds like someone else’s, repeating Of Men and Wolves’ lyrics.
No, it can’t be.
I would have known it was him.
The last time I talked to him flashes through my mind. It leaves me even more chilled inside, my heart twisting as I remember sending him my picture. He texted back like he promised he would—only I never opened the message to see his.
With the memory tightening around my throat, I slowly bring my phone around to his face, closing the app as I do. Light flares over his face, and my eyes lock with his.
Adams North is staring back at me. Only now I know without a doubt it’s Foster too.
Then it all slips into place—how the voice on the radio made me want to close my eyes and fall, and I could feel it deeper than I should. Because I’d already fallen. It had already been buried as far down as I could get it.
Foster licks his lips, his eyes lowering to my mouth for a second before they return to mine. “Come on,” he says smoothly. “If anyone could figure it out, it should have been you. Foster West . Adams North . Who do you think inspired me?”
If it felt unreal before, now it’s so real it hurts.
My eyes burn, and I shake my head, but before I can even come close to forming a coherent sentence, Foster straightens.
He smirks, and the last parts of me that were still warm with him touching them cool as he backs away. “You’re hired, by the way.” He turns, walking toward the door. “See you on tour.”
I stare after him even after he disappears around the corner. The lights blink on as the hinges creak, and then the latch clicks and he’s gone. I close my eyes, gasping for air as everything pours in at once.
Everything.
Every second since my phone buzzed with his last message. Every moment I’ve tried to forget. It all surfaces no matter how much I try to push it down.
Foster West just tore out of the ground—back from the dead. And he unearthed the rest of what I’d buried with him on his way out.