Chapter 49
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Nash
A burly guy—tattoos snaking up his forearms, earpiece crackling with static, scowl that could cut glass—leads me through the maze of hallways behind the arena.
He’s the kind of man who speaks only in grunts and intimidating stares, which I can respect.
He also looks like he and Gideon could have entire philosophical discussions through nothing but raised eyebrows and shoulder shrugs.
The corridors feel apocalyptic. Concrete walls still thrumming with the phantom screams of fifteen thousand fans. Fluorescent lights casting everything in harsh, unforgiving angles. My footsteps echo in the sudden quiet. Then we round a corner and slam straight into beautiful chaos.
Half-dressed dancers blur past in explosions of sequins and sweat.
Crew members bark orders into radios, voices hoarse from shouting over the music.
Someone wheels a costume rack that’s hemorrhaging rhinestones across the floor like fallen stars, leaving a glittery trail of evidence that magic happened here tonight.
And then the world stops.
Lucy.
She’s still in full stage makeup—smoky eyes that could stop traffic, lips painted the color of sin.
That sleek, dangerous hairstyle that makes her look like she could start wars or end them with a single glance.
Her face is flushed pink from exertion, chest rising and falling like she just finished a marathon.
Which, after what I just saw, she basically did.
When her eyes find mine across the chaos, they go wide with pure, radiant joy.
She runs—bare feet slapping against the concrete, not caring about the makeup or the sweat or the crew members diving out of her path—then launches herself into my arms like gravity is just a suggestion and physics doesn’t apply when it comes to the two of us finding each other.
“I’m disgusting,” she breathes against my ear, arms winding tight around my neck like she’s afraid I might evaporate. “Didn’t even shower. Wanted every second I could get with you.”
I bury my face in the curve of her neck, inhaling deeply. She smells like effort and industrial-strength hair spray and something indefinably sweet underneath. Like joy. Like coming home.
Like falling in love.
“You smell perfect.”
Her laugh is throaty, exhausted, beautiful. It cracks something open in my chest that’s been sealed shut since she left. “Liar.”
“You smell like Lucy,” I murmur against her skin, feeling her pulse race under my lips. “That’s all I need.”
She pulls back to look at me, and I memorize every detail, the way her false eyelashes cast shadows on her cheeks, the tiny beads of sweat at her hairline, the way her lips part slightly like she can’t quite catch her breath.
“Hi, beautiful.” I cup her face in both hands, thumbs tracing the sharp line of her cheekbones and her smile could power the whole arena.
“I can’t believe you’re here. I literally thought I was hallucinating when I saw you in the crowd. Like, front row? In full merch?” She tugs at the hem of my T-shirt, inspecting it like she doesn’t know what to make of it. “Since when do you own anything with Sandro’s abs on it?”
I glance down at the ridiculous thing—Sandro shirtless and screaming into a microphone like he thinks he’s the second coming of Freddie Mercury.
“I figured if I was gonna risk permanent hearing damage, I might as well look the part. Plus, the teenage cashier told me it was ‘totally fire,’ and who am I to argue with youth culture?”
“You’re ridiculous.” Lucy’s eyes dance with mischief. “I could probably get that signed for you. Sandro’s ego would be all about it.”
“That would be great,” I reply, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “As long as you’re the one signing it.”
Something shifts in her expression—surprise melting into something softer, deeper. She reaches up to trace the line of my jaw like she can’t not be touching me. “It was a good show, right? I mean, I know it’s not your scene, but—”
“Lucy.” I catch her hand, bring it to my lips, kiss each knuckle. “It was spectacular. But—and don’t tell Sandro’s ego—I only had eyes for you.”
Her breath hitches, and she grins up at me like I hung the moon. That familiar gesture, that Lucy warmth that’s been missing from my world for weeks. I can feel her heart hammering against my chest, matching the rhythm of my own.
“I’ve really missed you,” she whispers, and my heart throbs with the echo of her yearning.
A blur of glitter and boundless energy skids to a stop beside us, nearly colliding with a rolling rack of costumes. The girl—seventeen, maybe eighteen, with enough sparkle to blind low-flying aircraft—bounces on her toes like she’s powered by adrenaline and enthusiasm.
“Yo, Lu! Heads up, load out’s flying. We got twenty minutes, tops, before the bus dips.” She flashes me a curious look. “Nice shirt, by the way. Very authentic fan energy.”
Lucy doesn’t take her eyes off me. “Thanks, Dani. Tell Aaron I might need a few more minutes.”
“Got it!” Dani zips away like a caffeinated pixie, leaving us in our little bubble of backstage chaos.
But the spell is broken. I can see it in Lucy’s face—the way her smile dims, the way her shoulders tense as reality crashes back in.
“If twenty minutes is all we get,” she says carefully, “then we better make them count.”
She studies my expression, those perceptive eyes reading me like an open book. “You look serious. More serious than ‘I flew to Arizona to surprise you’ serious.”
My heart pounds so hard I’m surprised she can’t hear it over the distant rumble of equipment being moved. “That’s because I came here to tell you something important.”
“Okay...” She takes a half-step back, and I immediately miss the warmth of her body against mine. “Should I be worried?”
I take a deep breath and say what I should have said weeks ago. “I don’t want you to go on this tour.”
She blinks. Tilts her head like a confused puppy. Opens her mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “I... what? Nash, I’ve been on the tour for weeks.”
“I know.” I rake a hand through my hair, aware I’m making a mess of this.
“But that’s what I should have said when your agent called.
That I didn’t want you to go. That I’d support whatever decision you made, but the truth is.
..” I take a shaky breath. “I’m not ready to live without you, Lucy. I don’t think I ever will be.”
Her eyes go wide with something like panic. “Wait. Did you fly all the way out here to break up with me? Because if that’s what this is—”
“No.” The word explodes out of me with more force than I intended. “Hard no. I’m doing the opposite.”
She stares at me like I’ve started speaking in tongues. “Then what—”
“There was this girl at the Lantern,” I rush to explain, the words tumbling over each other. “Wearing a tour T-shirt. And the song she played on the jukebox, it was like it punched me in the gut and said, ‘Go to her.’ Literally, it actually said that. So I did.”
Lucy’s mouth curves into a bewildered smile. “That... I have no idea what that means.”
“It means I love you.” The words hang in the air between us, simple and terrifying and true.
“I love you, Lucy Calder. Not just the version of you that waits up when I work late and makes dinner on the hard days. I love the you that conquers stages and moves across the country with no one supporting you. I love your ambition and your fire and the way I feel when you look at me.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Nash—”
“I love that you’re brave enough to chase your dreams even when it scares the hell out of me. I love watching you become everything you were meant to be, even if it means watching from three thousand miles away.”
A tear spills over, leaving a clean track through the glitter on her cheek. “I love you too,” she whispers, voice thick with emotion. “So much it terrifies me. When I saw you in the crowd tonight, I almost stopped mid-routine because all I wanted was to run to you.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.” Her smile is watery but radiant. “I’ve been miserable without you. Like, pathetically, dramatically miserable. Ask anyone. I’ve been impossible to be around.”
I cup her face again, wiping away tears with my thumbs.
A voice booms down the hallway: “Final call for Bus A! Lucy, we need you!”
Her face crumples slightly. “God, I hate this. Twenty minutes wasn’t nearly enough.”
I press my forehead to hers. “Where’s your next stop?”
“Houston. We’ve got a three-day break before the next show. Means we’ll have plenty of time to talk. In fact, I don’t intend to hang up the phone with you until I absolutely have to.”
An idea crystallizes in my mind, crazy and impulsive and perfect. “Don’t get on the bus.”
“What?”
“Skip it. Let me fly you to Houston in a day or two. We can have forty-eight hours that belong to just us. No schedules, no buses, no crew members yelling about load-out.”
She glances toward the hallway where the other dancers are filing out, their voices echoing off the concrete walls. When she looks back at me, there’s hope flickering in her eyes like a candle in the dark.
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” I brush a strand of hair away from her face. “Give me two days, Lucy. Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
Her smile starts small and grows until it’s blinding. “That’s the best offer I’ve gotten in weeks.”
“Is that a yes?”
Instead of answering, she kisses me. Deep and desperate and full of promise, her hands tangling in my hair, her body melting against mine like she’s trying to memorize the shape of me.
I can taste the salt of her tears and something sweet from whatever she drank after the show, and underneath it all, just Lucy.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“That’s a yes,” she whispers against my lips.
“Thank God.” I rest my forehead against hers, feeling like I can breathe properly for the first time in weeks. “I was running out of grand gestures.”
She laughs, the sound bright and infectious. “Well, showing up in a Sandro shirt was pretty grand. Very committed to the bit.”
“I aim to please.”
Someone wolf-whistles behind us. Another voice yells, “Get a room!”
Lucy grins and flips them off without looking away from me. “Stay right here. Don’t move. Don’t even think about disappearing while I make some calls.”
“Not going anywhere,” I promise.
She starts to walk away, then turns back and kisses me again, quick and fierce. “I love you, Nash Kincaid.”
“I love you too, Lucy Calder.”
As she hurries toward the buses, already pulling out her phone, I lean against the wall and watch her go. The concrete is cool against my back, a sharp contrast to the warmth still humming through my veins.
Two days. Forty-eight hours to show her exactly how much I’ve missed her, how much she means to me. How much I want this—us—to work, no matter how complicated it gets.
It’s not nearly enough time.
But it’s a start.