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That’s all I manage before I throw my arms around him.

He catches me with a laugh, lifting me just enough that my feet leave the floor before he sets me down again. I kiss him, and I can feel the energy in him even before I pull back. He looks like he did onstage the night I saw Hollow North play here, only brighter. Like somebody plugged him directly into an outlet.

“This is huge,” I say.

“I know.”

“No, this is really huge. You just got back from touring Europe with them, and now they want you again.”

“That’s pretty much what we said.”

I grin and kiss him one more time because he deserves this. I know enough now to understand what the last tour meant, not just to him but to the whole band. They spent six months proving they could hold their own in front of crowds that hadn’t come to see them, and now Macklin Row’s team is asking them back.

That isn’t luck. It’s momentum.

I lead him toward the kitchen while he fills me in on everything his manager told them. The first show is a little over a month away. They’ll start on the West Coast, work across the country, hit several Canadian dates, then circle back through the Midwest and South. There are breaks built in, but none long enough to make coming home practical.

“And the album?” I ask, pulling two beers from the refrigerator.

“It lines up pretty well.” He takes one from me. “We’d release right before we leave. Management thinks the tour could give it a hell of a push.”

“That’s perfect.”

“Yeah.”

He says it with a smile, but something about it doesn’t match the way he walked through my door ten minutes ago.

I lean against the counter while he takes a drink. “How long did you say again?”

“First leg is a little over four months.”

“That’s a long time.”

“Yeah.”

“There are breaks, though.”

“A few.”

I wait for him to keep going, but he turns the bottle slowly between his hands instead.

Until now, the conversation has felt exactly the way I expected it to. Fast, excited, both of us talking over each other while he tells me about venues and routing and the cities he already knows he wants to show me if I come out to see him.

Now the energy changes.

Not enough that I would notice if I didn’t know him. But I do.

“What’s wrong?”

His eyes lift to mine. “Nothing’s wrong.”

I give him a look.

He exhales through his nose and sets the beer on the counter. “I’m excited, Ruby.”

“I know you are.”

“I really want to do this.”