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“I think you needed that.” Margot brushes my hair from my wet cheeks. “How did it feel?”

“Long overdue.” I sigh.

“What’s the plan?” Harriet asks.

“If I were in his position and found those papers the way he did, I’d be hurt too. There’s no point in offering excuses. I need something tangible to show him I’m all in. That those papers were a mistake.”

“What are you thinking, and how can we help?” Parker squeezes my wrist, the vines and delicate flowers on her forearm catching my attention.

“I might have an idea.”

FORTY-EIGHT

TATE

The pain was inevitable. I just didn’t know how much it was going to hurt.

Two days since I left Iris Meadows, and I’ve spent all of them hating myself, distracted from work by the crater-sized hole in my chest. Howard is pissed, dead set on punishing me for my absence. I barely have time to eat or sleep, and if it weren’t for me reminding him of my recent seizure, he’d have me working all twenty-four hours of the day. Not once during my time away from the label did he check in on me. He didn’t give a shit when the photograph of me in the hospital leaked or when the paparazzi rioted on my front lawn.

Photoshoots, interviews, events, signing merch. I go through the necessary motions, letting my body work on autopilot.

This time, my phone stays securely on my person, away from interfering managers, as I wait for her to text.

She hasn’t, not since I told her I’d landed in New York.

Because you asked for space.

What a stupid thing to do.

I couldn’t go cold turkey, so I asked my mom to call Talia to check in on her. She reassured me she was okay without giving too much away. It was a crumb of relief.

I should be there.

This isn’t permanent, I remind myself as I return to my hotel room in Manhattan. After a fourteen-hour day, all I want to do is collapse onto the bed and enter a cryogenic sleep until the year is up. I have to settle for two hours before I’m expected to perform on a talk show. It’ll be the first time I play my guitar since landing myself in the hospital.

Without sounding like Goldilocks, the mattress is too firm, the pillows too high, bedsheets too thick, and a redhead is missing.

Fuck, I miss her.

I’ve had time to sit with my bruised thoughts, and while the notion of Talia getting the divorce papers drawn up still makes my stomach turn, I understand where her head was at in the moment. If she truly wanted to follow through with them, she would’ve had them mailed to wherever I was or slapped me with them the moment she saw me—and she didn’t.

We were both chronically stubborn. Probably why we were perfect for each other.

The whole situation is a headfuck, and yes, we both made mistakes, stuck our heads in the sand, and refused to communicate, but we could’ve sorted our shit out and reunited a lot sooner if it weren’t for Howard.

I’d given up hope I could break my contract early, and there was no point in dwelling on it. I just had to get through the next month before there was any spare time in my schedule to fly back to Tennessee. I’m pretty sure Howard was purposefully keeping me away from Nashville.

My eyes start to close when there’s a knock on the door.

“Can a man not get one fucking moment to himself?” I grumble and climb to my feet.

Howard barges through the door the second I open it, phone pressed to his ear, holding up a finger. I want to snap that chubby digit in half. The distinct smell of liquor fills the air as he paces the floor. I left him twenty minutes ago in the lobby and already he is half drunk.

Shoulders hunched to his ears, his voice pitches with panic. “Why is everyone talking in code? What’s going on down there? No. Nothing. Tomorrow? We have—” He stops short. “Canceled? Who canceled it? She doesn’t have the fucking authority to—Oh. Okay.” He looks at me, finally acknowledging my existence. “We’ll be there.”

He hangs up and drops into the chair. I imagine if he had hair, he’d be pulling it out at the roots.

“What’s wrong?”