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“Sorry. I just needed to be here,” she said. She couldn’t explain why, but she was fairly certain he’d understand anyway.

He sat beside her on the white leather sofa, looking out over the arena, the crew tiny figures moving amongst the equipment. “This place is huge,” he muttered.

“And it’s sold out. Both nights.” She eyed him cautiously, noting the way his left knee bounced in an uneven rhythm. “How’d it go with Jackson?”

Beckett kept his eyes on the crew down below, but he gave a small shake of his head. Like a balloon with a slow leak, all the air left her lungs. She reached over and took his hand in hers, squeezing. He released a breath of his own, but pulled his hand away, running it through his hair. As he crossed his arms over his chest, eyes fixed on the arena below, Kat’s stomach dropped.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine.”

“Beckett,” she chided softly.

“I’m fine, Kat. Leave it alone.”

Her stomach tied itself in knots, tension creeping into her neck and jaw in a way that almost certainly heralded an oncoming headache. From his closed-off posture to his terse words, he couldn’t be clearer: he didn’t want to talk to her, not about what was going on, and certainly not about how he was feeling. Never mind that she’d stuck her neck out time and again for him and his brother, that she’d thought they were in this together.

Suddenly she was twenty-two years old again, waiting at a bookstore for a man who’d never come and would refuse to tell her why.

“I need to get back to this,” she said, gesturing to her laptop.

“What are you working on?”

“A presentation for the label. Our options for moving forward to finish out the tour. A personal performance improvement plan to show them I won’t make the same mistakes again, assuming they’ll let me tour with another band.”

A deep crease formed between his brows. “I thought you were done touring.”

“I was.” She adjusted a minor spacing issue on the slide on the screen to avoid meeting his eyes. “But without the bonus, I can’t afford to stop.”

“What about your books? What happened to writing full time?”

“My books don’t pay my bills,” she said.

“I’ll pay your bills.”

She scoffed. “No.”

“Why not?”

She sighed, a tension headache starting to form behind her eyes. “Because I need to be able to take care of myself.”

“What’s the point of being a fucking rock star if I can’t help the people I care about?” he asked with a scowl.

“I can’t do this right now. Derek is going to be here any minute and I need to finish getting this ready.” She turned her attention back to her laptop.

He frowned, blinking in disbelief. “Are you… dismissing me?”

“I have work to do.”

“What the fuck just happened?”

“Beckett—”

“What did I do now, Luna? I’m trying to make your life easier.”

“Stop!” She slammed her laptop shut. “Stop trying to make everyone else’s life easier. I didn’t ask you to do that. I’m not interested in you for your money.”

“I know that.”