Friends with Bang-i-fits

Prequel to The Bangover

Lili Valente

For my Street Team, the best bunch readers (and kick ass ladies) any author could ask for.

Contents

Also by Lili Valente

About the Book

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Sneak Peek

Tell Lili Your Favorite Part!

About the Author

Also by Lili Valente

Also by Lili Valente

Red HOT Laugh-out-Loud Rom Coms

The Bangover

Bang Theory

Bang on Loosely

Learn more here

The Hunter Brothers

The Baby Maker

The Troublemaker

The Heartbreaker

The Panty Melter

Click here to learn more

The Bad Motherpuckers Series (Standalones)

Hot as Puck

Sexy Motherpucker

Puck-Aholic

Puck me Baby

Pucked Up Love

Puck Buddies

Click here to learn more

Sexy Flirty Dirty Romantic Comedies (Standalones)

Magnificent Bastard

Spectacular Rascal

Incredible You

Meant for You

Click here to learn more

The Master Me Series

(Red HOT erotic Standalone novellas)

Snowbound with the Billionaire

Snowed in with the Boss

Masquerade with the Master

Click here to learn more

Bought by the Billionaire Series

(HOT novellas, must be read in order)

Dark Domination

Deep Domination

Desperate Domination

Divine Domination

Click here to learn more

Kidnapped by the Billionaire Series

(HOT novellas, must be read in order)

Filthy Wicked Love

Crazy Beautiful Love

One More Shameless Night

Click here to learn more

Under His Command Series

(HOT novellas, must be read in order)

Controlling her Pleasure

Commanding her Trust

Claiming her Heart

Click here to learn more

To the Bone Series

(Sexy Romantic Suspense, must be read in order)

A Love so Dangerous

A Love so Deadly

A Love so Deep

Click here to learn more

Fight for You Series

(Emotional New Adult Romantic Suspense.

Must be read in order.)

Run with Me

Fight for You

Click here to learn more

Lover’s Leap Series

A Naughty Little Christmas

The Bad Boy’s Temptation

Click here to learn more

The Lonesome Point Series

(Sexy Cowboys written with Jessie Evans)

Leather and Lace

Saddles and Sin

Diamonds and Dust

12 Dates of Christmas

Glitter and Grit

Sunny with a Chance of True Love

Chaps and Chance

Ropes and Revenge

8 Second Angel

Click here to learn more

Co-written Standalones

The V Card (co-written with Lauren Blakely)

Falling for the Boss (co-written with Sylvia Pierce)

Click here to learn more

The Happy Cat Series

(co-written with Pippa Grant)

Hosed

Hammered

Hitched

Humbugged

Click here to learn more

About the Book

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Or in the state of Kirby Lawrence, a woman who is NOT attracted to her best friend, bad boy rock star, Colin Donovan. Not even a little bit!

No matter how good his butt looks in those jeans…

Crap, I’m looking at his butt! Colin’s butt!

And the butterflies in my stomach are discoing now. Discoing!

I avert my eyes, but it’s too late. I have already had thoughts I shouldn’t have had, and flutters that shouldn’t have fluttered.

And I have a horrible feeling there’s no coming back from this.

No going back to the way things were before I realized that a part of me wants to climb my best buddy like a tree and make out with his sexy face…

Meet Colin and Kirby in this fun, flirty prequel to THE BANGOVER!

Chapter One

From the texts of Kirby Lawrence

and Colin Donovan

Kirby: Great show. Harriett brought me backstage after. I’m outside your dressing room whenever you’re ready to roll.

Colin: Thanks. And awesome! Can’t wait to see you. Be right there.

Kirby: Um, also wondering… Is this girl out in the hallway yours?

Colin: What girl?

Kirby: Oh, thank God. I thought I was going to have to stage an intervention. She’s as dumb as a box of rocks, poor thing. Gorgeous, but she just told one of the roadies that she’d be scared to visit China because she figured it would take a while to get comfortable walking upside down. No joke.

Colin: Ouch. But the last time I checked, you don’t bang with your brain, Larry. Get her number. I’m in town for three days.

Kirby: I will not get her number. And of course you bang with your brain. If you don’t, then you’re doing it wrong. The brain is the most vital organ involved.

Colin: Except for a big dick.

Kirby: Right. Except for that. But don’t talk about the D word. Since Peter had to cancel his trip this weekend, I’m not going to see him again for two weeks. And it’s already been three, so…

Colin: Ew. Peter.

Kirby: Peter is very nice. And he has a big…brain.

Colin: Ha! I see what you did there. I’m sure he has a huge brain. But he also has a weird butt.

Kirby: You met him once, and you somehow managed to find time to check out his ass? Is there something you want to share with the class, Donovan? Is all this dating of hot, big-busted women just a cover? You realize it’s the twenty-first century, right? Rock stars can be as gay as they want to be.

Colin: If I were gay, I would be gay with someone hot. Not Pooped-His-Pants Peter.

Kirby: What a horrible name! He does not poop his pants.

Colin: It just looks like it in those awful khakis he wears?

Kirby: He’s lovely in a suit. The last time I visited him at his law firm in Boston, he looked quite fetching in a gray three-piece.

Colin: So you admit his khakis are awful?

Kirby: Subject change. How much longer are you going to be? This girl is about to hyperventilate out here.

Colin: Again, I ask, what girl?

Kirby: Just a second… Let me investigate…

Colin: You do that, Larry. I’m going to jump in the shower.

Kirby: Her name is Maria. She won a contest. She’s supposed to get your autograph and a picture with you backstage.

Colin: Oh shit. Right. Tell her I’ll be out in five. Six if I put in hair gel to get pretty.

Kirby: I’m sure she’d appreciate you pretty. I doubt all this hyperventilating is solely due to the dulcet sounds of your guitar and passable singing voice.

Colin: You love my singing voice.

Kirby: It’s okay, I guess. I like it more when it’s on time and doesn’t keep me waiting out in the cold hallway with a girl with nipples so hard she’s about to poke my eye out. It’s not easy being a short person in a tall, hard-nippled world.

Colin: I bet. You poor thing. Why don’t you take a picture of the situation for me so I can truly empathize with your plight?

Kirby: I am not taking a boob shot for you, you cad.

Colin: Ha! You know I was kidding, but I love it when you call me old-fashioned bad names.

Kirby: Scoundrel.

Colin: Ooo…good one.

Kirby: Rapscallion.

Colin: Hmmm…almost as good as hard nipples.

Kirby: LOL. I thought you were getting in the shower. Hurry up, or we won’t make it to Chippy’s before last call.

Colin: Chippy’s is open until two. We’ve got plenty of time. And I’m in the shower. I can do more than one thing at a time, woman.

Kirby: Standing in the water and texting me doesn’t count as more than one thing at a time. Go actually clean yourself and get out here. I need a hug. I’ve missed your stupid face.

Colin: I’ve missed your stupid face, too. See you soon,

Larry. I know you’re sad that your boy toy got snowed in, but I’m glad you’re all mine for the night. It’s been too long since we had solo friend time. I like not having to share you.

Kirby: Ditto. See you soon.

Chapter Two

Kirby

“Oh my God. So you’re his friend? For real?” The girl in the skintight red T-shirt that reads “Cookies for Santa” across the top, with two giant chocolate chip cookies positioned over her glorious mammary glands, practically starts humping my leg when I convey the message that Colin will be out soon. “So you were like…texting him?” she squeals, lashes fluttering and cheeks flushing pink beneath her honey brown skin.

“I was,” I say calmly, hoping to keep her conscious long enough to get her picture taken. “He’s sorry to keep you waiting.”

He didn’t say that, of course, but I’m sure he is. I’ve known Colin since we were freshmen in high school, and he’s still the same thoughtful, conscientious person he was back then.

Just more famous.

And a lot harder to pin down for best-friend bonding time.

I haven’t seen him since September, when Lips on Fire was in New York City for their last stateside show before heading off on the four-month European leg of their Hidden Kill Confirmed tour.

The album’s title came from our hometown—Hidden Kill Bay, Maine, a delightful seaside village that is probably one of the safest places in America to walk alone after dark. In the original settler’s native Dutch, kil is the word for riverbed. Our town was named after a hidden river that Colin and the other boys in the band hunted down our senior year, wandering in the woods for hours to escape their well-meaning parents begging them to give up on the band dream and apply to college already.

I love knowing these secret, behind-the-scenes details about the band, and the goofy, hard-working, hard-dreaming kids the boys were back before they grew up to be rock stars.

For a moment I consider sharing the tour name origin story with Maria— “Cookies” as she’s become in my mind, ever since one of her chocolate chips nearly poked my eye out—but then she says, “You two are just friends, right? Not dating or anything?” in a tone that insinuates the idea of Colin and I dating would be hard to swallow, and I change my mind.

Nope. No stories for you, Cookies.

I get that I don’t look like a rock god’s girlfriend, but I’m not a hideous goblin person. I’ve showered recently, and my oversize black sweater, black jeans, and sensible snow boots are appropriate clothing for the Nor’easter roaring outside.

“I mean, no offense,” Cookies continues, evidently reading the less-than-thrilled expression on my face. “I just know he likes tall girls. He’s never dated anyone under five eight. Isn’t that wild? I mean, that’s like…hard. Most girls are shorter than that, right? Like five feet or something?”

The average height for a woman in the United States is five four, actually, only one measly inch taller than yours truly, but I decide not to share that, either.

I make a noncommittal sound, instead, and wonder what Cookies might become if she put her limited brain power to use memorizing something more important than the heights of a rock star’s ex-girlfriends. And then I ponder texting Colin to warn him that this girl might have crossed the line from fan to stalker. But before I can pull out my phone, the dressing room door opens, and he emerges in all his manly glory, smelling of smoky fresh soap and hair gel and Colin.

And for a moment, it’s hard to breathe.

Even for me.

Somehow, I always manage to forget how stupidly good-looking he is. My memory pulls tricks on me, dulling the shine in his dark eyes, narrowing his broad shoulders, muting that almost predatory confidence that makes women want to rub up against him like cats. In his absence, my logical brain insists that he can’t really be this beautiful.

But he is, and poor Cookies is clearly on the verge of a hotness-induced stroke.

“Hey, there, Maria! I’ll be with you in just a second. Thanks so much for waiting,” he says, beaming her way as Harriet, his publicist, rises from the chair down the hall where she’s been catnapping since bringing me backstage.

“Oh my God,” Maria squeaks, fingers curling and uncurling in front of her glossed lips. “Sure thing. Wow. So cool.”

Colin turns to me with a conspiratorial wink and pulls me in for a tight hug, whispering into the static-charged hair by my ear, “Ten minutes, Larry. I promise. And then we’re out of here. The car’s already waiting for us by the door. We’re going to drink cheap whiskey until we puke.”

“How about we stop right before that part?” I say, returning the embrace with a smile. “Missed you, doofus.”

“Missed you, too.” He makes a growling sound and hugs me even tighter, until I let out an involuntarily squeak and he lets me go with a laugh. “Sorry, just so happy to see you.” He turns to Maria as he nods my way. “I’ve known this one forever. Been friends since we were fourteen, back when she could have carried me around in her backpack.”

“Oh, I could not,” I say. “We were the same height. For about ten minutes. And then you started all this growing business.” I wave a hand up and down his six-foot-two frame with a disgusted curl of my lip, making Colin laugh again.

Cookies looks confused, as if she can’t quite tell if I’m kidding. But before she can hurt herself trying to work it out, Harriet herds Colin and the big winner into better light to take pictures. Harriet keeps a running commentary going as she shoots—asking Cookie questions about how long she’s been a fan—forever—what she does for work—nail tech—and what she thought about the show—super amazing and so hot.

“So, so hot,” she echoes, batting liquid-brown eyes up at Colin as she presses one of her Cookies against his arm in a way that isn’t subtle. At all. “I seriously can’t believe I’m here, standing next to you. I’m five nine, you know. Even taller in heels.”

Colin nods politely, while I put a fist to my mouth to hide my smile.

Oh, Cookies. Poor thing.

Unfortunately for her, Colin isn’t that easily won over, especially when I’m around.

He’s never ditched me for a hookup. Ever. Not once in twelve years of friendship.

Colin Donovan loves women, but he loves me more, a fact he proves as he hugs Maria goodbye without the slightest hint of regret and crosses back to me, hooking his arm around my neck as we start down the hall.

“So, tell me everything,” he says, ruffling my already crackling hair.

“Will you stop?” I bat at his giant paw. “I’m going to look like I stuck my hand in a light socket.”

“You look fine. Same old Larry, covered in cat hair and not giving a shit. How’s the new kitten by the way? Still slaughtering everything in his path?”

“Pretty much,” I say, ignoring the twinge in my stomach. Being the same old Larry is a good thing, and it doesn’t matter that he didn’t notice that I actually put on makeup tonight. He’s my buddy, and buddies aren’t supposed to notice things like that. And since when do I care what Colin thinks about my physical appearance? Since never, that’s when.

Shrugging off the weird feeling, I add, “But as long as you’re not a bird or a fish, Murder’s the sweetest little thing and fitting in great with the other cats. Hitchcock and Poe adore him.”

“And how’s Bridget? The B and B? The latest book? I would have mentioned that you were a famous author and pimped your books, by the way, but Maria didn’t seem like much of a reader.”

I grunt. “It’s fine. I don’t need you to pimp me out.”

“I know you don’t, but I like to.” He releases my neck from his arm-vice, reaching out to open the door for me before pausing and shooting a hard look up and down my frame that makes my skin prickle strangely. “Where’s your coat?”

“I didn’t bring one. Coats are a pain in the ass at concerts. You guys really were great, by the way. Better Day sounded especially excellent tonight.”

“Thanks. Shep’s been playing with some new stuff on the drums,” he says, still staring me up and down, a furrow between his brows. “You shouldn’t go out in weather like this without a coat.”

“Um, thanks, Dad,” I say dryly, motioning to his flannel and puffy vest. “I learned it from watching you.”

“I don’t need a coat. I run hot,” he says, dismissing me. “And I’m a lot bigger than you. It’ll take me longer to freeze to death if there’s a car accident and I’m stranded on the side of the road.” He nods with a rush of breath. “Okay, so it’s decided, we’re stopping by your place on the way to the bar.”

“No,” I protest. “I don’t need my coat. I need whiskey.”

“Coat, then whiskey,” he says.

“And it’s always hot in Chippy’s, anyway.”

He shakes his head as he shrugs off his puffy brown vest. “No arguments and you wear this until we get your coat.”

I huff but hold out my arms to allow him to slip it on me, knowing better than to keep fighting when he’s got his mind made up. “Fine,” I say, shivering as the Colin-warmed-and-scented vest settles around me, setting a rogue kaleidoscope of butterflies to fluttering between my hips.

What the hell was that?

It was almost like…

Almost like…

“See, you’re cold,” Colin says, squeezing my shoulders through the down, setting the wings to beating again, confirming that something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Or in the state of Kirby Lawrence, a woman who is not attracted to her best friend.

Not even a little bit, no matter how good his butt looks in those jeans as he pushes open the door and trots across the snow-packed ground toward the black sedan waiting by the curb.

Shit, I’m looking at his butt! Colin’s butt!

And the wings are discoing now. Discoing!

I avert my eyes seconds before Colin opens the car door and turns back to me, but it’s too late. I have already seen things I shouldn’t have seen. Had thoughts I shouldn’t have had, and flutters that shouldn’t have fluttered. And I have a horrible feeling there’s no coming back from this.

No going back to the way things were before I realized that a part of me wants to climb Colin like a tree and make out with his sexy face.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

“You okay?” Colin asks, eyeing me as he climbs into the car and shuts the door. “Your face is all red.”

“I’m a little cold. You were right,” I say with a bored shrug. “Thanks for the vest.”

“No problem.” He stretches out beside me with a happy sigh as he reaches out to catch my knee between his fingers. “So, how’s Bridget?”

“Good.” God, why does he keep touching me? Has he always touched me this much? “Asleep. She wanted to come out, but she gets up super early on Sundays to make fresh scones for all the hotel guests. But she’ll be ready to hang by pizza party time tomorrow.”

“Sweet. It’s cool if I crash at your place, right? I don’t see myself wanting to go all the way back to the hotel after Chippy’s. Your place is closer, and that way I’ll already be there tomorrow when it’s time to order pizza, and I can make sure you order the good stuff. Nothing with anchovies on it.”

“I give the anchovies to the cats,” I say. “And yeah, it’s fine if you stay.”

But is it? I wonder as the car cruises through downtown Bangor toward the highway leading north. Colin has sacked out on my couch a hundred times before, but something feels different tonight.

Dangerous…

“Good.” Colin rocks my knee back and forth before adding, “I really missed you, Larry. It’s good to be home.”

A too-hard jerk of my heart steals my focus. When I come back to myself, my hand is on Colin’s, squeezing his fingers tight.

Yep. Dangerous, all right.

But it’s too late to back out now. We’re on a friend-adventure, and he’s sleeping on my couch after. Surely, it will be fine.

Surely…

Chapter Three

From the texts of Kirby Lawrence

and Colin Donovan

Colin: How long can it take to find your coat? Are you okay in there?

Kirby: I’m fine. And it’s taking this long because coats are for people who leave their houses, Colin. Which I don’t, except to run over to Bridget’s or down to the square to grab coffee or groceries, and you don’t need a coat to walk two blocks. I also don’t need a coat to be dropped off at Chippy’s by your car service. Can we forget the coat and go have whiskey now?

Colin: I’ll come in and help you look.

Kirby: NO! Stay there! It’s a mess.

Colin: A mess I will see later tonight when I kick the cats to the floor so I can sleep on your couch. Cleaning fairies aren’t going to fly in while we’re drinking and tidy it up, you know.

Kirby: I know, but I’ll be drunk by then, and I won’t care. Five more minutes. It’s got to be here somewhere.

Colin: When was the last time you wore it? Think back and retrace your steps.

Kirby: Peter and I went for a walk on the beach last time he was here. I think I wore it then.

Colin: How romantic. Did he wear khakis?

Kirby: Stop.

Colin: I will not stop. I’m wildly jealous, and I’m going to be a complete shit about your big-brained boyfriend the entire time I’m home.

Kirby: Is this the part where you confess you’ve secretly had the hots for me for years?

Colin: Ew. No, Larry. Don’t be gross.

Kirby: Thanks.

Colin: You know what I mean. You’re smoking hot, but you’re my friend. I have too much respect for you to think about how pretty your tits are.

Kirby: You’ve never seen my tits.

Colin: Close enough. I’ve seen you in a bikini.

Kirby: I could have weird nipples.

Colin: Do you have weird nipples? No. Don’t answer that. I don’t want to know. How did we get this derailed?

Kirby: You said you were jealous of Peter.

Colin: No, I didn’t! That’s not what I meant, anyway. I’m not jealous of Peter. I’m just jealous that you’re all happily coupled up.

Kirby: So things with Victoria aren’t going so well, I take it? When I saw that you had a new opening act, I was curious, but I didn’t want to pry.

Colin: Yeah. They’re not going at all. She could have stayed with the tour and renewed her contract for another four months, but she decided to take a different gig. Wanted to see Asia. And the lead singer of the Poison Princes’ penis.

Kirby: Say that five times fast.

Colin: I’d rather not.

Kirby: Sorry. I know you were into her. But it’s her loss. And the lead singer of Poison Princes is a poser dweeb with a lame vibrato.

Colin: Who dances like a twitching corpse.

Kirby: Definitely. He’s probably awful in bed.

Colin: Awful. I should feel sorry for her, really.

Kirby: You should. But I can print out her picture and we can pin it to the dart board at Chippy’s if you’d rather. My computer and printer are easy to find. Unlike this coat…

Colin: No, I don’t want to throw darts at her. I just want to turn back time and not write a hit song about her so I don’t have to listen to it every time I turn on the fucking radio.

Kirby: Ouch. Sorry again. But still pretty sure that’s a first world problem. Or maybe a one-percenter problem? A poor, successful rock star with a hit song and lots of money, cry me a river kind of problem?

Colin: You’re absolutely right.

Kirby: And it’s a good song. Doesn’t matter who inspired it.

Colin: Correct again. If only you were as good at finding things as you are at being right.

Kirby: Ha! And your burn falls flat. Look at the door, sucker.

Colin: Aw, there you are. In a coat. And a French girl hat. And fuzzy white mittens. Look how cute you are. Maybe I am jealous of Peter, after all.

Kirby: Oh, shut up. You want me to grab you a hat and gloves, too? Just in case? I’ve got a few in the communal bin that would fit you.

Colin: Yes, please. I might want to play in the snow with you later.

Kirby: Whiskey and a snowball fight. Sounds like heaven.

Colin: Right here in Hidden Kill Bay.

Chapter Four

Kirby

By the time the car pulls up in front of Chippy’s, it’s almost one in the morning, but the lights are blazing in the windows, and when we step out of the sedan, the dull roar of conversation, jukebox music, and drunken laughter are audible from the street.

Chippy’s is always rowdy on a Saturday and the perfect place to banish this weird vibe. Not that Colin seems to have noticed anything’s amiss. He’s still touching me constantly, making me scour my memory banks for whether he’s always been this touchy and it simply never fluttered me before, or if this is a new development.

But it’s so hard to think straight.

Because he keeps touching me—my knee again in the car, my shoulder as we get out, the small of my back as we step into the cozy heat of Chippy’s, exerting a gentle pressure I can feel through the puffy down as he steers me over to the coat check.

“I’m so glad we wasted twenty minutes finding this coat so I can immediately take it off again,” I say in a syrupy sweet voice.

“Yeah, yeah.” He guides it off my shoulders with an assured shimmy of his hands that makes my blood fizz. “If we’d crashed into a snow bank, you’d be thanking me right now, turd.”

“Crashed in the mile and a half between my house and the bar?”

“Smart-ass is not a good look on you.”

“A pity,” I say. “Since it’s my default setting. But should make it easier for you not to think about my tits.”

I don’t know why I say it. It just flies out of my mouth, sarcastic and dry, but a little flirty, too.

Shit. I’m flirting with my best friend! What madness has taken hold of me, and, more importantly, has Colin noticed?

I shoot a covert look his way, but he’s laughing like he doesn’t have a care in the world as he hands over my coat to the tiny girl behind the battered wooden counter and accepts a token. “Thank God,” he says. “Imagining your weird nipples is going to give me nightmares if I’m not careful.”

“I do not have weird nipples.”

“That’s what all the people with weird nipples say, Larry.” He nods toward the bar. “So, back by the pool table, or in the middle by Debbie so she can verbally abuse us a little?”

I pucker my lips. “Well, I do enjoy verbal abuse.” And if Debbie is giving us shit for being stuck-up famous people who don’t come into their local often enough, then maybe it will stop this insanity.

Colin isn’t just one of my oldest friends, he’s my best friend, and the one person in my life, aside from Bridget, I couldn’t bear to be estranged from. He’s family, and I’m running low on that already. My dad ran off before I learned to read, and I haven’t spoken to my mom since I was seventeen, when a judge decided I would be a better parent to my fourteen-year-old sister than my mentally-ill-and-not-interested-in-seeking-treatment mother and awarded me sole guardianship of Bridget.

Mom allegedly has a couple of half brothers up in Canada, but I know just enough about my uncles and their brood of drug-addicted, ex-con children to be certain I don’t want to know more.

So it’s just Bridge and me against the world, backed up by the boys of Lips of Fire, a bunch of rock stars we know as the guys who helped raise us.

Who loved us when we were young and confused and not always very lovable. Who drank cheap beer with us and stayed up late watching old movies and jammed in our leaky basement and invited us over to their houses for holidays and home-cooked meals and gave us a taste of how being part of a semi-normal family might feel.

Cutter and his single, former-rocker dad, who did everything he could to keep his boy from going as wild as he did. Zack and his sweet grandparents, who were gently and lovingly scandalized by their only grandchild’s refusal to go to college. Shepherd and his exhausted parents and ten million little brothers and sisters, who made hanging at his house feel like dropping by a playground or a party, where there were always enough people to start a couple softball teams.

And Colin and his soft-spoken, but radiantly passionate, single mom, who devoted her life to nurturing her violin-prodigy son’s talent as a boy and his rock-star dreams as he grew into a man. Her faith in Lips on Fire’s ability to achieve their dream never faltered. Not for a second. To this day, she insists that she’s not a bit surprised that our four local boys are the biggest-selling rock artists of the past two decades. To her, superstardom was always a foregone conclusion.

She’s the best. I love Colin’s mom.

But not as much as I love Colin. He’s my ride or die, the one person I can count on no matter what. I will never be too gross or too weird or too sad or too covered in cat hair for Colin to be my very best friend. He’s home, and you don’t have sexy thoughts about your home.

I wrinkle my nose, knowing the logic of that is wobbly, but before I can revise my metaphor, Colin is waving a hand in front of my face.

“Earth to Kirby,” he says, smiling as I refocus. “There you are. When did you finish your last book?”

“Today.” I bite my lip, counting back. “About three hours before the concert.”

He nods. “So you’re still not fully returned to earth yet. Got it. You know what helps with that?”

“Whiskey.” I start toward Debbie’s section, but Colin grabs my hand, tugging me in the opposite direction.

“Let’s go to the back. We’ve only got an hour until last call. And if we’re talking to Debbie, we’re not drinking.”

“She might get her feelings hurt,” I say, though I know damn well Debbie hasn’t had feelings since at least 1987. She’s a hard-living, hard-loving former biker chick who bought Chippy’s from her ex’s kids after he died, and is probably the best bartender on earth. Which means she doesn’t make shit about her. She pours drinks, she listens, and she’ll read you the riot act if she can tell you’re in the mood for a little abuse, but that’s it. It’s all about the customer.

And of course, Colin knows it. “And you might have a fever. Debbie won’t care. Let’s book it. Two stools just opened up.”

We weave our way through the crowd, hand in hand, while I try not to notice how nice Colin’s fingers feel threaded through mine.

Chippy’s is still hopping, but there’s room to move, which there wouldn’t be on a usual Saturday. The storm has kept at least a few people at home. It’s nasty out there, which means Colin is absolutely staying at my place. There’s no point in him risking the roads all the way into the city.

Which means I best get my head back into the friend zone before I have a shirtless Colin asleep on my couch.

“So… Victoria,” I say, once we’ve settled onto our stools and ordered our usual—two old-fashioneds with extra cherries and extra whiskey. “When did she defect to the Poison Princes? When we talked last week, you two were still planning a beach trip during your March break.”

“Three days ago.” Colin tips his chin down, staring into his drink, sending his too-long hair falling into his face. “We were all coming back to the hotel from a club in Prague—Derrick, Victoria, me, and some of the backup singers—and she got off the elevator a floor early and went to Derrick’s room instead of mine.”

My jaw drops. “No way. Was she wasted?”

“No, just decided she liked the cut of his jib better than mine, I guess.” He shrugs. “We never talked about it, so I’m not sure what factored into the decision-making process.”

“What? How can you not talk about it?”

“I tried texting, but she didn’t answer. And then I ran into her in the hotel lobby on the way to the airport, and she was sitting on Derrick’s lap. She waved and told me that she’d decided to go to Asia with him and…that was that. I guess I could have called her, but I didn’t see the point. She’d clearly made up her mind.”

“Wow.” I shake my head, stunned by the stone-cold awful of his latest breakup. “I’m so sorry, Col.” I pat his back awkwardly, wishing I hadn’t ventured down this road. I didn’t want him upset, just focused on other women, something that makes any man less attractive to the opposite sex.

Or to me, at least.

I’m not into coveting things I’ll never have. Which is probably why my brain has always worked its revisionist history on my Colin memories, making him a little less beautiful, a little less funny, a little less magical—because part of his Colin magic will always be out-of-bounds for me.

He laughs and tilts his head to shoot me a crooked smile. “I like how you go tragically awkward around feelings.”

“Feelings are awful.” I pat him again.

“And wonderful,” he counters. “I’ll take the good and the bad. Better than feeling nothing at all, right?”

I reclaim my drink, wrapping my fingers around the gently sweating glass. “Of course. But you know me. I take things slow. No rushing into that kind of stuff.”

He sips his whiskey while I try not to notice how nice his throat looks when he swallows. “So it’s not true love with Peter just yet?”

I shrug as guilt-worms squirm into my belly to shoot the butterflies dirty looks. “We haven’t made any big declarations, no. But, barring massive snowstorms, he flies here from Boston twice a month to see me, and I take the train down to see him as often as I can. Mostly because it’s hard to make out with someone who isn’t in the same town, but…” I shrug again, growing increasingly uncomfortable. Colin is one of the few people I can talk to about stuff like this, but tonight is not a usual night. “I don’t know where things are going, but…I like him.”

Colin laughs. “You sound like you’re confessing to a murder.”

“That would probably be easier.”

He nudges my shoulder with his. “He’s lucky to have you. And, from what I can tell, he seems to get that. As much as I hate to say it, I think you should hang on to this one.”

I meet his eye, pulse beating faster as I ask, “Why do you hate to say it?”

“Khakis,” he says, holding my gaze in a way that makes me wonder if we’re really talking about pants or if “khakis” is a code word for something else.

“You hate him because he wears bad khakis?”

“It’s not the khakis; it’s what’s in the khakis.”

“What’s in the khakis is perfectly acceptable,” I say, defending poor Peter. He’s not built like Colin—all elegant angles and broad shoulders and muscles puffed up in all the right places, but he doesn’t make his living as an entertainer, either.

“Acceptable.” Colin tips his drink back. “That’s a rousing endorsement.”

“Fine. More than acceptable. He looks good naked.”

Colin arches a brow, and my cheeks go hot.

“Good enough, anyway, and it’s not like I’m some perfect specimen.” I’m beginning to ramble, proving I should ease up on the whiskey. Instead, I take another hefty drink. “And besides, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.”

Colin snorts.

“It is,” I insist. “Mostly. And, like I said before, he does have a really big brain, and I’m not just talking about his brain. And how did I end up trying to justify Peter to you, anyway, when you just said you think I should hold onto him?” I frown, my nose scrunching as I see the method in his madness. I answer my own question with a sigh. “You were testing me. To see if I’d defend him.”

Colin grins. “And you did. Which means you liiiike him,” he says in a sing-song voice that makes my lips pucker up along with my nose. He laughs. “You look like a cat that got thrown in the bathtub.”

“And you look like a man who’s getting ready to lose to me at pool.” I signal to Carl, the bartender working this side of the bar, for a refill and slide off my stool.

“It’s okay to like your boyfriend, Kirby,” Colin says, indicating that he’ll take another, too. “In fact, by the three-month point, it’s actively encouraged and, some might say, necessary to the continuation of the relationship.”

“Thank you, Dr. Colin.” I stretch one arm across my chest, limbering up because I take pool seriously.

“I just don’t want you to lose someone you care about because you’re keeping your feelings on the back burner for too long.”

I stretch my other arm and calmly reply, “And I don’t want you to get your heart ripped out of your chest again because you put your feelings on the front burner on high heat and make the entire kitchen smell like burnt scrambled eggs. But you’re a grown man, and I figure your love life is your business.”

“Scrambled eggs?” he challenges.

“Scrambled eggs,” I confirm. “Not quite as bad as burnt popcorn, but still unpleasant and definitely enough to set off a smoke alarm.”

He nods his thanks to Carl as he drops off our refills, then he holds out a hand to me. “Point taken.”

“What are we shaking on?” I ask, eyeing his fingers.

“No more giving each other love advice.”

“Unless advice is requested,” I say, not wanting to take this too far. “Occasionally, you give good feedback.”

“And occasionally you keep me from rushing in too soon, Caution. Thank you.”

I smile. “Caution and Calamity” was Lips on Fire’s third number one hit. Most people assume it’s about a pair of lovers trying to find something in between abandon and restraint, but it’s really about best friends. About us.

“At least there’s one song I won’t ever regret writing,” Colin says, tipping his outstretched hand back and forth. “So are we shaking? Or are you leaving me hanging?”

“Shaking.” I put my palm in his and watch as his hand engulfs my much smaller one. And there are flutters, but they’re ghostly now, moths banished to the back of the closet by the reminder of everything there is to lose.

The easy friendship.

The unwavering support.

The company of someone who can make me laugh so hard I almost choke on my old-fashioned’s extra cherries and have to sit down on the floor by the pool table and put my head between my knees until I recover.

Colin and I have just finished our first round of pool—I claimed victory, but he put up a decent fight—when Debbie bellows out, “Last call for alcohol!” The dozen or so people still left in the bar exchange glances with their friends or their bartender, confronting one of life’s big questions—to have or not to have one more drink.

At two a.m., one more is generally a bad idea.

At two a.m., most ideas are bad ideas because humans weren’t designed to be awake at this time of night. We’re supposed to be snuggled up in our caves, hiding from the lions and tigers and bears, waiting for daylight to banish the scary stuff to the shadows. Or at least make it easier to see and run away from.

But here we are at two a.m., and I’m not even a little bit tired.

“One more,” Colin says, sliding back onto his stool. “One more and I’ll be ready to chase you around the square with an armful of snowballs.”

“Or we could build a snowman,” I say, suddenly intensely excited by the idea in a way only someone awake at two a.m. with too much whiskey in her veins can be excited. Almost immediately, however, I see the flaw in this plan and deflate. “But we don’t have any carrots.”

“But we have bar fixings.” He signals to Carl that we’ll take one more round and leans over, examining the remaining garnishes up for grabs in the white tubs by the well liquor. “Looks like baby pickles, lemons, limes, a few cherries in a lot of juice, and one stalk of celery.”

I grin and drum my fingers together, wheels turning. “I call dibs on the celery. And the cherry juice. Let’s get them to put it in a jar for us.”

Colin chuckles. “Care to share with the class?”

“I’ll share on the way. Let’s drink fast. I’m ready to go play.”

“Sounds good,” he says, giving me an absent-minded, one-armed hug before leaning over to chat Carl up about how much it’s going to cost to get some to-go garnish in a bag and a jar of cherry juice.

But I feel that hug…everywhere. Absolutely everywhere.

I close my eyes, willing my next drink of whiskey to cool the fire, but of course, that’s not what whiskey’s good at. Whiskey’s more like gasoline than water, and I’m dancing closer to the flame with every sip.

Chapter Five

Kirby

Outside, the clouds are still shedding snow, but the wind has eased off, leaving the fat flakes to float straight down and settle gently on the drifts already forming across the square. The gazebo is dressed in icicles and fluffy white lace, the playground is made of marshmallows, and the great lawn is a pristine blank page, waiting for our story to be written across it in footsteps.

Colin and I pause at the corner where the sidewalk ends, soaking in the stillness the way we always do.

“I love snow quiet,” I whisper. “It’s so much cozier than other kinds of quiet.”

“Like silence and a hug had a baby,” Colin agrees, making me grin.

I beam up at him. “Yes. That. I love that.”

“I love that you’re holding a jar full of cherry blood,” he says, holding up his baggie full of bar garnishes and peeking inside. “So we have enough fangs, eyeballs, and noses for three vampire snow people. Four if we’re okay with giving one of them onions or something for eyes instead of cherries.”

I shake my head. “No onions. You won’t even be able to see them against the white snow. What about olives? Do we have olives?”

“We have one green olive and one black.”

“Yes. Perfect. Not as good as cherries, but still creepy.” I clap him on the shoulder. ‘That’ll do pig.”

“Charlotte’s Web?”

“Babe,” I scoff. “Clearly. Only one of the most underrated final movie lines in all of modern cinema. Makes me cry like a baby every time.”

“Aw, you’re sweet when you’re drunk.” He puts his arm around me, drawing me against his side, creating a pocket of warmth between us that I can’t help but snuggle into.

“Am not,” I insist. “He’s just a really good little pig, that’s all. And the farmer is such a gentle, quiet soul, who’s so proud of his Babe and loves him so much.”

“And then the movie ends and Babe gets turned into bacon?”

“No.” I pull away, horrified. “Of course not. He lives a long and happy life.”

Colin grins. “I was just messing with you, Larry. Distracting you before you got a full-blown case of the whiskey weeps.”

I sniff and swipe a mittened hand across my leaky eyes. “Thanks. That was a close call. So where to? By the gazebo? The playground?”

“The lawn,” he says, pointing to the swath of virgin snow. “Right out in the middle. I think that’s the creepiest choice.”

“Yeah. Oh!” I slap him on the arm as inspiration strikes. “And we can make three vampires all together and the olive-eyed human running away from them!”

“But not too far ahead, so everyone knows he’s gonna get it.” Colin lifts a hand for a high five.

I try to oblige him but miss his hand. I close one eye and try again, and then again, giggling as our sweater-covered palms finally connect. “I think I’m inebriated.”

“Me, too,” he says, laughing as we start through the snow. “It’s been a while. I’ve been so good lately. Even at the club in Prague, I stuck to sparkling water with lemon.”

I humph. “I’ve been good, too. Been on deadline. And a little sad and didn’t want to water it with whiskey,” I hear myself add before I realize the words are on their way out of my mouth. I bite my upper lip, hoping Colin didn’t hear me, but of course, he did.

“Why have you been sad?” he asks, resting a hand on top of my hat when I don’t respond. “Hello? Why were you sad, and why didn’t you call me? We have protocols.”

We do, rules of conduct to make sure neither of us ever feels too low or too alone, ways we’ve agreed to reach out so that our best friend knows we need special care. Believe it or not, famous rock stars feel alone as much, if not more, than the average human, and I…

Well, I work alone in a creaky old cottage.

Most days, I love it. But there are mornings when I wake up and realize it’s been ten days since I’ve spoken to anyone except my sister and that I haven’t washed my hair in four days and I’m still wearing yesterday’s socks and the day before yesterday’s T-shirt and get down in the dumps. On those days a chat with an old friend can mean the difference between taking a shower and going for a life-affirming walk and staying in my give-up-on-life-leggings and eating a half gallon of ice cream for dinner.

But I haven’t been feeling that bad.

I wave him off. “It wasn’t protocol-level sad. Just…restlessness, you know? Feeling like there’s something else I want to be doing, but I’m not sure what it is.” We reach the middle of the lawn, and I crouch down, patting the snow together into a baby snowball I’ll roll into a base for snowman number one.

I do the base, Colin shapes and lifts the middle ball into place, and we share head duty. This is the way we’ve always made snowmen, and we’re not about to reinvent the wheel at three in the morning after several tumblerfuls of whiskey. We fall into an easy rhythm, patting and rolling as we talk.

“Work-wise?” he asks.

“Yeah. I think so, anyway. I may want to end the Funhouse series after two more books. Write something else.”

“Are your publishers cool with that?” he asks.

I shrug and roll. “I don’t know. I figured I’d wait until I have a great idea for something new and then broach the subject. Hopefully, strong sales numbers for book seven will boost their confidence in taking something different from me.”

“But still scary, right?”

“Yes.” I pause to catch my breath as Colin drops the middle ball into place on my first base. “I don’t know how not to be scary, which is part of my other problem. With Bridget’s boyfriend.”

“I’ll kill him. Just tell me where he lives.” Colin stands up so fast, he almost falls over. “No one gets to be scary to Bridget. No one.”

I brace my hands on his back with a laugh, holding him up. “Relax, psycho. He’s not scary. Apparently, he finds me scary. I guess he didn’t like my interrogation about his intentions and future prospects at Christmas dinner.”

Colin squints and crouches to start another snowball. “But he’s taller than Bridget, right?”

It’s my turn to squint. And to ball. “Yes, but what’s that have to do with anything?”

“Well, Bridget’s four inches taller than you, and say this guy is two inches taller than her…”

“Five,” I say, pausing to think about it for a second. “He’s six feet so…yeah, he’s five inches taller.”

“Okay. So five plus four is nine. That’s practically an entire foot.”

“You’re super good at math.”

“Thank you.” He ignores my dry tone, helping me assemble soon-to-be-vampire-snowman number three and start on the smaller balls for the heads. “So he’s nine inches taller than your spooky little self, and he’s scared of you?” His grunt as he places the first head in position makes it clear what he thinks about that. But just in case there’s any lingering confusion, he adds, “He needs to nut up or shut up.”

“You’re very sizeist. Short things can be terrifying, too, you know. Just look at the Gremlins. And that evil doll from Child’s Play.”

Colin laughs. “You’re not small, green, and scaly, or a creepy red-headed doll. You’re a cute blonde who happens to get her grouchy-face on around her sister’s boyfriend. Big deal. He could have it so much worse. You could be Bridget’s giant, ham-fisted, boy-hating father.”

“And now you’re being sexist.” I smash my snow-head into place a little too hard, sending a layer of snow-body sloughing to the ground. I readjust, patting it back into place and reaching for the bag of face-fixings as I add, “Women can be as scary as men. The alien in Aliens was a woman. And a mother.”

“And a machine, right? And wasn’t there more than one? Surely not all of them were female.” Colin reaches into the bag, grabbing two cherries and two mini gherkins. “Whatever. The point is that I’m on your side, Larry. Scare the shit out of this guy. If he can’t handle tough love from his lady’s big sister, he doesn’t deserve Bridget.”

“I wasn’t even trying to be a jerk or to scare him away. I just indicated that he probably needs to do some thinking about his future.” I arrange my cherries in eye position on my snowman, curve the slightly soggy celery into a smile and stab mini gherkins in for fangs before reaching for the jar of cherry juice blood. “He’s not a teenager anymore. Life-guarding during the summers is great, but if he’s going to pull his weight around a shared household, he needs to get another job.”

Colin spins to face me, slipping in the ice beneath the protective snow coating we’ve rolled away. He catches himself right before he goes down, bending his knees and holding his arms out for balance.

“You okay there, drunky?” I ask, grinning at him as he glares at me.

“No, I’m not. He’s living with Bridget? When did this happen?”

I dribble fake blood down the front of my snowman’s face and body, pleased by the effect. “Early December. His mom kicked him out so she could turn his bedroom into a darkroom for her photography business. He had nowhere to go.”

Colin grunts. “So Bridget invited him to move in because she felt sorry for him, not because she was ready. That blood looks amazing. Save me some.”

“Thanks. Here.” I sniff as I hand over the cherry juice, swiping at my rapidly freezing nose with the back of my mitten. “Yeah, I don’t think she would have taken that step if he hadn’t been in a bind. But when I see her, she seems happy. Though, since the ‘scary’ talk I had with her man, I swear she’s been avoiding me. Like maybe she’s decided I scare her, too.”

“Stop it.” Colin’s arms are suddenly around me, pulling me into his puffy-vested, still remarkably warm chest. “Come here, crazy. Bridget loves you like a mother and a sister and a best friend and a barber, all rolled into one.”

I snuggle my cheek closer to the flannel beneath his vest. He’s just too cozy to resist. “Because a barber is a very important person in a young woman’s life.”

“For Bridget, it is. She’s gotta keep that pixie cut trimmed, yo.”

“She’s growing it out, actually. It’s almost down to her chin now.”

He sighs, pulling a sad face as he gazes down at me. “Really? I’m missing everything.”

“Not everything.” I pat his chest. “Hair isn’t a big deal. Promise.”

“But you’ll keep yours the same, right?”

“I’m too lazy to change, you know that.”

“I do,” he says, a fond gleam in his whiskey-glazed eyes. “It’s one of my favorite things about you. How you just…stay the same. No matter how long I’m away, when I come back, you’re still the same old Larry.”

He’s sincere. He means every word. He truly likes that, except for a few extra pounds here and there, and modest gains in maturity, I’m basically the same person I was when I was seventeen.

He loves that about me, in fact.

But I suddenly hate it.

I hate that I’m so rigid, so predictable, so unwilling to step outside my box or shake up my routines. But most of all, I hate that I’m so afraid to take chances, always willing to settle for good enough when perfect might be standing right in front of me, waiting for me to reach out, grab him, and kiss some sense into both of us.

I should do it.

I should kiss Colin and let the chips fall where they may. Better to try and fail than to hold back and wonder for the rest of my life what might have been if I’d only been brave enough to take a chance.

Before the rush of courage can fade away, I reach for Colin, fisting the sides of his vest and pulling him close.

Except that I pull a little too hard—drunk Kirby doesn’t know her own strength. His feet skid across the slick ice, colliding with mine, and we both go down hard, landing with twin oomphs, Colin flat on his back and me sprawled on top of him.

“Sorry,” I huff, scrambling onto all fours, only to skid again and end up back on top of him. “Shit, the ice is so slippery.”

“Here, let me.” With strong hands under my armpits, he draws me up his body until we’re face-to-face. “Hold onto my neck. I’ll roll us over into the crunchy stuff where we can get traction.”

“Okay,” I say softly, my gaze flicking from his eyes to his mouth, from his eyes to his mouth, waiting for him to start rolling.

But he doesn’t. He studies me as I study him until he finally whispers, “Kirby…” in a voice I’ve never heard from him before.

There’s a warning in it, a note of caution, but also a hint of…temptation. Like maybe he might want to kiss me, too. Like maybe the butterflies in my stomach aren’t an isolated occurrence, but part of a flock flying back and forth between us, creating wild, fluttery new possibilities.

Surely there’s no harm in one kiss. Just one, to see if it feels as good as I think it will, as good as everything else Colin and I do together feels…

I’m leaning in, my lips moving inexorably closer to his, breath coming faster and heart pounding so hard my ribs are twitching beneath my coat, when a siren bleats and a voice over a loudspeaker says, “On your feet, hands where we can see them.”

Colin’s eyes fly wide in the sudden swirl of red-and-blue police lights. “Fuck. I can’t get arrested. Our manager will kill me.” He rolls over into the crunchy snow, leaping to his feet before dragging me to mine and giving me a push up the hill, away from the cop car parked on the opposite side of the park. “Run! Fast! I’m right behind you.”

I jog up the hill, ignoring the second bleat of the siren and the voice in my head insisting that we haven’t done anything wrong and should just stay and talk it out with the police. Colin is already in front of me now, reaching back to grab my hand and drag me along behind him as he ducks under the snow-covered cedars and around the chess tables at the edge of the park.

By the time the red-and-blue lights spin to a stop behind us, Colin and I are already halfway up Pritchard street, jumping the short wooden fence surrounding the Historical Society Building and taking the shortcut through the graveyard in the back the way we used to do when we were kids.

“Mason Street or Whaler’s Avenue?” Colin whispers.

“Whaler’s. It’s one way, so the cops won’t be able to get down it without going around. I don’t think they’re following us, but just in case.”

“Agreed,” he says, taking off at a brisk walk again, still holding tight to my hand.

In ten minutes, we’re skidding up the walk to my place, stumbling into my front entry covered in snow, welcomed by the plaintive mews of Hitchcock and Poe, reminding me they haven’t been fed.

“I’ll get your food in just a second, guys,” I say, still breathing fast from the rush back to the house. I shake off my coat and hang my mittens and hat up to dry before glancing around the shadowed living room. “Where’s baby Murder?”

“Those two words don’t sound good together,” Colin says, his words ending in a sharp howl of pain and a stream of cussing as baby Murder makes his presence known.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry.” I lunge for the jet-black kitten, who has latched onto Colin’s leg and dug his teeth into his calf through his jeans. “No, Murder, bad boy! Stop that.” I try tugging him away, but he’s hooked in good and determined not to let his latest prey loose until he succumbs like all the others. “You’ve bitten off more than you can chew this time, buddy. Let go,” I tell him, gently applying pressure to the sides of his jaw with my finger and thumb until the joint relaxes enough to pop him off and pull him into my arms.

There, he snuggles against my chest and starts to purr like he hasn’t a care in the world and hasn’t just feasted upon the blood of our friend.

“That’s the new kitten, huh?” Colin studies Murder warily. “I assume he doesn’t have rabies.”

“No rabies, and he’s usually very sweet. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what got into him.”

Colin leans down, peering into Murder’s nearly-closed eyes. “A touch of Satan, perhaps?”

Murder hisses at him—full-on hisses, like he’s threatening to claw Colin’s liver out while he’s sleeping—and I gather him closer with a stern warning. “Behave. No hissing. Bad cat.”

To Colin, I say, “I apologize again. I’ll take him upstairs before I come back down to feed the other cats. If I don’t, they won’t let us sleep past six tomorrow.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know where their food is. And the sheets and pillows for the couch,” he says, collecting a purring Hitchcock, a big plush softie of a tabby who’s always loved Colin. “I’ll feed them and get myself tucked in. You go ahead to bed. You must be beat.”

“I am beat, thanks,” I say, even though I’m still wired from our adventure. But heading upstairs before this night gets any stranger, or Murder causes further bodily harm, is probably the best call. “There’s hydrogen peroxide and bandages in the cabinet by the stove, too, if you need them. So sorry again about my bad baby.”

Colin smiles. “It’s okay. It will give me something to remember you guys by when I leave for New York in a couple of days. Animal bites take forever to heal.”

I wince and say, “Sorry,” again, but he just laughs.

“It’s fine. Seriously. Sleep well, and I’ll see you at noon for lunch. We’re sleeping until noon, right? Since it’s almost four already?”

“Absolutely until noon. Maybe one. Bridget and the other guys aren’t coming over until two, so we have a little cushion.”

“Perfect.” He reaches down, waving Hitchcock’s fat white paw my way. “See you in the morning, Mom. We’ve got things under control down here.”

“Okay. See you,” I say, starting toward the stairs. I’ve just reached the first landing when Colin calls out behind me, “Love you, Larry.”

I glance back at him, standing in the shaft of light from the lamp I leave on over the stove, looking so handsome and dear and familiar that I know a part of me is always going to wonder…

To wish…

Just a little…

“You, too,” I say, my voice thicker, warmer. “Sleep well.”

“Sleep well,” he echoes as I climb the rest of the stairs and move down the hall into my bedroom, where I shut the door behind me, sealing out all the dangerous possibilities on the other side.

Chapter Six

From the texts of Kirby Lawrence

and Colin Donovan

Kirby: You still awake?

Colin: Yeah, you?

Kirby: I do a lot of things in my sleep, but text isn’t one of them.

Colin: LOL. Right. I had too much whiskey. I’m glad we didn’t get arrested.

Kirby: Me, too. Though the more I think about it, I bet the police just wanted to make sure we were both okay and not about to freeze to death in the park. Running probably wasn’t necessary.

Colin: It was totally necessary. Or at least fun. I had a good time with you tonight. Like the old days.

Kirby: Yeah… But… Was it really, though?

Colin: What do you mean?

Kirby: I wasn’t going to mention it, but I keep lying here with my heart pounding, worrying that everything’s ruined.

Colin: What are you even talking about?

Kirby: Seriously?

Colin: Seriously. It’s not your fault that your cat is a jealous hell beast who hates your best friend. But I would appreciate it if you’d keep him upstairs with you. I’m thinking about raiding your fridge, and I’d like to emerge from the experience with my Achilles tendons intact.

Kirby: Of course. He’s already tucked in and snoring. But I promise, he’s never attacked a person like that. He was probably just surprised by a stranger coming into the house so late at night. I bet he’ll be your best cuddle buddy come tomorrow morning.

Colin: Right. I plan on keeping my hands to myself. Just in case. Do you have ketchup?

Kirby: Are you in the fridge already?

Colin: Guilty. And those leftover meatballs are looking good.

Kirby: They are good. Try them with the curried ketchup. It’s in the little clear squeeze bottle in the door. Bottom shelf.

Colin: Curried ketchup? Fancy…

Kirby: Thanks. I made it myself.

Colin: Is there anything you can’t do?

Kirby: Knit. And I’ve tried to learn so many times…

Colin: Is that why you have that character who kills vampires with her knitting needles?

Kirby: Partly. And partly because wooden knitting needles are the perfect vampire-slaying weapon. Light and portable, sharp and stabby, yet innocuous enough that no one’s going to suspect until it’s too late that you’re there to jab monsters through the heart.

Colin: Like you. Underestimate them at your peril.

Kirby: Maybe. Sweet of you to say, in any case.

Colin: I am sweet. I’m also lonely, and there are so many meatballs in this container. Way too many to eat alone…

Kirby: LOL. I’ll be down in ten minutes. Put some water on to boil. I’ll make polenta to go with them.

Colin: With extra cheese?

Kirby: Is there another way to make polenta?

Colin: Not in my book. Excited to see you. I’ve missed you since you went to bed. We should watch a movie while we eat. Something old and scary, but not so scary you have nightmares.

Kirby: So you don’t have nightmares, you mean.

Colin: Ha. Guilty. Get down here.

Kirby: On my way.

Chapter Seven

Kirby

We eat our extra-feta polenta and meatballs with curried ketchup—sounds disgusting but tastes divine—wedged into the breakfast nook by the picture window, watching the snow swirl under the streetlamps outside and the occasional daring motorist skid through the four-way stop on their way home.

Or to work at the donut shop.

Or to pick up a friend stranded at the bowling alley.

“Or to meet their buddies for their weekly four a.m. poker game,” Colin says, taking the “Guess What People Are Doing” game to the silly place as he snags the last meatball.

He’s still acting like the near-kiss in the snow and his “Kirby” warning in that rough, sexy voice didn’t happen. And I’m still playing it cool as I mentally dissect the moment over and over again, wondering if he truly didn’t realize I was aiming my lips at his mouth or if he’s just determined to give me an easy out.

One way to figure it out maybe…

“Or to meet a lover for a quickie,” I say, voice as cool as the chilled seltzer water in my glass, even as my blood goes hot and sticky.

Colin hums, contemplating as he chews and swallows. “No. Not this time of night.”

“People do have sex at four a.m.,” I say because, apparently, I can’t stop playing with fire.

Colin smiles but keeps his gaze trained out the window, watching as a pickup truck slithers a snaky path through the intersection. “No, I mean four a.m. isn’t a quickie time of night. Especially in the middle of a snowstorm. If you’re risking your life to get to your lover right now, you’re going to stay for a while. Linger. Savor…”

His words send awareness prickling across my skin, lifting every little hair and tickling the butterflies awake for another dance, proving that I haven’t put them behind me, after all.

“I’m sorry I’m not Peter,” he says in a softer voice. “I know what it’s like to miss your person so much you go a little crazy wanting something to take the edge off.”

My pulse slows, and my heart skips a beat, leaving my inner world eerily silent as I cut my gaze his way. Our eyes meet and hold, and all the things we’re not going to say pass between us.

I’m so sorry I almost kissed you, I blink.

It’s not a big deal, his steady gaze promises. I get it.

But it is a big deal, I wince. You matter so much to me. I would never want something silly like this to come between us.

He takes my hand under the table, squeezing tight. It won’t. And kissing wouldn’t be silly. It could be fun. But not when you’re in a relationship, and I’m three days out of love. That’s not a good place to start a Friends–with–Bangifits situation.

I press my lips together, fighting a smile. Bangifits. I like it. And you’re absolutely right. I’ve never cheated, and I don’t want to start now. Peter’s a good guy. Pooped in his pants khakis and all.

Colin starts laughing at that exact moment, as if he really can read my thoughts.

And maybe he can.

Because when we’re done, he doesn’t push me to watch a movie. He kisses my forehead and sends me back to bed with a glass of water before retreating through the darkness to the couch.

And in the morning, things are back to normal between us.

Or almost normal.

And almost normal is good enough to carry us through three more years of devoted friendship until another concert, a shared flask, and a warm summer night work a kind of magic neither of us can resist…

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CHAPTER ONE

Colin

“So let me get this straight…” My best friend Kirby’s voice is husky and soft in the darkness beneath her back porch, where we’ve been hiding for the past thirty minutes, preparing for our favorite post-hometown concert tradition—the pranking of Shep, my drummer. “You’re swearing off sex so you can write songs.”

“Correct. Not fun, but it has to be done.”

“Does it?” She sounds bemused. “Really?”

“It does.” There’s a skittering sound on the planks overhead, and we both fall silent, but after a moment a plaintive meow? makes it clear we’re not in danger of being attacked by trash-raiding raccoons.

It’s just Murder, the evil ring leader of Kirby’s collection of misfit cats.

“I’ll be in soon, baby,” Kirby calls softly. “Go inside.”

I grunt. “He’s probably out here looking for me. Fangs bared. Ready to take his pound of flesh.”

“Probably,” Kirby agrees with a chuckle. “He hates you so much.” She nudges my shoulder with her smaller, pointier one. “But don’t take it personally. He’s just jealous that there’s another creature on earth I like nearly as much as him.”

“Nearly, huh? Thanks,” I say, a smile in my voice. But I’ve been smiling pretty much nonstop since we took the stage earlier tonight.

There’s nothing like a hometown show—the energy, the excitement, the noise, and best of all, a crowd packed with people who dreamed an impossible dream with you until the dream came true.

A lot of the greater Bangor, Maine area fans have been with us from the beginning, when Lips on Fire was just a bunch of high school kids playing all-ages venues on weekends—when Cutter wasn’t grounded for getting caught smoking pot and Shepherd didn’t have to babysit his herd of little siblings. In other words, they knew us way before our lips had ever set a girl on fire.

The people around here are more than fans. They’re family, tribe, and I refuse to let them down. The new album is going to come out on schedule, even if it means I won’t be coming.

At all.

Not a single orgasm until the songs are written, recorded, and in the bag.

Fuck…just thinking about it is enough to drive me to drink.

I take the flask from Kirby. Her skin is so white it’s easy to find her hand, even in the midnight shadows. “When was the last time you were out in the sun, Larry? You’re glowing in the dark.”

“Don’t call me that,” she says in a tone that makes it clear she still loves it when I call her that. I might only see my best girl a few times a year, but we talk on the phone almost every night. I know her better than anyone, including her snot-nosed whiner of an ex-boyfriend, Peter, who I can’t say I’m sorry is no longer in the picture.

The dude was a dud. If personalities had colors, his would be puce.

“I’ve been on deadline,” she adds with a sigh. “And the sun stifles my spooky muse.”

“Maybe you should write a children’s book, instead,” I tease.

Kirby Lawrence, KJ Lawrence to her legions of horror-loving fans, is about as child-friendly as a rusty razor blade. Sure, with her pale blond hair, bright blue eyes, and permanently pink cheeks, she looks sweet, but Kirby is a dark horse. Emancipated from her craptastic mother at seventeen and supporting herself and her little sister, Bridget, purely with her fiction skills two years later, she’s a legend around Hidden Kill Bay. If it weren’t for the phenomenon that is Lips on Fire—at last count, we’ve sold eight million records worldwide—she’d be our Bangor suburb’s most famous export.

But Kirby doesn’t care about fame. She plies her trade for the sick and twisted thrill of scaring people to death and the cash to support her cat adoption habit. At last count, she had four of her own and was footing the vet bills for at least a dozen other local felines.

I used to tease her about having Early Onset Cat Lady disease, but then she went down to the DMV and got a tragically dorky vanity plate that reads MeowUDoin, and I stopped. I didn’t know what she’d do if I continued to yank her chain. She threatened to have whiskers tattooed on her cheeks, and even though I was 95 percent sure she was kidding, I wasn’t willing to risk that 5 percent.

Kirby’s too cute to go full-on weirdo just yet. We have to get her hooked up with a non-snot-nosed dude who will worship at her love altar, first. She can be a prickly pear sometimes, but beneath her Wednesday Adams demeanor beats the heart of a sweet lady any dude would be lucky to call his own.

“And maybe you should pass the flask before you break the two-sip rule,” she says, invoking one of our many adolescent rules of honor. Never hang on to the flask for more than ten minutes, and never, ever take more than one sip at a time. “And maybe you can explain to me why you can’t bang and write at the same time?”

“I’m a man. I’m bad at multitasking.” I pass the flask, adding in my 70s porn star voice, “And when I’m focused on my lady, that’s all that’s on my mind, baby.”

Kirby snorts. “So focus on your lady for two minutes, or however long it takes rock stars these days, and then get back to writing songs. I’m pretty sure that still leaves several hours of your day free.”

“You wound me, Larry. I’m a ten-minute man. Sometimes twelve, if I’ve eaten my Wheaties and think of my grandmother’s underwear.”

She snorts again, and I feel unreasonably proud of myself for making her laugh twice. Kirby isn’t an easy mark. Either I’m getting funnier, or the whiskey is starting to make her feel as fuzzy around the edges as it’s made me, a fact for which I’m grateful.

Having a killer case of writer’s block is less scary after the buzz sets in.

Though, pretty soon, that’s going on the shelf, too—no alcohol, no sex, no nothing that might mute the muse.

“But seriously,” I add in a softer voice. Kirby had her place reinsulated last year, but it’s still an old cottage with thin walls, and I don’t want any of my bandmates knowing how far behind I am. “I’ve got to do something. We’re going into the studio in August to record, and I’ve got one song, dude. One. After a hundred hours in the writing cave.”

“Fuck,” she says, clearly feeling my pain. But she would. As a fellow career creative, she knows all about the strain of making art on demand.

“Yes. That. So I’m going to quit fucking before I’m any more fucked.”

“You seriously think it will help?” She shifts my way, passing over the flask. “I thought only meathead jocks believed their power seeped out of them with their seed. Remember when Coach Brewer made the wrestling team stop jerking off senior year, and they all kept getting hard-ons during the meets?”

“I do remember,” I say with a laugh-shudder. “It’s not like that for me. It’s just…” I shrug. “My best songwriting years were before we blew up, back when I was a kid right out of high school, writing songs and dreaming of a day when getting laid would be something that happened to me more than once or twice a year.”

It’s her turn to shudder. “Sounds torturous.”

“It was pretty miserable,” I agree, “but great for the creative muscles. Yes, I’ve written good songs since then, but never so quickly or with such consistent quality. You know?”

Kirby hums beneath her breath. “Okay. I can see your point. But what if it was a timing thing? I mean, maybe back then you were just full of that early fire. I used to write a lot faster, too. Five thousand-word days used to happen all the time. Now I get two thousand, and I treat myself to ice cream.”

I take a long swig of whiskey, chest burning as I swallow. “You could have a point. But I prefer to believe that I’ve been distracted and can course correct, not that I’m washed up at twenty-nine.”

“Aw, there, there.” Kirby’s hand lands on my shoulder for a series of awkward pats. “Don’t have a quarter-life crisis. It’s going to be okay.”

“You’re such a dude,” I say with a laugh.

“I’m not a dude.” She sniffs. “I’m just bad at offering meaningless words of comfort. I’m better at action. What can I do to help? You want to stay here and write for a while, now that the tour is over? The Garret room over at the bed and breakfast is empty until August, when it goes on the rental calendar again. It’s hot as balls up there on sunny days, but it’s quiet.”

“You’re really going to rent it out?” I say, surprised. “I thought you loved being the mad woman at work in the attic.”

“I did, but it’s time for a change of scenery.” She looks at the weathered boards above us. “I’m thinking of selling this place, too.”

“What? Why?” Kirby bought this cottage just off the square with her first big royalty check. It’s been a fixture in our lives since we were barely old enough to buy liquor to fill up our flask.

She’s silent for a moment before she adds in a voice almost too soft to hear, “Peter is all over the place here.”

I turn to her, squinting in the shadows, but it’s too dark to know if she’s wearing a “let’s talk” expression or her “mention feelings and I’ll cut you” face. But any mention of her ex is rare enough that I can’t let it slide. “So how’s that going? The getting-over-Peter project?”

“Shitty.” She reaches over, her cool fingers brushing mine as she takes the flask. “I mean, ending it was absolutely the right thing to do. If he hadn’t, I would have, but…I don’t know. He was my longest relationship, the guy who knew me best in the whole world. And then he decided I was too much of a pain in the ass to stay in love with and left. It just…sucks.”

“He was the pain in the ass. He was clearly threatened by your confidence and success. And that was his problem, not yours. You’re a kick-ass lady, and that’s a scientific fact.”

“I don’t think that was his problem. I think it was…other stuff,” she says vaguely. “But thank you.”

“No thanks needed. Facts are facts.”

She hums, a little too dubiously. But before I can insist she own her awesome, she says, “I’ve dated a few guys since it ended, but nothing serious, and none of them got further than a goodnight kiss. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get into anyone around here.”

Now I’m grateful for the darkness hiding my shock. “Wow. So you mean…”

“I haven’t had sex in nine months.”

“Damn,” I mutter. “And you’re still alive?”

Kirby and I have only ever been friends—she’s been in a relationship with one tragically pale douchebag or another since we met in our freshman year of high school—but we’re close friends. We talk about everything, including our healthy sex drives, the ones that can apparently be overwhelming and/or irritating to people who don’t enjoy banging as much as we do.

I’m dreading the month of celibacy it will take to get these songs written like a prison sentence. But a year of genital isolation?

The thought alone makes my cock play the world’s tiniest violin.

“Yeah, I’m still alive,” Kirby says, taking a swig and swiping her hand across her lips. “But just barely.”

“Is it because you’re still hung up on Peter?” I ask, trying to keep my distaste for Mr. Puce from my voice.

“No. I’m over him, I really am,” she says. “It’s more that I feel lost, unsure what comes next. I just know I don’t want to settle for meh, and meh is all that’s left around here. All the good guys are already coupled up and starting to make babies. I have to flip the script, find a new dating pool before my vagina shrivels up and blows away.”

I shudder. “Yeah, don’t let that happen. Twenty-nine’s way too young to lose your vagina. So where are you moving?”

“I don’t know. But somewhere. Soon. I’m taking a week off to binge watch all the TV I missed while I was on deadline and debate the options. Then I’m going.”

“I’m taking a week off, too,” I say. “But I was thinking of heading somewhere less family friendly. Like Atlantic City.”

Kirby makes a gagging sound.

“I know, I know.” I laugh. “But I can’t go to Vegas unsupervised. You-know-who lives there, and you know what happened the last time.”

“How could I forget?” she huffs. “I can’t believe you married She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Thank God for annulments.”

“Amen,” I agree soberly. “And thank God for friends who mock your evil exes in their books.”

“Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental,” Kirby says, but there’s a grin in her voice. “But you’re welcome. Some people deserve to be turned into evil vampire clowns. And the answer is yes, by the way.”

“The answer to what?” I pause with the flask an inch from my lips, wondering if I’m drunker than I think I am, ’cause I don’t remember asking a question.

“Yes, I will go to Vegas with you.” Her face is illuminated in the glow of her cell as she taps at the screen. “I’ll message my assistant in California. She’ll still be awake, and she’ll get us a hotel and two tickets on an affordable flight.”

If this were anyone but Kirby, I’d ask if she was joking, but I know her better than that. Kirby is never spontaneous. Until she is, and then, watch out, because she’s the kind of crazy that will lead to just about anything.

It’s one of the reasons I love her so damned much.

On impulse, I lean in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Tell her first class all the way. I’m paying.”

Kirby’s lips quirk as her eyes dart back and forth between the phone and me, making it clear I threw her with the kiss. “Shut up. You are not. We’ll share, and we’ll go coach. Only assholes fly first class.”

“Well, I’m an asshole, and I can’t fly coach without getting mobbed by fans,” I say, kissing her cheek again, just for the fun of seeing her flustered. “First class.”

“Coach. You can wear a hat. And stop kissing me, weirdo.”

“Why? Because you like it so much?” I tease, squeezing her thigh above the knee where her skirt ends, making her twitch and slap my fingers away with one hand as she hits send on her text with the other.

“Yes, you ass-wipe. I haven’t been touched below the neck in nine months. My skin is starving. If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me want things I shouldn’t.”

The confession hits me and—zot!—I’m ice. I’m locked in carbonite. I’m thinking I’ll spend my days as a gobsmacked objet d’art, when Kirby laughs and says, “Gotcha.”

I suck in a breath and choke on whiskey fumes. “Shit, you had me. I thought you were serious.”

“Of course not,” she says, shutting off her phone and sticking it in her jacket pocket. “But now that I think about it…”

I narrow my eyes her way, heart zooming again, wishing she hadn’t plunged us back into the dark. I can almost always get a read on Kirby’s face, but without the visual clues, her dry delivery fools me every time. “But now that you think about what? Don’t fuck with me again, Larry. I’m drunk. And fragile.”

She hesitates. “Fragile in what sense?”

“Um, in the writer’s block sense? I’ve got an entire album’s worth of songs due in a month? I only have one written. Any of this ringing a bell?”

“Of course it is. But you’re not hung up on a girl right now, right?” she asks. “There’s nothing romantic going on in your life?”

“Hell, no. I mean, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is still cyberstalking me, even though it’s been four months since we accidentally had sex again.”

“I still can’t believe you did that. You were doing so well, and then you had to go and fall off the wagon, dick first.”

“Well, that’s why it’s called accidental sex, Kirbs. Because it’s accidental,” I say, bristling even though I know she’s right. “So that’s a shit show. And then Kayla is writing a tell-all book about last summer in Barcelona, and Rhiannon texts me constantly. But I can’t block her because she’s threatened to set fire to the vintage Red Sox jersey I left at her place, so I have to play nice until I get it back.” I sigh. “Yeah. So romance is pretty dead to me.”

“Poor lamb.”

“I am a poor lamb.” I drag a hand through my too-shaggy-even-for-a-rock-star hair. “Feel sorry for me and make it easy for me to understand you.” I cast a pointed glance up at the porch. “Where the fuck is Shep, anyway? He always calls his mom at midnight. Do you think he went out front instead?”

“No, he’ll come out here. It’s too loud by the road. And it’s still a few minutes until midnight, which gives us just enough time to figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“Figure out if we’re going to Vegas as friends or…kissing friends.”

Before I can call her bluff and remind her that a double “gotcha” is as off-limits as a double sip, her lips are on mine, soft, cool, and tasting of smoky-sweet whiskey. And for a moment, there’s nothing but shock—sharp and head-clearing—and then electricity floods through me, lighting me up like the spots that drenched the stage tonight.

Damn, my girl’s a good kisser.

A phenomenal kisser—assured, skilled, and a little dirty, like she’s fucking my mouth with her tongue, giving me a taste of what it would be like to be inside her.

It’s exactly the kind of kissing I like. And then some.

“You’re delicious,” she whispers against my lips, making me even hotter, harder.

Shit. I’ve got a hard-on for Kirby, and though it isn’t the first time—she’s sexy as hell, and I’ve known her since I was too young to have much control over what got me hard—it’s still a tricky situation. But she’s the one who wanted to add kissing into the mix, and—fuck it—I want her on me. Now.

“Closer,” I growl as I reach for her. “I want you closer.”

“Yes,” she agrees, breath hot on my lips. And then she’s straddling me, and my hands are smoothing up her soft thighs beneath her skirt, and I know it should feel weird—this is Kirby, for God’s sake—but it doesn’t. It feels hot and good.

And…safe.

I know Kirby. I trust Kirby. She’s not going to go crazy or clingy on me, and she’d never let something as trivial as seeing each other naked get in the way of our friendship.

We are forever. Rock solid.

So when she says, “I vote kissing friends,” I answer, “Hell, yes, woman. I’m going to break your dry spell like spring on the Serengeti.”

She laughs, kissing me harder as she says, “You’ll taste the rains down in Africa?”

“Oh, I will definitely taste the rains, Larry. Just let me at ’em.”

Kirby giggles—actually giggles, like a normal girl—before covering my mouth with her hand and announcing in a too-loud whisper, “Shh, I think someone’s on the porch.”

“Someone is definitely on the porch,” Shep’s deep voice rumbles from overhead. “And someone isn’t stupid enough to get pranked by you two assholes again. Come inside and quit being weird. Bridget’s making crab dip.”

“Oooo, crab dip. I love crab dip,” Kirby says as the door closes overhead, signaling Shep has left the building. Or returned to the building, rather.

I am definitely drunk, but not too drunk to make decisions, and I know better than to question Kirby’s judgment while she’s inebriated. The last time I did that, she challenged me to a field sobriety test, which she passed with flying colors while I couldn’t find my nose with my finger with my eyes closed.

“Should we eat crab dip and then pack?” she asks. “Or pack and then crab dip?”

I start to speak, but the sound is muffled. Kirby pulls her hands away with another giggle.

“I’d rather eat your pussy, please,” I say. “Then pack. Crab dip optional.”

She covers my mouth again with a scandalized gasp. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I don’t like crab dip,” I mumble into her cold little hands, loving that she’s still straddling me, rocking her hips against mine in an absent-minded way that gives me a clue how desperate she is to scratch that itch.

And I am getting equally desperate to oblige her.

“No, I mean the pussy talk,” she whispers. “You just jumped straight to it. No warning, no verbal foreplay of any kind.”

“So you want me to tell you how I’m going to lick your tits first? Bite your nipples and—”

Giggling harder, she orders, “Stop. Save it for Vegas, dude. And for real, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. We don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Not even Shep and Bridget. This is our secret.”

I hold up a hand in a solemn swear before circling her wrists and drawing her fingers away from my face. “Deal. But just so you know, what happens on my tongue also stays on my tongue. I don’t eat pussy and tell. You can trust me, Larry. And I seriously don’t know if I can wait for Vegas, I am so fucking turned on right now.”

“Yeah,” she whispers, rough and sexy. “I can tell.” And then she rocks her hips, slowly, deliberately against my cock and says, “Hmmm…yes. That’ll do, pig.”

“Babe?” I ask with a disgusted shake of my head. “Seriously? You’re on my cock, and you’re quoting Babe?” She giggle-snorts in response, making me laugh as I slap her ass and say, “Get drunk; you’re home, Larry.”

“I am not. I am of sound body and mind, and I know what I want.” She rolls off me onto the hard-packed earth beneath the porch. “Crab dip. Cat carrier. Suitcase. That order.”

“Cat carrier?”

“Murder’s coming, too.”

My lips part to argue that we do not need a villainous overlord of a cat on our fuck-buddy safari, but Kirby cuts me off with a snap of her fingers and a firm, “Not up for debate. Let’s move, Donovan. Move, move, move like you’ve never moved before!”

“I’m going to move you like you’ve never been moved before,” I grumble under my breath, standing to follow her out from under the steps.

“Oh, I hope so, Col,” she says with a happy sigh. “I really do.”

“Me, too,” I agree, a smile stretching wide across my face.

Damn, this is going to be fun—the perfect way to get the last of the fucking out of my system before I straighten up, fly right, and crank out a bunch of beautiful music.

But until then, Kirby and I are going to have a fucking blast.

Literally.

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About the Author

Author of over forty novels, USA Today Bestseller Lili Valente writes everything from steamy suspense to laugh-out-loud romantic comedies. A die-hard romantic and optimist at heart, she can’t resist a story where love wins big. Because love should always win.

When she’s not writing, Lili enjoys adventuring with her two sons, climbing on rocks, swimming too far from shore, and asking “why” an incorrigible number of times per day. A former yoga teacher, actor, and dancer, she is also very bendy and good at pretending innocence when caught investigating off-limits places.

You can currently find Lili in the mid-South, valiantly trying to resist the lure of all the places left to explore.

Find Lili at www.lilivalente.com

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