“They’d make a good song. Emotional.”
“Meh.”
I study his face, trying to work out if his indifference is genuine or forced, but I have no idea.
He takes the seat next to me on the couch. “Just because I have these thoughts, it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean I’m pining for him. It doesn’t mean I don’t have real feelings for you or that I’m using you. It’s just a song.”
Hearing those words makes doubts about us even stronger in a way. Jet’s music—his songs—is what brought us together the first time. He has publicly mapped out our past through his words, and it hurts, but it ties us to each other.
“Are the songs you wrote about me ‘just’ songs too?”
“Well, no, but both those songs went multi-platinum.” Jet smirks. When I don’t return it, his face drops. “Do you really want your songs to mean more? Pretty sure we wouldn’t be sittin’ here if I held on to those lyrics. Songs are emotions felt in a passing moment in time. Some mean more than others. I love my songs about you, but if I were to dwell on why I wrote them, I guarantee I wouldn’t want to do this.”
His arms wrap around me, he moves closer, and his mouth meets mine. Jet kisses me soft and meaningfully, and it’s easy to forget Harley even exists in the same universe when his lips are on mine.
But doubt still lingers.
Jet must sense it because he breaks the kiss. “Think of it this way. The song you loved so much? That was about Matt and Noah. I wrote it when they were going through some stuff. They didn’t think they’d survive it, but they ultimately did. That had nothing to do with me or where I was emotionally during that stage of my life. These words”—he picks up the book—“I wrote this while watching Harley propose to someone who wasn’t me. It took me to all those months of being lonely on tour, of being used by band managers and groupies. Then when I found someone who made it not so lonely, the label took him away from me. It has nothing to do with how I feel about him now. Twelve hours later, I couldn’t care less about Harley getting married because after this tour, I won’t have anything to do with him. That’s my choice.”
I get it, I do. It makes sense. It still makes me uneasy though.
“Are we cool?” Jet asks.
“Yeah,” I lie. “Thank you for explaining it to me.” I pull Jet close and move in to kiss him again, but he holds off.
“Glad we settled that, but we don’t have time for this.”
“Why don’t we have time? I thought we had this morning off?”
“We do, but I spoke to Luce, and I did something.”
My eyes narrow.
“I know the tour is insane and always on the go and people are always barging in or dragging me to interviews and we haven’t had a lot of actual time alone other than in bed.”
“Definitely not complaining about the bed part.” I move in to kiss him again, but he pulls back.
“Get dressed. We’re going out.”
“In public? Where we’ll be mauled by paparazzi and fans?”
“Just get dressed. Trust me.” The mischievous gleam in Jet’s eye shouldn’t make me nervous but it does.
I get changed quickly, and we head down to the chauffeured car that has been shuttling us from the hotel to interviews to concert venues and back.
Paparazzi are camped outside the hotel, but we’re both decked out in hats and sunglasses. This has been our life since arriving back State-side.
We rush to the car to give them as few photos as possible, and then we’re off to God knows where to do God knows what, but Jet looks excited about it.
I want to bug him for more information, but I get the feeling his excitement comes from surprising me rather than where we’re going.
We leave the city and not long after pull into a practically abandoned parking lot leading to a nondescript building.
“You’re abandoning me here and making me find my own way to the airport?”
“No, but that’s a great idea for the next leg of the tour. Come on.”
I follow Jet to the entry, and he looks so damn proud.
“Last night you complained that people keep interrupting us and we don’t have real alone time. So …” He opens the door, and I see it in big block letters behind a reception desk.
ESCAPE ROOM.
“So, we’re going to be locked in a room for two hours. No interruptions.” He bounces on the balls of his feet.
I’m stunned and a little taken aback. “I can’t believe you came up with this.”
“Is that a dig at my intelligence? I’d argue with you, but I have no doubt that we’re going to need the full two hours to get out of here if I have to use my brain.”