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“And I just fired my stylist.”
She laughed. “I remember you wore this black Sub Pop hoodie that was a little faded and frayed at the cuffs.”
Taking her hand, flattening it over his heart so she could feel it thump under her fingertips, he said, “That’s my lucky hoodie.”
Of course he had a lucky hoodie. Of course her brain immediately wondered what it might feel like to wear it, sleep in it.
“But how did it happen?” he asked, the song carrying them into a slow-motion sway. “How did we meet? Specifics are important with this kind of subterfuge.”
“Specifics,” she repeated, traveling back in time to that day in January, feeling the cold biting at her cheeks, the excitement prickling her skin because nothing as huge as that concert had ever happened in her tiny town before. “Maybe I’d been dancing in the crowd all day, but when the Makers started playing, I decided to move closer to the stage. Maybe”—she stared at her hand under his—“I thought their drummer was cute.”
When she looked up again, his eyes glinted in the darkness. “Maybe,” he said, “I saw you while I was twirling my stick.”
She grinned. “Is that a euphemism?”
He didn’t answer. “Maybe you smiled at me, like you’re smiling at me now, and I thought,Who is that gorgeous woman? I’m not leaving this mountain until I meet her.”
Heat bloomed over her cheeks. “Maybe, after the show was over, you climbed off stage and followed me into the warming hut.”
His thumb slid under the hem of her top, just barely, probably by accident. “You looked cold, so I shamelessly used my fame to cut in line and bring you a cup of hot cider.”
“I was so nervous meeting you my hands were shaking,” she said, a little shocked they weren’t shaking now.
“I told you I loved the way you shaved your hair. I said it reminded me of Cindy Lauper in the ‘Time After Time’ video.”
The memory didn’t exist, it had never happened, but somehow it was one of her favorites. “I told you I loved your hoodie.”
“We talked until the sun set, about our lives and our families and music.”
“We told each other our heart songs.”
His fingers curled into her hip, drawing her closer. “And we felt an instant, undeniable…”
“Spark,” she heard herself say, so completely lost in his eyes she’d need a map to get out.
“Later that night, under the stars, I kissed you.” After a moment, while an entire lifetime of what-ifs unspooled before her, he said, “But the next day, I had to go back to Seattle.”
“And I had to go back to my life.”
“Once I got home, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. So maybe I found you on social media. At first, I only stalked your account like a creep. But one day, you posted a picture of these red velvet cupcakes with vampire teeth icing and the caption ‘the Dracula: Red and Loving It special—’”
She’d actually done that, just last week. He had been on her Insta.
“—and it was so clever, and the cupcakes looked so good, that I couldn’t resist. I liked the post.”
“Maybe I squealed so loud when I saw it, I scared Ian.”
His soft chuckle swirled around her like smoke. “Then maybe I saidfuck itand followed you.”
“And maybe I followed you back so fast I sprained a finger.”
“Maybe we started DMing.” The way he looked at her was so intense a herd of elephants could have marched into the bar to eat the peanuts in the barrel by the door and he wouldn’t have noticed until he saw their reflection in her eyes. “Then you gave me your number, and we started texting.”
“Maybe, after a while,” she said, “I finally worked up the courage to call you.”
“Then I got brave enough to FaceTime you.”
“And I got brave enough to answer.”
