“No one warned you? I’m sorry, Solène.”
There was something about the way he kept saying my name: raspy voice, unwavering gaze, the roll of his tongue. It felt… intimate.
“I was warned, just not enough, clearly. Your fans are—”
“Excitable.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
He laughed, tossing back his head. He had a beautiful jawline. “They’re a wild bunch. Next time we’ll get you headphones.”
“Next time?”
“There’s always a next time.” He said it with a straight face, but there was something there that gave me pause.
“How old are you, Hayes?”
“Twenty.”
“Twenty,” I repeated, and then downed the rest of my champagne. One gulp. Well, at least that was better than nineteen.
“Twenty.” He bit down on his bottom lip and smiled.
Right then would have been a good time to excuse myself. Collect the girls and call it a night. But I could see the expressions on their faces from across the room. Simon was patting Georgia’s hair again, and Liam was showing off his breakdancing moves, and the euphoria was palpable. We’d been there less than an hour. Pulling them now would be cruel.
“You’re thinking about leaving, aren’t you?” Hayes’s voice drew me back in. “Please don’t. I’m going to get you another drink.”
“No, I’m good, thank you.”
“Rubbish. It’s Vegas.” He winked before taking the empty flute from my hand and heading over to the makeshift bar.
There hadn’t been many since Daniel: a series of dates with one of the dads from Isabelle’s fencing team and a two-month dalliance with the TV writer from my spin class. Neither had been consummated. Once they’d threatened to go beyond casual flirtation, I’d closed up. I’d shut down. And while three years of accidental celibacy had been oftentimes miserable, I was not going to jump into bed with a rock star barely half my age because he’d winked at me at an after-party. I was not going to be a cliché.
Before I could fully plot my exit, Hayes returned with another glass of bubbly and a bottle of water for himself. His hair had dried into an enviable mop of silken curls. There were blogs dedicated to Hayes’s hair—this I would learn later—but there in the belly of the Mandalay Bay, I resisted the urge to touch it.
“So, Solène, what is it that you do when you’re not attending August Moon concerts?”
“You are amusing, Hayes Campbell.”
“Ha. You know my last name…”
“Yes, because I live with a twelve-year-old girl.”
“But not your ex-husband?”
“Not my ex-husband, no,” I laughed. “I could be your mother, you know.”
“But you’re not.”
“But I could be.”
“But you’re not.” He held my gaze, smiling his half smile.
I felt it then, that little flip-flop in the pit of my stomach that told me that whatever this twenty-year-old was doing, it was working.
“Are you going to give me that glass? Or did you just bring it over here to tease me?”
“To tease you,” he laughed, and took a sip of my champagne before handing it over. “Cheers.”
