My mind might have needed space, but my body craved the opposite, subconsciously inching into him as he slid in right behind me. His warm, damp body was hot as it pressed into my back. I scrunched into the fetal position, aligning perfectly with him as he bear-hugged his arms around me.
“I know there’s something bothering you. I won’t push you to tell me, but whatever it is, I’m here to listen when you’re ready to share,” he whispered, his lips feather-like against my ear before he put a soft kiss on the side of my temple. “Good night, Scarlett.”
Good night, I mouthed, audible to no one but myself.
Chapter Thirty
The buzz of my phone on the nightstand rattled me awake.
Groggy and dazed, I flipped it over.
The number twenty-seven next to Maggie’s name forced me up.
“What the fuck?” I whispered.
A slew of other notifications decorated the screen, but I ignored those, scrambling to open Maggie’s texts.
Maggie:
Scarlett Carson. Call me immediately.
Maggie:
Seriously. Call me.
Maggie:
If I don’t hear from you soon, I’m getting my ass in my car and driving to Nashville.
I didn’t finish reading her texts. Instead, I peered to the other side of the bed where Stetson lay peacefully sleeping, one arm rested above his head, the other reached out toward me. I snuck out of the bed and into the living room before dialing her number.
“What in god’s name is going on? Are you okay?” I asked, hearing the phone click on the other end.
“Me!” she shouted, forcing me to pull the phone away from my ear and ultimately putting her on speaker at a low volume. I didn’t want to wake Stetson, and I surely didn’t need him hearing whatever crazy shit Maggie was about to share. “Did you not see my text?” she asked, her voice breathy.
“Which one? You only sent about a hundred of them.”
“Okay, so that’s a no. Go look at the article I sent you.”
“Article?”
My fingers shuffled across my screen until I saw the link she’d sent.
STETSON WALKER HAS A NEW LEADING LADY AND SHE HAS SECRETS
Everything blurred.
I blinked, trying to force the words staring back at me to change, to morph into something else. The sinking feeling made me sure that I was going to fall straight through the floor.
My fingers were shaky as they scrolled. Right under the obnoxiously large text was a photo of me backstage, hidden—although not enough—behind a curtain and another one of us kissing after the show.
I wasn’t trying to hide, but I also wasn’t trying to be seen.
What the fuck.
“Maggie…” My voice trailed off as I started to read the venom-laced words.
“Have you read it?”
