Page 85 of Rebooting Conor Flynn

“How long?” I grabbed her fingers on my arm.

She tilted her head. “How long what?”

“How long did you wait for me? How long before you gave up on me?”

“Forever. And I don’t think I ever gave up on you, Con.” She pulled her hand out of mine and pressed it against her chest. “In here, I always loved you. I even stopped hating you for leaving me when I saw how high Five2Go soared. I wanted you guys to succeed more than I wanted it for myself.”

“That’s your problem, Nollaig. You’re too sweet for this business.” I leaned over and kissed her trembling lips. They tasted as fresh as they did that first time on our original tour bus. Now we’d claimed a second tour bus as our own.

She cupped my chin with her hand. “Can I see your tattoo again?”

“You’re just trying to get me out of my pants.” I captured her hand and nibbled on her fingertips.

“It would be...original to do it somewhere other than a bus.” She fluttered her lashes at me.

“What happened to hands off the talent until we can resolve our PR issue.”

Turning her head to peer back into the room, she said, “Do you see any phones or fans?”

“We both know it wasn’t a fan who took that picture of us coming off the bus, kissing.”

“We don’t, actually. There were other people in that hotel. Maybe someone discovered the tour bus back there and wanted to take a look.”

“Could be.” I stood up on the balcony and stretched. “Let’s see what it’s like in a bed.”

She scrambled to her feet so fast, she knocked over her chair. Putting her hand to her mouth, she said, “Sorry.”

“Sorry for being excited to fuck me?” I cinched her around the waist. “I don’t think so.”

“Wait. Let me grab my phone in case there’s some freak desert rainstorm.” She swept her phone from the table and did a little hop. “Louise answered already. I guess it’s not too late for her in England.”

I looked over her shoulder and read, “There’s no way old numbers got changed from the TRANSFER.”

The phone trembled along with Noelle’s hand. “Why’d she capitalize transfer?”

“I think we both know why. It’s because the number got changed after the transfer.” I tapped the phone with an impatient finger. “Ask her if she changed numbers after the data transfer.”

“Th-that would be like accusing her of wrong-doing. I can’t do that.”

“I can.” I snatched the phone from Noelle’s hand and entered a question of my own. I read it to Noelle before I hit Send. “Did you change any numbers after the transfer of phones in Australia?”

Noelle nodded, and I sent the message.

We walked toward the bed and perched on the edge, staring at her phone together, all thoughts of shagging out the door—or at least one foot out the door.

No bubbles on DMs, so we had no idea if Louise was answering or had chucked her phone across the room.

Finally, a message appeared:

I did

Noelle’s fingers seemed frozen, so I typed the question on both our minds:

Did you change mine?

We held our breaths, barely moving. Then Louise’s answer appeared:

I did