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“I don’t know what you’re worried about. I’m fine, living and breathing.”

“I know you’re alive. That isn’t the same thing. We need real samples, so I’ve been sent to recover whatever you’re hiding over there. We’ll sort through your tracks, build three demos and then celebrate at a sorority house.”

“There will be no sorority house.”

“A small one?”

I ignore him. “So we’re gonna work together?”

“Yup. Music first. Threesome second.” He lets out a loud woo in the middle of the airport.

I snort.

“Worth it. College!”

I drag a hand down my face.

The problem isn’t that I don’t want to see him. I do.

I’ve just spent five months keeping the boys at a distance because facing them before I’ve made good on my promise feels too much like arriving empty-handed.

“Anyway, I’m at the gate. We board in twenty minutes. Danny wants three demos by April, and I’m not writing them without you.” His voice loses some of its bullshit.

Danny wants material. He’s pushing the others now too, trying to restart everything.

The pressure tightens in my chest.

“Fine. Send me your flight details.”

“That’s the spirit! See ya soon!”

He hangs up.

I immediately clear the broken chair out of the second bedroom and head out to pick up an air mattress. When I’m back, I make a list of the tracks I’m willing to let him hear.

The bastard is coming to town.

I’m grinning like one too.

* * *

Luca has been in Mountain Springs for four hours and has already caused three separate problems.

The first: He arrived and immediately posted a photo of the arrivals board with the caption ‘guess who’s gone to the mountains’ to four hundred thousand people, which means that by the time I picked him up, there were already a dozen girls filming us from behind a Starbucks.

The second: During the drive home, he attempted to extract the entire Bea situation from me. He got her name, the tutoring arrangement, and the fact that I spent the night at her house.

The third: He has texted my brother and invited him to hang.

“How do you even have Drew’s number?” I demand.

Luca looks up from his phone. “We play online games together.”

“Since when?”

“October.”

“You’ve been secretly gaming with my little brother for five months?”