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Tali
I’m still annoyed with you.
Jin:Still?
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Me:You can’t send me a picture of Rebecca playing guitar in her pull-up and expect me to automatically be your friend again. That’s not fair!
Jin:No one can resist the power of Rebecca. I’ll put her on the phone with you and watch you try.
Jin:Is it really that bad? I’m sure you’re both busy all the time…
Me:We are, yet somehow I see him 500 times a day. And he gives me crazy intense eyes. I’m not twenty anymore! I don’t trip over my own two feet for shit like that.
Jin:Then it seems you have nothing to worry about.
Me:I’m not worried. Annoyed, with both of you. Mostly him for taking up any space in my head.
Jin:I think we both know he’s had prime real estate up in that joint for a long, long time.
Me:It’s not easy to forget an ex who’s famous. Try it one day.
Jin:Not sure Erin would be pleased with that experiment.
Me:All right. I have to get my act together and go to this dinner with the band. Is everything good there?
Jin:Everything’s great, Tali-bear. Call me when you get a chance, okay? Kayla has some important questions to ask about Nick Fletcher.
Me:LOL. Oh lord. Tell her to just say no to musicians!
Jin:I’m offended.
Me:Clearly you’re the exception. Talk soon.
Jin:Take care and be kind to yourself.
I setdown my phone and checked myself out in the hotel bathroom mirror. I’d only left my apartment in New York a week ago, so I was relatively fresh faced. Normally, by the end of tours, I looked like I’d been ridden hard and put away wet. But I hadn’t had to yell at anyone yet, and I’d only slept on the tour bus for two nights so far, so I felt pretty good.
Talking to Jin seemed to have that effect on me too. His steady friendship had come out of left field. At first, I was wary, sensing Jude behind our every conversation. But Jin had made it clear from the get-go whatever was said between usstayedbetween us.
And once I’d let my guard down, it turned out I liked him. After he left Never Again, I liked him even more. We weren’t close like I was with Nina or Tino, but it was rare a week went by without one of us texting the other.
Of course, he’d conveniently failed to mention Jude would be on my tour, so I wasn’t sure how much I liked him anymore.
Jude.He was everywhere. Passing me in dark hallways, coming out of doors I was heading through, talking to my band when I needed to talk to them. I kept my eyes and my reactions from him. He’d lost the privilege of gettinganythingfrom me when he chose a high over us.
It shouldn’t have surprised me to find him sitting comfortably at one of the tables in the private room of the restaurant where we were having our family dinner, but it did. Seeing him still caused my breath to lodge in my throat and my heart to hammer in my chest. I was brought right back to the last time we were together.
Michaela was on one side of him, Hector on the other, the three of them chatting like old friends. My entrance caught Michaela’s eye, and she waved me over.
There was no way I could easily get out of this, so I made my way toward them.
“Hey. Funny seeing you here.” I was left to take the seat directly across from Jude.
Michaela winked—as was her habit—and she managed to look cute while doing it. “Hey, girl. Have a good day off?”
I gave her a puzzled frown. “What is this ‘day off’ you speak of? Is that a foreign language?”
