Also, avoid any attention directed her way. Any time we went out, she stepped back in the shadows, keeping a healthy distance in case any photos were taken. Or she didn’t go out with us at all. Especially since her Instagram started blowing up even more than usual. She’d been posting intermittent photos of her working on lyrics with a stage in the background, hinting at more than just hiking adventures but never outright showing anyone’s faces.
I kind of understood since any time I was pictured with a woman, people went crazy with ideas of secret dates and love affairs. But she was a songwriter, and it would be easy to explain away. Also, Nova herself was hard to peg down. She had a very small digital footprint.
“What are you guys doing tonight?” she asked, pulling me out of my contemplations.
“What we do best,” Oren said with a wink. “Party it up.”
“You have fun with that,” she laughed.
“You’re not coming?” Brogan asked.
“Nah. I’ll probably head back to the bus. Enjoy some peace and quiet.”
“Psssh, we’re in hotels tomorrow night for Cincinnati. You’ll have plenty of peace and quiet,” Oren explained.
“I think I’ll go back with her,” I jumped in, saving her from Oren’s pleas.
“Well, duh.” Oren rolled his eyes and made thrusting motions, insinuating what he thought we would be doing.
“Hardly,” Nova deadpanned.
“Besides,” Ash said. “I’m gonna head to the bus, too.”
“You?” Oren asked.
“Yeah. I need a fucking night of nothing. I’m hitting that six-week slump.”
“Not the six-week slump,” Brogan cried.
Ash shrugged. “Yeah, it’ll pass.”
It always did. We almost always hit it on long tours, the exhaustion creeping into our bones. Thankfully, we had a week off coming up soon that we tried to plan around this time, and it couldn’t get here soon enough.
“All right, party-poopers. I guess it’ll only be Brogan and me representing tonight.”
“Please don’t get arrested,” Nova pleaded.
“I solemnly swear I will do my best not to.”
“I guess that’s all I can ask for.”
Brogan held up three fingers next to Oren. “Girl Scout’s honor, Mom.”
With everyone’s plans made, we parted ways. As soon as we got back, we took turns showering. Nova went first, and then Ash and finally me. Ash must have been really tired because, by the time I got out, his curtain was closed, and the soft rock he listened to at night played low.
Bypassing my bunk, I climbed into Nova’s, smirking when her jaw dropped at my shirtless chest.
“I think I’m still hot from the show,” I said, knowing the excuse to go sans top was weak at best.
She laid on her back, one side pressed to the wall and the other pressed against me. Wanting to look at her, I rolled to my side, propping my head on my hand, and just stared. I mapped the faint freckles across the bridge of her nose, the pink lips she drew her tongue across, her pert chin and slender neck. I traced the pale skin until it disappeared under the loose cotton tank top. My fist clenched to keep from reaching out to follow the same path my eyes took, especially when her nipples pebbled under the thin top.
I was damn near panting when her voice broke through my trance.
“What does this tattoo mean?” She fingered the oblong swirls and blurs decorating the side of my ribs, not at all hesitant to touch me.
Goosebumps spread from the light graze, and the shock shot straight to my length. I twisted off my side just enough to see the ink and remembered the night I got it. I’d been on a week-long bender, driving myself into the ground around a year after we left. I’d been home in New York and could have sworn I saw her hair blowing in the wind, and when I caught up to her, it hadn’t even been close. I’d stumbled back to the apartment I shared with Ash and shattered every glass piece I could get my hands on in our kitchen, trying to do anything to ease the destroying tsunami of emotions I had over missing her—over being so damn mad that I didn’t know where she was—over being so confused about the two taking up so much space and leaving no room for anything else.
Ash had come home and cleared a spot and sat with me, finally telling me it was okay to feel both, and apparently, all I needed was for someone to tell me it was okay.
We cleaned up, and the next morning, I went to a tattoo parlor and told them what I wanted.
“It’s a design of a supernova,” I finally answered.
Her finger froze. “Parker,” she whispered.
Her eyes met mine in the dim lights of the bunk, but they sparkled like the star we named her after. A beat of need pulsed in the cramped area and matched the thrum of my heart, urging me to take, take, take. Before I could move, she shifted, tugging the side of her tank up to bare a familiar guitar line drawing in the same exact spot as my supernova.