Prologue
“Are you going to leave again?” I ask him.
There’s a small pause that feels like it stretches an eternity as my heart thumps loudly, rattling my ribcage. Then, from the bed before me, there’s a quiet, “No.”
“Are we going to talk about it?”
He rasps, “No.”
There’s thick tension permeating the air, but it hasn’t suffocated us yet. “Can I sleep in here tonight?”
I wait for the inevitable “no” to follow the hesitant silence, but it never does. After waiting a few long heartbeats, I walk into the room, toward the lump under the thin sheet he sleeps beneath.
Even though it’s dark, I see his eyes moving in my direction, feeling them piercing my face until my skin tingles. To my surprise, he says, “Okay.”
I toe out of my shoes and slide into his bed, keeping plenty of distance between us. We don’t touch or talk, only breathe until another eternity passes.
I turn onto my side, back facing him, and whisper, “I think I may break up with Chase.”
No answer.
No sound.
Is he even breathing?
Then there’s a tug on my hand as nimble fingers wrap around mine, then a palm, and I swallow down my words. He pulls me closer to him, both of us facing each other now, his mouth dangerously close to mine, and stays there.
He doesn’t move.
Doesn’t speak.
Throat bobbing, I press a kiss against the corner of his mouth. I do that. I become that person, and I don’t think about the consequences when his breath hitches or when he moves enough where our lips line up like he’s daring me to do it again.
And I want to.
I crave it.
Both of us breathe hard, making it the only sound in the dark room. His hand tightens around my palm, his nose caressing mine, his lips so close I can practically taste them.
I close the distance, kissing him lightly, slowly, unsure, but wanting. Neither of us moves to deepen it, we just breathe into each other like we’re giving one another life. As if, in this moment, the faintest touch of our lips is all there is.
Nobody else matters.
Nothing else could get to us.
In that moment, I realize something soul crushing.
Maybe I’m not so different than Mom after all.
And when I wake up in the morning, he’s already gone, the sheets on his side of the bed cold.
Chapter One
Kyler / Present Day
“Jesus fucking Christ.” I watch all the assholes crowding the gate with their cameras flashing at the tinted windows waiting for their money shot. I have no intention of giving them one. “How did they know, Gordy?”
My manager straightens, tugging at the t-shirt with my name across the chest. “I don’t know.”
The thing about Gordon Fuller is that he’s a terrible liar. But the son of a bitch is my oldest friend, so I won’t fire him even if I’m tempted to sometimes. “How. Did. They. Know?”
He visibly swallows, yanking at the collar of the tee again before wincing at the pointed glare I cast in his direction. “Don’t be angry. I’m only doing what Mia—”
“Mia?” Fucking hell. “What exactly did my sister tell you to do?”
His hesitation as the driver gets through the gates that the paparazzi are trying to break past has me closing my eyes and pinching the bridge of my nose. I don’t know what my devil worshipper of a sister told him, but I know it had to be good for him to go behind my back. “When she called about the rumors that you were coming to visit, she made me talk. Said it was about time you came home.”
Closing my eyes, I lean back against the leather seat and hold in the string of creative curses. Leave it to Mia Casanova, formally known as Pop Princess Mia Bishop before marrying Dylan Casanova, to make a scene. I haven’t been to the Hills since I left almost three years ago. This shit show, the one of strangers yelling my name and questions outside the property, reminds me why.
“I’m sorry,” my best friend says. “You know your sister terrifies me. She said she’d find inventive ways to castrate me if I didn’t confirm your arrival, and your mother wasn’t speaking up about it when Mia asked her.”
“And I suppose Harry wouldn’t even return her call,” I pry, referring to our father. It would be a cold day in hell before I’d call him one. We’ve been on a first name basis since he sold me off as a child star and took all the money I made to put toward my “future” as a national singing sensation like he was doing me a favor. It isn’t like I hated the job. Singing feels freeing, strumming my acoustic is a passion, and seeing people sing along to every song fills my chest with a hell of a lot more love than Harry Bishop could manage. Our biggest problem is that he never saw me as a son—simply an employee. Someone to make him money, and I learned a long time ago to stop expecting anything different.
As suspected, Gordy clears his throat and rubs the back of his neck as the car parks in front of the massive stonewashed mansion that’s five times too big for my sister, her husband, and our mother that moved in with them last year. Then again, if what the tabloids are saying is true, I’m going to be an uncle soon. Not that a baby, three adults, and two annoying as fuck corgis need a 9,000 square foot house.
“She didn’t say,” admits my clammy friend. He wipes his palms down his thighs, letting the denim absorb the sweat that he’s producing in record-breaking time. People told me not to hire him to manage me, but I ignored them. He knows his shit, and better, he knows me. That comes in handy when he’s brokering deals on my behalf. “I have to warn you, though. Mia mentioned that she had a surprise for you. I know you’re not a fan of—”
“A surprise?” I groan, palming my face. The last time Mia surprised me it was a going away party I strictly told her not to throw. She decided to invite all my “friends” who actually hated my guts after I spilled some gossip to a few reporters. I still don’t feel bad about it considering they fucking started it. You can’t sleep with another guy’s girl and expect him to be cool with it.
“If it makes you feel better, she said you’d like it. I couldn’t press her for any details, not that she’d give me them anyway.”
He’s got that right. I love my egotistical big sister. She’s the only one who stands up to my father for me and encourages me to do whatever the hell I want. When she found out that I was leaving California and taking a hiatus after turning down a huge role that would have “cemented my title as the next James Dean”, at least according to Harry, she only questioned me a little before giving me a hug anyway. After all, her acting career started after she built herself as a music icon. She thought I could do the same. Better, even.
Turning down the role took no hesitation, though. I don’t want to act. I want to write music, maybe do a gig or two, and breathe. Being a Bishop is suffocating. Living in my father’s and older sister’s shadows is like a boot to the chest that never lets you up.
Mia only pushes when she thinks someone is making a big mistake, and she let me walk away into my own slice of peace for a few years. Still working, just behind the scenes. If I disappeared altogether I’m sure she’d have more to say—probably would have shown up at my place just outside New York City to give me a piece of her mind that I definitely did not want to hear. Then or now.