“I can’t believe you came back,” I whispered as we rocked together on my bed. “Why did you even come back?”

“Because…” His breath moved warm against my ear, sending shivers through me. “You’re mine. I knew it the first time I saw you. I will always come for you, Sara. Always.”

I couldn’t respond, there just weren’t words, so I kissed him, pressing my lips fully to his.

He held me close, whispering my name.

We stayed like that a long time, not talking, just hanging onto each other. I couldn’t have foreseen anything like this, I reasoned, snuggling closer. Dale sighed softly, and I held onto him, knowing that whatever happened, nothing would ever be the same again.

Part Two

The Headliner

CHAPTER TWELVE

“Happy Halloween!” John opened the door when I knocked and I laughed when I saw his costume.

“Crocodile Dundee?” I guessed.

“That’s right, mate!” He gave me a thumbs up, doing his best Australian accent as I came into the apartment, shutting the door behind me. “Dale’s in his room. Are you sure you two don’t want to go out to a party or something?”

“We’ll be fine here giving out candy,” I assured him, heading back to Dale’s room, following the sound of the guitar.

I opened the door without knocking, finding Dale sitting on the bed, shirtless and barefoot, playing his acoustic. He looked up when he saw me, smiling, but didn’t stop playing as I closed the door, leaning against it, just watching him. He still took my breath away, two months into our relationship and every time I saw him, it was like flashbulbs and noisemakers went off in my head, alerting me the world’s best party was about to begin.

The song was familiar and he played beautifully, hair falling across his face as he looked down, moving his fingers over the strings, playing the chords. Thank goodness there was a door to lean against, because for me, seeing him shirtless and barefoot with a guitar in his lap was like dangling raw meat in a tiger’s cage. I wanted to jump him right there. The last note of the song hung in the air as he peeked up at me, still smiling that dimple-making smile, his gaze starting at my face and sweeping downward—just jeans and a t-shirt, nothing fancy, but he looked at me like I’d walked in wearing an evening gown.

He always looked at me like that.

“Your father is dressed up as a Crocodile Dundee,” I remarked, moving forward toward him—toward the bed.

“I know.” He rolled his eyes, setting his guitar aside, leaning it against the nightstand, and holding his arms out to me. “Thank God he didn’t decide to go shirtless.”

“Or as Boy George.” I went to him, toeing off my sneakers as he tumbled me backwards onto the bed. Dale had a double bed. It was like swimming in the ocean after playing in the kiddie pool compared to mine.

“God forbid.” He captured my mouth before I could say another word, tasting like Tootsie rolls and Gatorade, a combination I had noted sitting on his night table. His lips, as always, were soft, inviting me to open to him. John didn’t care what we did in Dale’s room. Dale was an adult—that’s what John said—and what went on in Dale’s room was Dale’s business. It was so foreign to me to come across a parent who didn’t try to control every aspect of their child’s life—even if that child wasn’t technically a child at all anymore.

Not that we did anything in Dale’s room that we didn’t do outside of Dale’s room. So far, in spite of my myriad of attempts at seducing this gorgeous man in my arms, we had done nothing but kiss. Just kiss. When my hands went to stray, he caught them and trapped me, kissing me into submission until I was so dizzy I forgot where they were headed in the first place. When his hands moved to those places I longed and ached for him to touch, just my response seemed to remind him he wanted to wait.

Except I didn’t know what we were waiting for.

“You are going to be a rock star.” I whispered against his mouth, stroking the slight stubble on his cheek. He had discovered how ticklish I was when he rubbed his five o’clock shadow on my neck or belly, and I think he’d stopped shaving so often just for that reason.

“I don’t care.” Dale licked the corner of my mouth, first one side, then the other. “As long as I’m your rock star.”

“Ha.” I rolled him onto his back, grabbing his hands in mine, pinning them over his head, straddling him at the waist. Looking down, everything I could see of him was naked. It made my thighs quiver as they squeezed him, focusing on that deliciously dark line of hair that disappeared under his studded belt. “You won’t even remember me when you’re a big star.”

“Don’t say that.” His face had gone serious. I knew when he really meant it. His usually light colored blue-as-a-summer-sky eyes darkened when he was angry, or serious—or lusting after me. “Besides, I won’t need to remember you.”

“Oh?”

“Damn right. Because you’ll be mine.”

“Too late.” I leaned in, my hair falling around us, a golden curtain, and touched my lips softly to his. “Already am.”

“Are you ready to pass out Tootsie Rolls to trick-or-treaters?”

I sighed. “Well, if we can’t have sex, I guess that’s the next best thing.”

“If that’s the next best thing, we need to work on your social life.”

“I brought my chemistry homework. How’s that for fun?”

“Good. Can you do mine?” He grinned. “I’ve got to practice. It’s only a couple months until the semifinals.”

“I know.” I hopped off him, picking up his guitar. Of course they had made it to the semi-finals. Dale had been nervous, but I knew all along. No one could beat them.

“Are you nervous?” I sat on the bed with the guitar in my lap. I had no idea how to play. The only instrument I’d ever come to was playing was a recorder in kindergarten, and my music teacher ended up asking me to just pretend. That’s how bad I was. But I liked to play around with it.

“Should I be?”

Dale sat up too, sliding his long, slender legs around me from behind, his bare chest against my back. Just the feel of him, his muscular frame, his arms wrapping around me from behind, was enough to make me want him. Not that wanting him was anything new. I wanted him all the time, whether I was with him or I wasn’t. But thankfully, we were together a lot. As much as we could be, given that my stepfather didn’t approve of me having a “boyfriend” and we had to sneak around and lie in order to see each other.

I simply told my parents I’d started working at the theater again taking tickets as an excuse to be gone most nights of the week. The stepbeast didn’t approve of me having a job either—because that meant I had my own money—but that was more acceptable than a boyfriend.

“Like this.” Dale’s hands cupped mine, moving my fingers on the strings, pressing them down with my left hand, and strumming with my right. The guitar suddenly made a beautiful sound, nothing like I had ever heard when it was in my possession.

I glanced over my shoulder at him, incredulous.

“See?” Dale manipulated my fingers some more, strumming, the two of us suddenly one, making sweet music together. “You can do it.”

“Not without you.” God, that was the truth. “I’m certainly not going to be winning any contests. But you are.”

“Maybe.” He was playing now. I let go of the guitar and he continued to play with the guitar in my lap. He couldn’t even see but his hands just knew where to go, how to stroke and slide his fingers over the strings to make the instrument sing just the way he wanted it too.

His voice in my ear, singing an old Bob Dylan tune, something with a little country twang, surprised me. His voice was rough, a little like Dylan, but sweeter. Rough and sweet. That was Dale. For some reason, it made me think of Tyler Vincent, which was unusual, because even knowing the concert was coming up in another month, I hadn’t thought about Tyler Vincent much at all in the past few months. He was still papered all over my walls, I still listened to his music when I drew or painted, but it was Dale who filled my thoughts.

What was Tyler Vincent doing right now? I imagined October in Maine. Halloween was probably snowy. Was he taking his youngest son, Ian, out to trick-or-treat? I imagined Tyler Vincent as a very good father. A little like Dale’s father, John. I could tell how much John loved his son, in spite of his misgivings about Dale’s ambition to be a rock star. What parent wouldn’t want to give their child an education, a fallback position? Only one in a million people were good-looking enough, smart enough, lucky enough, and talented enough to ever make it in the music business.

I just happened to know that Dale was one of those. One in a million.

“That’s beautiful.” I leaned back against him, feeling the music thrumming through my belly as he played the guitar sitting in my lap, his voice filling my ear. He was playing and singing just for me, a one man concert. I was the luckiest girl who had ever lived, and I knew it. I would have known it even if I hadn’t seen hordes of fans rushing the stage, trying to touch Dale, to be a part of him, to feel his energy, just for one brief moment.

When the song ended, Dale kissed my cheek and put the guitar down again, leaning it against the night stand before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me back onto the bed. I rolled with him, letting him curl himself around me from behind so we were spooning together in the middle of his bed, not kissing, not doing anything but laying there, breathing together as if we were one entity.

“Did you know Tyler Vincent didn’t even start playing guitar until he was in college?” I asked softly. It slipped. I had been thinking of him and it just... slipped. I tried not to mention him when I was with Dale. He usually got a hard look on his face, like stone, but he wouldn’t say anything about it. He would just look at me—and make me feel guilty I’d mentioned him at all.

“Oh yeah?” Dale murmured in response. “I think I read that somewhere.”

Dale had been playing guitar since he was three years old. John had told me that. He could also play piano, bass, and drums. He really was a one-man band, or he could be. He also wrote his own songs, music and lyrics.

“You’re better than he is.” I snuggled up closer, sighing as I felt his pelvis pressed against my behind. God, he always made me think about wanting him, no matter what we were doing or what we were talking about.

“I didn’t know it was a competition.” He kissed my hair, the top of my head, taking a long, slow deep breath, his hand sliding under my T-shirt to rest against the soft skin of my belly. “So how many fan letters have you written to Tyler Vincent?”

“I don’t know.” I felt defensive, a little suspicious. Cautious. Dale sounded too amiable, even interested. That was unusual. “A few.”

Of course, that was a lie. When I was fourteen, I mailed him a letter every single week. No joke. That was until my mother cut me off from stamps. When I had to buy my own, the letters dwindled down to once a month. Eventually, I stopped sending them. But I never stopped writing them. I had notebooks full of letters to Tyler Vincent. Really, they were more like diary or journal entries. I probably never would have ever shared them with Tyler Vincent, unless he and I became friends… or something more.