“He sounds like a walking STD.”

I snorted. “He did like to spread the love around. He blamed that on me. Apparently, it was his way of coping with not getting to be with the one he loved.”

“So you slept with him just the once, then?”

I was silent a moment as worry began to percolate. Was Killian concerned about my feelings for Micah? That I might still have some? Was that what all the questions were about?

This was the moment I could choose to lie so as not to plant some stupid seed of doubt in his mind. But I’d lied to my mom. I’d lied to everybody. And lying screwed everything up. “He was the last person I slept with before you. Before I left the States, I called Gayle and the band together and I told them I was quitting. They were devastated but supportive. Later that night, Micah came to me. He said he was terrified that my leaving the band meant he wouldn’t see me again. We ended up . . . well . . . you know. The worst thing was it was almost as bad as my time with Roth. I felt so detached from it because I knew I was only doing it because I felt like I owed him a debt. I left the States the next day.”

“Jesus, Skylar,” Killian muttered.

I tensed, sensing judgment. “I know it was horrible to do that to him.”

“That’s not . . . I’m upset for you.” He lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him. “Micah should have known you were in no position to be thinking clearly about anything, let alone a relationship with him.”

“Maybe. But I’m not the type of person to blame someone else for not protecting me from myself. My actions are my own.”

“I still blame him,” he grumbled.

I laughed and relaxed back into his body. After a little while of sweet, silent contemplation between us, I cracked a grin and asked, “So how and when did you lose your virginity?”

“A long time ago.”

I smacked him playfully. “No fair. Details.”

He chuckled. “Fine. I was fourteen.”

“Holy shit. Why is it guys are always so young?”

“Not all guys,” he disagreed. “I had a friend at uni who lost his when he was twenty-one. We celebrated for so long after it happened, five of us ended up with alcohol poisoning.”

I snorted. “Okay. So not all guys. But fourteen? Wow.”

Killian shrugged. “I don’t think it’s the same for a guy as it is for a girl. For me, it was about being horny as hell and finding an outlet.”

I wrinkled my nose. “What you’re saying is that it was a form of masturbation?”

“I am not,” he scoffed. “I mean it was about mutual release. It felt good. Sex was an escape from . . . reality.”

“Who was the girl?” I was trying desperately not to sound jealous. Even though the scary truth was that I was jealous of any woman who had touched Killian that way. Especially one who had offered him an opportunity to disappear from his grief for a while.

“Maryanne Wright. She was gorgeous and sixteen.” He scrubbed a hand over his face with a regretful sigh. “Everyone called her the town bike.”

“The town bike?”

“Because every guy at school had ridden her.”

“Okay, now I feel less bad about my virginity story.”

“Hey, I learned some valuable lessons from Maryanne Wright.”

“I’ll send her a thank-you note. And should I send more to all the women who have come after her? Were they all part of your unattached, undramatic, serial monogamy philosophy?”

“Aye. If you hadn’t noticed, I’m quite career-oriented.”

“No, I really hadn’t.”

He ignored my sarcasm. “I didn’t have time for girlfriends when I was a teenager. I was too busy looking after Autumn.”

The truth in that gave me pause. When I was a teen, I was single-mindedly forging a path to success for my band. Getting a record contract was the extent of my worries.

Killian’s was school and raising a child.

I turned into him, resting my chin on his shoulder as I traced his jaw with a whisper of my fingertips. “You’re a good brother.”

He frowned, concern dimming his eyes. “Autumn is drifting. She seems lost. I feel like I’m failing her.”

“No,” I hurried to assure him. “Killian, she would be the first person to tell you that that is not true.”

He bent his head toward me and I kissed him, letting my feelings for him sink into the kiss, hoping it was a balm for his worry. I knew if it was, it was only temporary. Like a parent, Killian saw it as his full-time job to worry over his sister.

“What were your parents like?” I asked as we pulled back from the kiss.

He stared at me, seeming surprised by the question. “The only other person who’s ever asked me that is Autumn.”

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” I didn’t want to push him.

“It’s fine,” he reassured, and I sank back down to rest my head on his shoulder. “They deserve to be talked about. To be remembered. They were good parents. Pete adopted me when I was so young that I never thought of him as anything but my dad. He was a good man. You know he was a police officer?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“He was my real dad’s complete opposite. He was CID.”

“What’s CID?”

“Criminal Investigation Department. Plainclothes detective. He went after the bad guys.” He laughed softly, humorlessly. “He . . . he was my hero.”

Tears burned in my eyes at the heartbreaking way he confessed that. “I’m glad you had that.”

“You never knew your father?”

“No. But my mom said he was a hero too. There was an ambush. First a roadside IED that blew off his friend Mullen’s leg. Everyone took cover. My dad wouldn’t leave Mullen so they offered firing cover while he went back for him. But he was killed trying to drag Mullen to safety. Mullen survived. Mom said he came to visit when I was four, but I don’t remember it.”

“Your dad was a hero.”

“Yeah, he was. I don’t miss him because I didn’t know him, but I’ve always longed for the idea of him. I missed the ghost of him. It’s sad,” I whispered, “that we both had heroes in our lives, only for them to be taken away from us when we needed them most.”

His answer was a sweet kiss to my temple.

I nuzzled into him. “What was your mom like?”

“Brilliant.” He answered immediately. “While all the other mums were giving their kids a row for coming home for dinner caked in mud, Mum was right there with us. She’d take me and a bunch of pals camping, canoeing, and hiking and all the while she’d crack rude jokes they couldn’t repeat to their parents. Looking back, they weren’t that rude, but they seemed so at the time.”

“You had the cool mom.”

“I had the cool mum.” He agreed and then his voice lowered with pain. “Sometimes I wished they’d been just a little bit awful . . .”

So it wouldn’t hurt so bad.

I only allowed our moment of sad affinity for a few seconds and then I distracted him, asking him when he first knew he wanted to work in the music industry.

He talked. I listened. I talked. He listened.

And that’s how it was.

Easy.

Our voices drifted together into the wee hours of the morning as we talked about everything and nothing at all.

* * *

THE SOUND CRACKLED IN MY ear through the headphones and I heard Oliver say, “It sounds good, but you dropped that last note.”

I stared at Oliver sitting at the recording deck behind the glass of the sound booth and then flicked a look at Killian. He stood next to my producer with his arms over his chest, his expression typically unreadable. I sighed. “We’ve been at this for three hours without a break. I’m tired.”

“We’ve got to lay down the vocals so we have plenty of time to figure out production,” Oliver reminded me.

I waited for Killian to jump in, insist on me taking a break, but he just stood there.

We’d been secretly dating for the last three weeks.