That was true. They were both tall, good-looking guys, and Brandon was built like a linebacker. Recent photos of them online showed Brandon with a full beard and Micah with a lot of scruff. Tattoos covered seventy percent of their bodies. Alone they drew attention; together they would definitely draw recognition.

Shit.

“Look, Gayle said you don’t want the press knowing your business right now and I get that. We’re not going to bring that on you. Tell me where you are and I’ll come fix this.”

I gave him my address.

“I’m leaving right now.”

Feeling my nerves completely rattled, I paced the apartment, my heart jumping at every little sound until it was almost a relief to hear the buzzer for the downstairs door. I couldn’t bring myself to go to it at first, but there was no running away anymore.

When it buzzed again, I hurried over to the intercom and hit the speaker. “Hello?”

There was a moment of silence and then the intercom crackled. “Sky?”

The sound of his voice brought back a wave of memories. Those memories felt like they belonged to another person, to another life, and the fact that I felt so adrift from those memories was achingly painful. “Micah?”

“Yeah, it’s me,” he breathed. “Can you let me up?”

I pressed the buzzer and stepped over to the door to remove the chain.

Resting my palm against the door, I waited, my breathing growing exponentially shallower as I waited for Micah to come up on the elevator.

Even though I heard his footsteps approaching, I still jumped at his loud knock on the door.

Fingers shaking, I unlocked and slowly opened it.

Green-gold eyes blazed into mine.

“Micah.” Every inch of me hurt. It felt like . . . grief.

His own expression seemed filled with the same emotion.

And I braced, watching that grief transform to anger.

When he suddenly came at me, I tensed, unsure, only to freeze entirely as he hauled me against his chest and crushed me to him. Realizing he was hugging me and not killing me, I closed my arms around his back and held on.

He didn’t smell like Micah. Micah used to smell of pot and beer. Other times of perfume and sweat. There were rare times when you could smell soap and shampoo beneath the other scents that more than hinted at his lifestyle.

But soap and shampoo were all I could smell now.

“Micah,” I mumbled against his chest.

He squeezed me hard and then gently let go of me, only to cup my face in his hands so he could stare at my face. “I don’t know whether to kill you or kiss you, Skylar Finch.”

Since kissing wasn’t an option and killing was not preferable, I went with neither and gently extricated myself so I could close the door.

“We have a lot to talk about,” I said.

He nodded, his eyes dragging down my body and back up again. “Brandon filled me in on some.”

“Why didn’t you wait to come here with him?”

Micah looked at me incredulously. “Because you and I need to talk on our own. With Brandon and Austin, you left the band. With me . . . you left me.”

“That’s not true,” I replied, walking away from him down the hall. I heard him following me into the apartment. Still, after all this time, Micah couldn’t see past us. “Brandon and Austin were my family. They’re like my brothers. I left them too.”

“It’s not the same.” He ran a hand through his hair, absently taking in his surroundings before turning his attention back to me. His face was unshaven and somehow that added to his gorgeousness. A long time ago I only had to look at him and I’d get butterflies. Although I felt many things looking at him now, I didn’t feel that attraction. His attractiveness felt like a fact rather than something that provoked a feeling in me, other than nostalgia.

Had it really been love between us or merely an infatuation?

“Where’s Austin?” I feared he hated me and that’s why he hadn’t come.

Micah seemed irritated by the question. “He’s doing Wild. We can’t get a hold of him.”

“Doing what?”

“Wild. You know that book. Or it might be a movie. Something that involves hiking the Pacific Crest Trail,” he said. “His girlfriend, Selina, talked him into it.”

I smiled at the idea of Austin doing something for a girl. Both he and Micah had been the one-night-stand kind of guys. Brandon had always been the relationship type. For a long time, none of his relationships had lasted until Heather. She was a stylist he’d began dating before my mom died. According to the media, they were now engaged.

Austin never seemed to want that. I hadn’t seen anything in my googling about a girlfriend.

“Selina. Have they been together long?”

“A couple months.” Micah shrugged. “Can we talk about this later and instead talk about the million fucking apologies you owe me?”

My response was immediate. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Micah. I’m sorry for running away. I’m sorry for punishing you through the years. I’m sorry for sleeping with you and leaving you the next day and disappearing off the face of the planet. I am sorrier than you could ever possibly know.”

For a moment, he stared at me. Finally, he gestured. “Gayle said you’d been living rough. That things have been hard. But you look better than I’ve ever seen you. I like the hair,” he said, his big puppy eyes wounded and accusing.

I fingered the short strands. “I want to tell you about it. However, I want to hear about you first. I heard you went to rehab.”

His beautiful mouth twisted into a sneer. “You were keeping up with us while we were left in the dark about you?”

Apparently, his anger wasn’t going away anytime soon, and I got that. I did. I indicated he should sit on the couch while I took the chair. He folded his tall body onto it and waited.

“I only recently found out. I had no access to the internet and had no desire to have access to the internet until a couple of days ago.”

“You didn’t care?”

“Of course, I cared. That’s why I didn’t check up on you. I cared so much, it was killing me. All of it was killing me and the only way I knew how to survive was to push it all away. For a while, I actually thought you were all gone. Ghosts. No . . . it was more like I was the ghost. Like I’d died and left your world behind. I needed it to be that way. It was the only way to get through the grief.”

“You seem pretty together now. How come you can handle the grief now and you couldn’t then?”

“Time,” I answered as I’d answered Gayle. “And I’ve made friends here. Met someone who knows what it’s like to lose a parent.”

He beat his fist on his chest, his face red with frustration. “I could have been that friend. I grew up in the fucking foster care system, for Christ’s sake, Skylar!”

I flinched but refused to turn away from his fury. “It’s not the same,” I said as gently as possible. “Yours is a whole other kind of pain that I can never understand. And mine . . . well, I wish you knew what it’s like to have a parent love and support you but you never had that, Micah. My friend had that and understands the kind of pain I’m going through and the kind of anger and regret that lives inside you. That never goes away, no matter how or where or whom you move on with.”

“So you let strangers help you heal? Great.”

I let his anger roll over me, trying not to let it grab hold. “Isn’t that what you did? When you went to rehab?”

That gave him pause. “I also went to therapy.”

He’d been brave enough to do what I couldn’t. “I’m glad.”

“It wasn’t only because you took off. Although that was the catalyst. After you left my drinking got out of control. Brandon said it was rehab or I was out of the band. I couldn’t lose the band. So I started rehab, started therapy, and it helped a lot. It made me realize how much you hurt me when we were kids when you chose the band over us.”

Tears of guilt and regret blurred my vision. “I know. I’m so sorry.”

“It was . . . you were, like, the first person I let myself love. I stopped loving people when I was kid because they always threw me away. But I let myself love you—I trusted that you loved me back. That you wouldn’t throw me away.”