My bike nears the fork in the road, one way taking me to her, the other to my house. I want to go to Libby so badly it’s an actual, physical pain in my chest and gut. I want to sit in her kitchen that smells of comfort food, hear the slam-bang of her pots and pans as she talks about nothing in particular, and watch the efficient way she moves in her space.

I want that.

I turn toward my house instead. And it hurts.

After a shower, I grab a beer and slump in the big rocking chair on my porch. I find my cell sitting on the little side table. I left it behind on purpose. Five missed calls from Scottie, and a text: Jax is ready. Get your ass back to NYC.

Well, for once I’m not ready. I text him back so he’ll stop bugging me.

Tour doesn’t start for over a month. We have time.

His response is immediate.

Guys want to get back into it. They’re asking me to book a few earlier shows.

Fuck. Part of me is annoyed that they didn’t call me themselves. But I haven’t exactly been communicative. And we all know that the best way to get any of us to do something is to sic Scottie on our asses.

Rubbing my neck, I think of what to do. Libby is right; I can’t hide forever. But I’m not ready to leave. Not yet. I send Scottie a final text: I’ll call you in a few days. Then I turn off the phone.

The night is muggy, the beer icy. Over the hum of the cicadas comes the sound of a guitar. It’s an acoustic version of The Black Keys’ “You’re The One.” It must be a new recording because I haven’t heard it before.

Then I realize—it isn’t a recording. It’s live. Libby is playing that guitar. Of course it’s Libby, the girl raised by musicians, who writes songs of poetic beauty and hides them away like a dirty secret. Of course she’d hide this from me too.

I want to be irate, but her sound distracts me. The hairs on my forearms rise as I sit up. She’s good. Really good. Her style is easy and smooth, not the hard, tense drive of mine. More folk to my rock. But I appreciate the fuck out of it.

My fingers twitch with the desire to pick up my guitar. For the first time in months, I want to play. Fuck that, I need to play, be the rhythm to her lead, or the lead to her rhythm. Find out what she can do.

She eases into Sinead O’Connor’s “The Last Day of Our Acquaintance.” It’s an older song, not heard much anymore. But Rye developed a huge thing for O’Connor after he saw her “Nothing Compares 2 U” video during some ‘90s rockumentary, and it was all we could do to get him to turn off her music. I’m pretty sure at this point his dream girl has a shaved head.

Memories of Jax chucking a salami sandwich at Rye on our tour bus after the five-hundredth playing of “Mandinka” run through my head, making me smile. And then Liberty begins to sing.

The beer bottle slips from my hand. Holy. Fuck.

Her voice is melted butter over toast. It’s full of yearning, soft and husky. Need. So much need. And pain.

I’m on my feet before I know it. I go into the house and pull my acoustic Gibson from its crate. The neck is smooth and familiar against my palm. A lump fills my throat. Christ, I’m close to crying.

Get a grip, James.

My fingers tighten on the guitar. From the open door, Liberty sings about loss and separation with a rasping defiance. That voice guides me, sends my heart pounding.

She doesn’t hear me approach or even open the door. Her eyes are closed, her body curling protectively over the guitar. That her voice has so much power in such a restrictive position is impressive. But it’s the expression she wears, lost yet calm, that gets to me.

She feels the music, knows how to phrase it and own it.

I’m hard just being close to her. My balls draw up when she hits the last power refrain, her voice coming down like an anvil, and I swear I can’t breathe. It’s like the first time I sang on a stage and felt the world open up with possibilities.

I think I fall a little in love with Liberty Bell in that instant.

She notices me then and gives a yelp, abruptly killing the last note. “Jesus,” she says when she finds her voice again. “You scared the life out of me.”

You’re bringing me back to life.

The thought runs through my head, clear as glass. But I don’t say that. I can barely find my voice at all. I stand there like an idiot, my chest heaving, gripping my guitar as if it’s a life line.

A flush rises up her neck and over her cheeks. She ducks her head, as if she’s ashamed. No way in hell am I letting her hide.

“Beautiful,” I croak past the lump in my throat. “You’re beautiful.” I know with an eerie calm that I’ll never see anything or anyone more stunning in my life. Everything has changed. Everything.

Libby

My heart is still trying to beat its way out of my chest after the scare Killian gave me. But it’s slowly calming, and on the heels of that comes something that feels a lot like mortification. Killian has caught me singing, balls to the wall—or whatever the female equivalent would be.

A few days ago, I heard him take off on his bike, and when he didn’t come back that night, or the next, my heart squeezed and my stomach sank. I might have thought he’d left for good, only Killian tacked a note on my front door before he left: Gone roaming for a while. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do—at least not without me.

It simultaneously hurt that I was so easily left behind and pissed me off that he didn’t bother saying goodbye in person. But I’m not his keeper. And I clearly can’t make anyone stay in my life. So I went back to business as usual, trying to ignore the yawning pit in my stomach, only to discover that my “usual” was now empty and quiet, too quiet.

To fill the void, I played my guitar and sang. Every night. Something I hadn’t done in months. It made me think of my parents, and that hurt too, like a wound scabbed over that you keep picking despite the pain, or maybe because of it.

And now Killian is back, filling my porch doorway and lighting up the room with his presence. He’s here. My own personal magnet. His pull is so strong, I have to fight not getting up and running to him. Fight not grinning like a fool even though I’m still hurt. But I want to grin, so badly. Because He. Is. Here.

It sets everything right again. And yet it puts my world off kilter as well.

The way he’s looking at me… Hell, it lights me up, sends sparks and flares along my nerve endings.