“He even walks sexy,” Kat whispers into my ear.

“Mm,” I reply.

“Don’t act all nonchalant with me,” she says, shoving my shoulder. “He turns me on, and you’re the one who loves the bad boys. You have ever since I met you freshman year.”

I shrug. She’s right.

“Let’s go to the restaurant. I want to see how Jamie is doing behind the bar,” Kat finally says when it’s apparent that I’m not going to talk about my penchant for musicians.

“I’ll check on the waitstaff, and we can both make Mia go home.”

“Mia’s working?” Kat asks with a frown.

“Of course Mia’s working. She’s not sleeping.”

“She needs an intervention.”

“I’LL TAKE A glass of that,” Mia says as she joins Kat and me at the bar after closing. Kat and I each handled our own staff for the rest of the evening, juggled a few mishaps, then sent everyone on their way and decided to unwind with a glass of wine before we head home.

“I can’t believe you’re still here,” I say to Mia. “You’ve been here since this morning.”

“Back at you,” she replies with a sigh as she sits on a stool beside me and rolls her head back and forth on her shoulders, stretching. “It was a good day.”

“You’re taking tomorrow off,” I say, not looking her in the face.

“You’re not the boss of me.”

“Yes, we are,” Kat replies and passes two glasses of wine to Mia. “Of all of us, you work the longest hours. The kitchen will survive for one day without you.”

“What does one do on a day off?” Mia asks.

“Clean your bathroom. Go to the coast and put your feet in the water. Get laid. Just don’t come here.”

“Maybe.” Mia shrugs. “Did you find us an act?”

“No.” I shake my head and sip the crisp, dry wine.

“But you both look so hot. No one threw themselves at you?”

“Kat had her ass grabbed a time or two.”

“I want to grab Kat’s ass,” Mia replies. “Ever since we met her in college we’ve wanted to grab her ass.”

“And you have,” Kat replies with a salute and takes a shot of tequila.

“And you loved it,” Mia replies. “Tell me about tonight?”

“There’s not much to tell. We found one couple that would be good but they wanted a ton of money.”

“We also found Jake Knox,” Kat says with a satisfied grin.

“What?” Mia shrieks. “You did not!”

“We did. He sang one song.”

“Why? He’s famous. He doesn’t have to go to those things.”

“Trust me, I wasn’t questioning his motives.” Kat tops off our glasses again. “I was simply thankful to be sitting roughly ten feet away from him.”

“I’m so jealous! I had Hard Knox posters all over my bedroom!”

Kat reaches out a fist for a bump. “Me too.”

“Hard Knox was a good band.” I sip my wine. “They broke up, you know.”

“So sad.” Mia shakes her head. “You got to see Jake Knox.”

“But we didn’t find an act for here.” I feel defeated. I so wanted to wrap that up tonight.

“We’ll find one,” Kat says. “Have Jeremy ask around.”

“He doesn’t really play the kind of music I want for us.”

“You mean the good kind?” Mia asks sarcastically.

“Okay, so he’s no Daughtry. He’s not horrible.”

Both Kat and Mia just raise a brow at me and smile.

“Okay, he’s not good.”

We all giggle and fall into a comfortable silence. Finally, Mia whimpers and lays her head down on the bar. “So tired.”

“Day off tomorrow, Mia. I mean it.” I rub her back in big circles. “You need to sleep.”

“Okay. But if anything happens, you call me.”

“We will,” Kat says. We look at each other while I continue to rub Mia’s back and we don’t need to speak aloud to know what the other is thinking.

The place would have to be on fire before we’d call Mia tomorrow.

Chapter Two

Jake

“You’re quiet.”

My head jerks up at the sound of her voice, pulling me from some damn daydream, and I frown. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be.”

“What’s on your mind?”

I chew on my bacon and watch my best friend of more than fifteen years across the table from me at this dive diner that serves the best breakfast in Portland. Christina has been with me through fame and money, and some of the shittiest moments of my life. She’s watched as I hit bottom and clawed my way out of the darkness again.

She’s the only person in the world that I know I can trust without blinking.

“Music’s always on my mind,” I reply and take a sip of coffee. She rolls her pretty brown eyes and tosses her brown hair over her shoulder the way she does when she’s annoyed.

“You’ve been invited to—”

“Not interested,” I reply, cutting her off. “I lived it, and I don’t need it anymore.”

“You miss it. You sang at that open-mic-night thing last weekend and you nailed it.”

I shrug one shoulder and don’t deny that she’s right. I do miss it.

Not playing music for people hurts as bad as if I were missing a leg, but playing at that open gig the other night was a big mistake. Because now I crave it again.