I don’t let my heart sway me into another heartbreak. “I can’t see you when you’re using drugs.”

“Okay. So I won’t do anything while you’re here. I’ll be high on you, nothing else.”

I lean my forehead onto my hand and close my eyes, wishing this wasn’t so hard.

“So we have a great day together, then we both leave, and you go back on tour and get all fucked up and I come home with a broken heart. Again. And I won’t know when I’m ever going to see you. Again. And I’ll worry about you constantly. I’m sorry, I can’t do it.”

I hear the click and spark of the lighter again, the suck of air, and I’m pretty sure he’s getting high again.

“You’re right.” The sexy confidence he had a few moments ago has been replaced with sadness. “I can’t do that to you. I’m sorry, babe, for being such a fucking mess.”

“I’m sorry, too.”

“After the tour, I’ll get in a program, okay? I promise.”

“Okay…”

“I mean it, Ladybug. I’m gonna try really hard this time.”

I sigh. “Okay.” I can’t say anything else. My heart hurts too much.

“Will you tell me you love me?”

“Of course.” I take a death breath and swallow over the tightness in my throat. “I love you.”

“Will you think of me when it rains?”

“Yes. I always do.”

“I want you to go to sleep, okay? Don’t think about the bad stuff. Think about how much I love you, and how much I want you, and no one else. No matter what, that’s always going to be true.”

That much is true. And that’s what scares me.

After we hang up, Acorn shows up at my bedroom door with Penguin in his mouth, and jumps up on the bed to cuddle against me. Blue might be a mess, but without him I wouldn’t have the love of two of the most precious little beings in the world.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Morning.”

I smile at Josh as he enters the kitchen and makes a beeline for the coffee maker.

“Hey. What time did you get home last night? I didn’t hear you come in.”

He pours coffee into his favorite mug and leans against the kitchen counter. “It was late. Like two a.m.”

“Ooh. So the date went well?”

He shrugs. “Eh. She was okay.”

Putting my book down, I look at him across the room, wearing gray sweatpants and a white V-neck T-shirt. The front of his blond hair is longer now, hanging down almost to his eyes, and it makes him look edgy and sexy. He’s been doing a lot of photoshoots lately and even landed a hair product commercial not too long ago.

“Just okay?

“She has a lot of shoes.”

I raise an eyebrow at him. “Do you feel threatened by shoes?”

“No, seriously, Piper. She has about a thousand pairs of shoes. She collects them. She has an entire room in her condo just for shoes. They’re all sorted by color and heel height. It was scary.”

“Well it could be worse. She could collect dolls,” I tease.

“I would’ve jumped out the window. I love fashion, but having that many of anything isn’t normal.”

“It’s expensive, too.”

“No doubt. They were all expensive brands. I don’t know how she can even afford that many shoes.”

“Maybe she steals them.”

He gulps the last of his coffee and puts his mug in the dishwasher.

“I’m not going to see her again. I tried. She’s nice but I think she’s got hoarder potential or at the very least will run me into debt in six months flat.”

“You do realize you have double the dating pool and you still can’t find someone you like? Maybe you’re being too picky?”

Shrugging, he looks out the window into the backyard. “I’m not settling for someone just to be with someone. I’m happy. I have friends, I have family, I have you and Lyric. I don’t need a shoe hoarder or a guy who wants me to call him Daddy. I’m all set.” He turns back to me. “Where’s Lyric?”

“She’s in the playroom with Acorn doing that puzzle you gave her.”

“Have you been online this morning? Read any of the entertainment news?”

I narrow my eyes at him, suspicious of his random questions. “No… I haven’t been on my laptop yet. Why?”

“You might want to. Looks like your boy’s on a bender.”

“What are you talking about?”

He just shakes his head. “Go look. I’ll be out raking the backyard if you want to talk.”

Dread sends a feverish chill through me as I check on Lyric and then retrieve my laptop from where I left it on the coffee table last night. Sitting on the couch, I pull it onto my lap, wait impatiently for the dial-up to connect, and then open up my AOL account. I click on the Entertainment section and there it is.

The beginning of the downfall.

Thousands of Las Vegas concert-goes were disappointed and rightfully outraged last week when No Tomorrow front man repeatedly botched his own lyrics, cursed at fans, and stumbled around on stage in a clear state of intoxication before walking off stage mid-concert and refusing to come back.