Mackenna groans as he stalks naked to open the door. “Not now, Leo.”

“Answer your phone, man.” Leo spares a glance toward the bed, where I’m clutching the sheet to my breasts. “You won’t be thrilled with it.”

He leaves as Mackenna grabs his phone and checks the messages. “My dad’s parole officer. Fuck.” He punches the number and starts pacing until someone apparently answers. “Hey. What’s up? So when was it that you last saw him? No, I haven’t heard.”

After a brief discussion, he hangs up. “Son of a bitch!” He falls to the bed and breathes deeply, dragging his hands down his face, then down the back of his head and all the way to his shoulders. “Dad’s skipped his last two parole sessions. They can’t find him. He quit his job. Jesus!” He looks at me, shaking his head. “I send him money, you know. But my condition is that he works. Otherwise he’ll dick around with drugs again. Well, it seems like he is.”

Something’s squeezing my chest so hard, I have trouble getting any words past my throat.

“Kenna,” I say, reaching out to make contact with his back, his shoulder, anything. But suddenly he seems so tense and unapproachable, I stop before making contact and draw my hand back. “I’m really sorry.”

He shakes his head, over and over, lost to his thoughts. “If I’d known it was going to be this way, I would’ve just let him serve his sentence. I did the equivalent of slitting my wrists to get him out early, and this is what he makes of it. This is what he makes of his chance to do something good with his life.”

I’m so bad at this. Torn between the need to console him and the fear of how much I care about the haunted look on his face, I just watch him get dressed.

“He’ll be all right. Maybe he found a new girlfriend and lost time in her bed?” I suggest.

“Optimism? From you?” His lips curl softly, and he shakes his head. He leans over. “You really are a softie.”

“Am not.”

“I’m pudding too. At least, I am with you.” He walks to the door and leaves me with that. How can he fucking leave me with that?

Well, he does, and for the next half hour I text Brooke and Melanie in a group chat.

Me: Do you believe in second chances?

Mel: Absolutely.

Brooke: If Rem hadn’t given me a second chance I’d be fucked right now.

Mel: If I hadn’t given Grey a second chance and I hadn’t been spared my life, we’d be fucked now too and NOT in a good way.

Me: Ok. Just asking.

Brooke: Pan, why didn’t you tell me you had a thing with Crack Bikini’s Kenna Jones? Remington plays their “Used” song all the time before a fight starts!

Me: Cause I hate their songs, that’s why.

I’m lying, of course. I just hate one song. The one about me. Although a lot of them do talk about anger, being used, and being betrayed—as if I were the one who walked away and left him to pick up the pieces of his heart.

But if any of that hell was true for him too, what’s going on right now? Why are we getting tangled up in each other all over again?

He could fuck any of his fans, like Jax and Lex do after concerts. He could fuck any groupie, any one of his dancers. They clearly miss him in their beds.

But, like junkies, one taste of each other and we’re obsessed.

“Danger,” that little voice whispers.

Oh, shut up, brain! You’re too damn late.

I squeeze my eyes shut and find myself adding his father’s name to my talisman bracelet.

TWELVE

THERE’S ALWAYS THAT ONE ASSHOLE STONE YOU TRIP ON TWICE

Mackenna

I left ten messages on his cell phone as I waited for my flight. By the time I landed, he’d left a message. Said his parole officer had found him and not to worry myself over it. Yeah, right.

He’d left a hotel name and room number too. I pick up a key at reception and end up having to scribble a couple of autographs, until I’m finally on the twentieth floor, popping the door open to find my father slumped in a chair out on the terrace, staring off into space.

A room service tray holding two glasses of champagne is set up by the window. “What the hell is up with you, Dad?”

The anger on my face gives him pause, and it takes him a hot second to get words out of his open jaw. “Hell I . . . you’re here? Son . . . I wouldn’t be ditching parole if that bitch hadn’t made it such a pain in the ass. I need freedom, Kenna, I’m choking here.”

“Look up, Dad. You see that? That’s fucking sunlight. You want to get a good dose of that every day, then you do your fucking parole.”

“I said I’m choking. Feels like I’m still in jail, only with a wider mile radius.”

“Jesus,” I curse, then lean over, trying to reason with him. “Dad, I know exactly how you feel. You feel trapped by your circumstances, but don’t carve yourself a worse one.”

“Do you understand? Do you really?”

“You fucking know I do.”

He forces out a smile and looks away, over the traffic and the city. “ ‘Carry on my wayward son,’ ” he quotes, his dark eyes framed with the same dark circles he came out of prison with. “Remember that song? You rocked it.”

“Yeah, I rock everything I touch with my tongue.”

A chuckle. “ ‘There’ll be peace when you are done,’ ” he continues, raising his eyebrows in question.

“You damn well know I want my freedom too. We’ve talked about this before. I’ll move you back to Seattle when I’m done so I can see you more often. Just don’t give anyone reason to put you away—you hear me? Be smart about this, Dad, Jesus. I fucking worry about you. Just think things through.”

“Like you’re smart about that girl?” he counters.

Fuck, I knew he’d bring her up.

Every part of me is tensing to defend her.

But it’s no use arguing with Dad about her. I shrug and say nothing, my jaw tight.

“Son, she’s toxic to you. You might want to be sure she’s into you before you go and drop a good life for the life of your dreams, only to find out it’s all a castle in the air, boy.”

“She’s real to me” is all I give him, and I growl it out in a thick whisper.

He sighs and drops his face in his hands. “Sorry, just can’t forget how her bitch mother put me behind bars.”

“Dad, you got yourself behind bars. See? We reap what we sow. Nobody made you deal, nobody made you make that choice. Own it. I’m owning the choices I made too, and one of those put me in a tight spot. Nobody made me do it. I had to. We just have to do some things sometimes.” I scrape my hand down my jaw, because holy shit, those choices hurt.

“You made a deal with her, didn’t you? That’s why I’m out. That’s why I should still be there. That’s why my parole sucks—that controlling bitch probably knows you’re traveling with her daughter now and is still trying to meddle with you two!”

“It’s crossed my mind.”

He stares at me, his eyes widening. “So what are you going to do?”

“She’s not fucking up my life twice, she’s not taking two people I love twice. Just be good, Dad—tomorrow doesn’t have to be today. Mine isn’t going to be. I’ve made mistakes. I hurt people I cared about. I’m fixing it.” I pat my dad on the back and lean over. “Fix your life the way you want it. Think of another job, I’ll pull some strings. Just give me time to get us back to Seattle. And do your parole.”

“Mackenna . . .” He stops me as I pull open the terrace door. “You’re the reason I hang on. When we lost your mom . . .”

“You did your best. I know. Come on, let’s get you home. I’m taking you out later today.”

THIRTEEN

IT PAYS TO BE PATIENT, AND GOOD THINGS COME WITH SILVER EYES

Pandora

Two days he’s been gone, but he arrives back just in time for the concert. The cameras were everywhere in his absence. Olivia, Tit, and half a dozen of the other dancers were being nice to me. They even asked if I wanted to hang with them the other night. They were going dancing.

“Pandora?” they prodded.

“Thanks, but I’m staying in tonight,” I said.

The cameras are trained on me from the moment I step out of my room. They filmed me in practice with Yolanda, right down to filming me while I asked the twins if they’d heard from Mackenna.

I’m only free in my room, but other than when I’m calling Magnolia and Mother, and trying to answer some client e-mails to keep my work from piling up when I return to Seattle, it’s lonely.

Tonight I couldn’t watch the concert. My legs are too sore from dancing. I’ve been taking cold showers and using ice packs, but I can’t wear my boots and walk at the same time, so I tell Lionel I don’t feel well and will stay in the hotel during the concert.

So here I am, waiting out in the hall, sitting on the floor and leaning against the door of Mackenna’s room, staring at the scuffs on my boots, when I hear the elevator ping and the sound of the guys joking around fills the hallway.

It’s almost inexplicable, the way my heart turns over in my chest when I catch sight of him. He’s wearing a pink wig, much like the one he wore the first day I saw him, and he’s dressed in gold leather pants, and sporting little flecks of glitter on his golden chest. He wears his everyday uniform of chains, bracelets, and tattoos.