Page 67 of After Midnight

When we pull apart, I feel that tightening in my throat again, and I have to bite my lip and blink rapidly, trying desperately not to cry. Once again, my gaze flicks across the passersby, and a few people are looking at us, but they don’t have their phones pointed in our direction.

Seb must see it, because he strokes a thumb across my cheek and says, “Are you okay?”

I nod quickly. “Yeah. Just a bit . . . paranoid, I guess.” My shoulders rise and fall in a shrug.

This makes his smile falter.

Immediately, I say, “It’s okay. I’ll get used to it, right?”

His expression shifts again, as quickly as a wispy white cloud moving away from the sun. “You’re gonna stick around, then?”

His voice sounds light, casual, but I know by now that when he says something, he means it. So I mean it too when I say softly, “Yeah. I’m gonna stick around.”

Seb lets out a small sound, like he was holding his breath waiting for my reply, and those dimples make another appearance as he grins. “Good. I was afraid you might actually be a mirage.” Stooping, he picks up his bags, slinging one effortlessly onto his shoulder. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

My throat and eyes are still trying to betray me, so I just nod once and let out a quiet, “Okay.”

We both hesitate, standing there, saying nothing. But this moment has to end. We both know it.

With a flex of the muscles along his jaw, Sebastian turns, heading toward the building, the doors swishing open with a whisper. He pauses briefly to look back at me, big brown eyes catching the sun. And a second later, he’s gone.

And even though I’m surrounded by people and cars and the whip of desert wind in my ears, it somehow feels much too quiet.

Swallowing hard, I try to shake it off. I climb back into my Jeep and move out of the drop-off area, but for some reason, I find it hard to leave. So instead, I navigate to the short-term parking and take a ticket at the kiosk, not caring that it’ll cost me to sit here.

I park the Jeep in a shady spot with a perfect view of the blue sky, so I can watch the planes coming and going.

And I think about him. About the feel of his body against mine in the dark. About Cali and Malibu and the distance between the west coast and Vegas.

I think about the picture.

After wiggling my phone out of my pocket, I navigate to Tribe, then pull up the photo of us. We’re smiling, totally oblivious to the phone camera pointed in our direction as we get our toes done. My smile is wide, my eyes crinkled in the corners.

I look happy. Carefree.

I look like a woman who doesn’t need armor.

My teeth nibble at my bottom lip. I intentionally don’t scroll to the comments, and I set my profile to private last night to stop all the messages and new follows I was getting. I don’t want to know what anyone else thinks. I don’t want the outside world to creep in and corrupt this perfectly weird, beautiful thing that I seem to have discovered in Sebastian. I want this little world to stay ours for as long as possible, even if that might be foolish.

He is a rock star, for fuck’s sake.

I’m still looking at the photo when my phone starts to ring, and it sends a big smile curling across my mouth. I swipe to accept the call, and there Seb is, sitting in the waiting area, sipping an iced coffee from a plastic cup, his ballcap partially obscuring his face and the five o’clock shadow clinging to his chin.

“You actually called,” I say, shaking my head. Before him, I’ve never known a man who’s so good at following through on the things he says he’s going to do.

“Of course I did. I told you I would.” He takes another sip of coffee. “And besides, I miss you already.”

His words send a little burst of heat twirling through my belly. I think to brush him off, make a joke, try to put my walls back up in hopes of protecting myself.

But then I think of the way I look in that photo: unguarded, yet safe.

Maybe I don’t have to put my armor back on—at least, not with him.

“I miss you too,” I say.

With a boyish smile, he swishes the iced coffee around in his cup, then narrows his eyes at me curiously. “Where are you?”

My cheeks heat up. “I’m . . . still at the airport. In the short-term parking.”