Page 61 of The Encore Effect

“Fuck. I promised I’d do yoga with him before the lunch dates,” Beckett groaned. He pressed a kiss to her wet hair. “I’ll get rid of him.”

“You should go,” she said, pulling the towel around herself to conceal her nakedness as Beckett reached for his sweatpants.

He froze, his expression turning stormy. Prickles of warning rose along the back of his neck. He’d just been inside her minutes ago. Now she was pulling away? Unacceptable. “Kat—”

She held up a hand to stop him, clutching the towel tighter. “I need some time to process all of this. You go do yoga with Nico. It’ll be good for your knee.”

He pulled on his sweatpants. This seemed like a conversation that required pants. “We should process together.”

“We will,” she assured him, pressing her palm to his still-damp chest. “Later.”

He held her wrist, keeping her close as his thumb stroked across the back of her hand. “When?”

“I know you’re in there!” Nico called, accompanied by another round of insistent knocking.

“Give me a fucking minute!” he called back. Then, softer, to Kat, “We’ll talk over lunch.”

She shook her head. “I can’t. I have to get the arena ready for tonight’s show. I should have been over there an hour ago.”

He exhaled harshly through his nose, that prickle digging its claws into him. “After the show then.” She nodded, but there was already something distant in her expression. He took her face in his hands, cradling her jaw as his fingertips wove into wet hair. “Stop overthinking.” He dropped feather-light kisses on her cheekbones, the tip of her nose, her eyelids. “We’re good. We’re so good,” he murmured.

He wasn’t sure if he was reassuring her or himself.

“Sometime this year would be nice,” Nico bellowed from the hall.

Kat chuckled, her face softer, calmer than it had been a few seconds ago. The change in her expression settled something in his chest—not completely, but enough. For now. “Go before he breaks down the door.”

He didn’t want to go. He wanted to haul her back into the shower where everything had been easy and she’d seemed as sure as he was. But he knew that wouldn’t help. No matter how good it was between them, he couldn’t fuck her doubts away—Lord knows he’d tried that before. He’d just have to show her, little by little, day after day, until she stopped doubting. It would be different this time. He was different this time.

He pressed a kiss to her lips, lingering and slow. “I’ll see you at the arena. Don’t forget to eat lunch.”

Then he turned and left before he could change his mind, grabbing a clean t-shirt from his suitcase on the way. When he opened the door, Nico was leaning against the wall across the hall. “Finally. What took so long?” Nico whined. He wrinkled his nose at the water dripping from Beckett’s hair onto his t-shirt. “Did you just get out of the shower?”

Nico’s eyes caught on something over his shoulder, mischief gleaming in them. Beckett glanced back to see Kat’s reflection in the mirror hanging opposite the bed, a thick hotel robe pulled tight around her curves as she towel-dried her long hair.

“Oh, so it’s like that,” Nico said with a grin.

“Fuck off.” Beckett pushed Nico away from the open door, closing it behind him, but he couldn’t help the way his own lips turned up in a smile.

Nico laughed and handed Beckett a rolled up yoga mat identical to the one slung over his own shoulder. “Tell me again how the engagement is fake.”

“It’s complicated,” Beckett mumbled.

“Sure, super complicated.” Nico jabbed the button next to the elevator, stepping inside when it opened when a ding. “She’s your ex. And our tour manager—can’t forget that part. You’ve been in love with her for as long as we’ve known her, and apparently you just fell into the shower with her this morning. I can see how that’s complicated.”

Beckett glared at his friend as the elevator let them off opposite the small hotel gym. Midnight Storm had paid a fortune to have the hotel close it down for their private use, and a hastily printed sign in a page protector taped to the door of the gym confirmed just that. Nico pressed his key card to the pad beside the door, the electronic lock whirring and letting them inside.

“What would you do if you were in my position?” Beckett asked, unrolling his yoga mat.

Nico shook out his own mat. “I wouldn’t be in your position. The band doesn’t have any employees that I’ve been not-so-secretly in love with for the last ten years.”

“Helpful.” Beckett sat on his mat, pressing the soles of his feet together. His knee was immediately engulfed in flames, sharp jolts of pain like lightning strikes crackling over the joint. Spending a half hour on his knees on the tile floor of the shower hadn’t been his best idea. But he’d do it again in a heartbeat. He just hoped he’d get the chance.

“What are you really asking me?” Nico asked, moving into a deep forward bend.

“Nothing. Don’t know why I bothered. You’re not a relationship guy anyway.”

Nico turned to face Beckett, his wounded expression reflected back at them in the mirrored wall. “I could be a relationship guy. If I met the right person.” He reached across the distance between them, tapping Beckett’s thigh. “Straighten this leg.” Beckett grumbled but complied, the stretch moving into his hamstrings and easing the pressure on his knee.