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Nico bobbed his eyebrows. “You could play doctor.”

“Don’t be a dick,” Beckett snapped as Kat’s cheeks turned pink, her thumb sliding over the engagement ring on her finger, spinning the band around and around.

“Kat can hang,” Nico said.

She arched an eyebrow at him. “Kat decides if you get to go out tonight, so you better be nice to her.”

“Why is Kat talking about herself in the third person?” Zach asked.

Lenny, a short woman in her early twenties with grayish-purple streaks in her dark brown hair and a thin silver barbell through her eyebrow, jogged across the crowded park waving a pair of jeans. “Sorry! I couldn’t find any of Beckett’s.”

“Then whose are those?” Kat asked.

“Jackson’s. I figured they’re twins, right? So they probably wear the same size?” Lenny narrowed her eyes as she assessed the relative waist sizes of Beckett and his brother.

“Close enough.” Beckett held a hand out.

“Thanks, Lenny.” Kat took the dog leash from Beckett and handed it off to the tour assistant. “These will be fine for the rest of the photo shoot.”

Lenny beamed. “What a cute dog!”

“Her name is Chester,” Nico said.

Beckett didn’t bother to listen to the rest as he stalked across the field towards the first aid tent, waving to the fans who called his name as he passed by the steel barricades and nodding a hello to Rodney, Gideon’s second-in-command, who peeled off from the group to follow him. Beckett hadn’t truly been alone in public since his early twenties, before Midnight Storm’s first big break opening for Brozone. He’d gotten used to the omnipresent feeling of being watched, the security guards and PAs who hovered at a polite distance but never truly left. He was grateful for his life, for all the luxuries and privilege it had afforded him, the escape from the chaos of the fractured family they’d left behind. But sometimes he missed his anonymity, the privacy he’d given up in pursuit of this dream.

Jackson’s dream. Not his. Not really. But they were a package deal. Always had been.

A man in a neon orange t-shirt emblazoned with a giant paw print and the word ‘volunteer’ across the back showed Beckett to a small, curtained-off area at the back of the first aid tent. He stripped off the wet denim, shoving it into a plastic dog poop bag, and pulled on his brother’s jeans. Lenny was right—they were basically the same size. But Jackson’s slim cut, straight leg pants were tight against the brace Beckett wore on his knee, unlike his usual bootcut jeans. It would have to do.

Beckett let the fly flop open, and shoved his hands into the pockets, hoping to flatten the lining out even the slightest bit. From one pocket, he pulled out a small, nearly empty container of mouthwash strips and an old gum wrapper. He tossed both in the nearby trash can. From the other pocket, Beckett pulled a worn guitar pick and a crumpled cocktail napkin from the hotel bar, “Room 815” written beneath the hotel logo in a neat, feminine script.

“Beckett? What’s taking so long?” Kat asked, peeking her head around the curtain. He shoved the napkin back into the jeans pocket as she scanned him, her eyes lingering on the open placket of his jeans.

“They’re tighter than mine,” he mumbled as he did up the zipper.

Her neck and cheeks flushed the prettiest pink, and he felt her attention on him like a physical touch, the caress of her eyes tracing the tattoos on the back of his hands as he worked the button through the stiff denim. He’d caught her eyeing his tattoos plenty of times on this tour, lingering on the sleeve of flowers and vines, tattoos he’d gotten after they’d broken up all those years ago. Maybe someday she’d be brave enough to ask him about them. Maybe he’d be brave enough to tell her about them.

His voice was sandpaper-rough, words disguised as an exhale, when he asked, “Like what you see?”

She blinked, looking away. “The photographer is ready for you.”

He chuckled, shaking his head. “Can’t even admit you like looking at me.”

All that pretty pink slid away, replaced by an angry spark in her eyes. “I like a lot of things that are bad for me.”

He slid the end of his belt into place and moved towards her so he could speak without being overheard by Rodney or any of the lingering volunteers on the other side of the curtain. “I see the way you look at me.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, tilting her chin up defiantly. “How do I look at you?”

He dragged his gaze over her body, taking his time tracing her curves. “Like you remember just how not-bad we are together.”

“I do not,” she said with a huff, but her cheeks darkened to a delicious shade of red.

“You’ve been angry at me since the bookstore. Why?” She rolled her eyes, as if he didn’t know her well enough to know when she was pissed. “Because I read your books? So did thousands of other people.”

“It’s different.”

“How?”