Silvia breathed deep when the bus huffed to a stop by the platform.

There it was.

Within minutes, she would leave behind all the wrongs she'd been through there. And all the good things as well. But since wrongs had been many more, and much more significant, she couldn't feel down about leaving that godforsaken fold of the world to never come back.

She went back to the truck with the brothers to fetch her luggage, and busy hanging her rucksack from her shoulders, she missed Sean's face when he learned that the four-figure guitar now belonged to his brother.

The man with the serious frown cracked a quick smile to wish her a safe trip.

"Thank you, Sean." She hesitated. "May I ask you one last favor?"

Sean hesitated too, before replying with a curt, cautious nod. Silvia's thumb pointed at Jay, waiting two steps away with her duffel bag and a little smile.

"His inner bastard is begging for a beating, but I can't stay any longer to please him."

Once more, Sean's grin erased his villain looks for a heartbeat, and his next nod made Silvia fear for Jay's bones.

Jay heard the exchange and scoffed. "Shall we, hun? Before you put a gun-for-hire on my track."

Silvia smiled one last time at Sean and headed for the platform with Jay.

The bus door had hissed open and the driver had come down to meet someone from the station. Another man stood by the baggage compartment on the side, open for the dozen passengers coming to board the bus.

"So this is it," she said, keeping her eyes on the bus. "Are you gonna tell me that famous name of yours now?"

"Are you on Twitter?"

"What?" She stopped and waited for him to do the same and face her. "Really?"

Jay nodded for her to keep walking. "Nah. I'm telling you as soon as we hand your things over. So?"

"Well, I opened an account once, to see what was it about, but never used it. I don't quite like it."

"Oh, right, I forgot you're a Suckerborg lackey."

"I think we've already had that conversation. Like ten steps away from here."

"True. Okay, so post your poem on Facebook and dust off your Twitter to DM me the link. I'll send you a link to the pictures we took this morning."

"If it pleases milord. So what's your Twitter handle?"

His smile threw her off. "It's my name, with the little blue thingie on the side."

Silvia frowned, about to ask what the hell he was talking about. He had a certified Twitter account? Like famous people with a zillion followers? But they were already by the bus. She waited near the door, letting him take her things to the baggage compartment.

He was just back when the station employee shouted at the top of his lungs from a couple of steps away, "Bus to Fargo! All onboard!"

Jay made a discreet sign to the driver by the open door to give them a minute, and produced his wallet in no hurry.

Silvia studied him with a slight frown. What was with him all of a sudden? Over the thirty-six hours they'd spent together around the clock, it was the first time he behaved like that, with that sort of detached calm. He met her eyes for the last time, and she thought his mild smile was somehow sad as he handed her his driver license.

There they go, he thought, sinking his hands in his pockets. All the jokes and the fun we shared. This feeling so fine together. Your giving me room to be myself without a name. My holding you up to keep you from breaking down. Our kinky games and our singing. There it goes, all of it, flushed away by my name.

He watched her look down, frown again, gasp. Her eyes read the name a couple of times and jumped to the picture, frowning deeper and deeper. She looked up at him, her lips moving without a sound.

Jay kept quiet, giving her time to stare at him until she finally recognized him. He waited for the outburst that never came. She just stood there, her eyes moving from his face to his ID in her hand, blushing so bad her ears seemed just about to fume like chimneys.

The driver approached them with an apologetic grimace. "We're leaving, ma'am," he said.

A chill made Silvia shiver from head to toes, and her hand moved slowly to give Jay back his driver license. He took it as he leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

"DM me to let me know you got home alright," he said.

He was tempted to scoff in her face just to make her react. But the time for jokes had already ran out for them. So he only smiled one last time, before spinning on his heels and strolling away to meet his brother.

His brother Sean. Somehow she remembered something called air and the notion of breathing, while she still refused to believe that final piece to a jigsaw portrait that didn't make the least bit of sense. No way. They couldn't be Sean and Jim—

"Ma'am?"

Silvia almost thanked the driver for stopping such a stupid train of thoughts on its tracks. But the diversion lasted only until she found a seat by the window on the station side. As soon as she sat down, her mind turned into a catalog of the hundreds of pictures and videos of them she'd seen over the years.

She was still trying to grasp the realization when the bus reversed away from the platform and turned slowly to leave the station. Her eyes snapped back to reality and showed her Sean's truck right outside the station, by the road, and the brothers resting against it. There he was. The stranger she'd spent the most surprising and unlikely days of her life with noticed she'd seen him and waved goodbye at her.

And Silvia finally recognized his eyes, his smile, everything. Of course it was him. Rockanroll's bad boy, the grownup who behaved like a spoiled brat and a shallow celeb. To then make those razor-sharp songs that always punched her guts.

But he was also Jay, the man who had rescued her when she needed it most, holding her up and through one of the worst moments of her whole life just because. Because a storm and a broken rental and his heart of gold.

So she waved back at her personal savior, and slid a finger across her neck to say goodbye to his lovely inner bastard.

And even though they were already apart, they laughed together one last time.

Until the bus reached the Interstate and turned to drive away due south.

Silvia reclined her seat and closed her eyes with a sigh that turned into a shaky giggle.

No.

No way.

It was just not possible.

She couldn't have spent two nights and the whole day in between with No Return's frontman Jim Robinson.