Epilogue: Chapter Forty-Five

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Night and the dark are my recipe for restless energy under the right circumstances. I've been sleeping fine since my concert in Thunder Bay and getting back together with Hunter, but it seems there's no amount of sheep I can count that will help me drift off tonight.

It isn't even what happened with Bowie that feeds my brain chatter long after the lights are turned out in my house and each of us retires to our own bedroom. Nope. It's knowing Hunter is down the hall and that even though I'm awake, I can't talk to him or see him until morning.

I didn't get the chance to kiss him goodnight, which is something I was used to doing each night at the lake after our first kiss. That's because Mom stopped to chat with us about our plans for the next couple of days on the way up to her bedroom. She hung around until we took the hint she was there to check on us and intercept any midnight make-out session that might have been in the works, even though there wasn't one. She was obvious about it, but I get it. Responsible parenting and everything.

And yet, call it temptation. Call it me being selfish. Call it ridiculous, even. No matter the label, it doesn't change how strong my desire is to be spending this time with Hunter, instead of lying awake in the dark. It's shaping up to be a long and sleepless night.

I turn onto my side, but it's a fight to find a comfortable place to put my arms. I give up after the fourth time I change their position and reach for my phone instead. I'm not falling asleep by staring at the ceiling in silence, so maybe listening to an audiobook will help.

A text from Sawyer stops me before I get past unlocking the screen. I see you guys ran into Bowie after we left. Are you doing okay?

My stomach lurches. I didn't send a message to Sawyer about our encounter, and I'm certain Hunter didn't, either. Sawyer and Bowie went from tolerating one another to open contempt after touring together in the summer and what happened at the music festival, so they wouldn't be in contact. There's only one other plausible reason why he knows this.

So much for the audiobook. I open Twitter, wincing as I do. My notifications are a disaster. As I suspected, someone witnessed what went down outside of Astral tonight, and it doesn't stop with an onlooker's account of events or photos. There's also a video that captured the entire exchange between Hunter and Bowie. The picture and audio are clear, so the video must have been taken from close by. Whoever managed to do it without any of us seeing them gets my grudging admiration for being stealth, but it's already turning into a tabloid and social media free-for-all.

If there's any saving grace, it's that the first few tweets I read frame Bowie as the jealous ex-boyfriend who won't leave me alone. I stop scrolling before I see replies from Bowie's fans, because those won't take the same angle and it's guaranteed the words about Hunter and me won't be kind.

Hunter said he was prepared for something like this, but that was the possibility of it in the hypothetical realm, and not it happening in real time. He'll need to know before we leave the house tomorrow in case the paps have declared open season on following our every move. I would like to be the person he hears the news from rather than him finding out some other way, but I don't have a huge window of opportunity to ensure this happens.

I contemplate my phone for a full minute. It's possible Hunter is still awake right now and I can tell him before someone else does or he stumbles across it on his own. There's only one way to find out. I open my text messages and begin typing.

Are you still awake?

The three dots that show he's replying pop up on my screen within seconds.

I might be dreaming this and sleep-texting. Who's to say?

Keep dreaming and sleep-texting where you are, because I'm jailbreaking. See you in a minute.

I set my phone down and sit up. There will be no end to the hell that crashes down around me if Mom finds out I'm sneaking into Hunter's room in the middle of the night, but for once in my life, I ignore the good-girl voice of my conscience. He needs to know about his visit to L.A. being public knowledge and the video that's out there. While I could tell him in a text, I'm not going to.

I ease out of bed and creep out of my bedroom, praying with each step that Mom's supersonic hearing won't pick up my movement. It's unlikely, considering she's on another floor of the house, but I can't be too careful. When I arrive outside the door to Hunter's room, I reach for the handle and turn it as quietly as I can. I hold my breath as I tiptoe inside and shut the door behind me, and I don't exhale until I turn around.

Hunter is sitting up in bed with the duvet covering him to his waist. I have a close call with tripping over my feet when I catch sight of his naked torso. What he wears when he sleeps, and what he doesn't, weren't things I considered before now. But then I spot the waistband of either shorts or pajama pants and steady myself. He watches me with a smile that's both curious and amused.

I raise a finger to my lips, warning him not to speak yet, since we can't risk our voices being at a detectable volume.

"We have to be super quiet," I whisper. "Mom will ground me for life if she catches me in here."

"Your 'U up?' text wasn't a dream, then?" he whispers back.

He's kidding, and making out with him isn't why I'm here, even if his bare chest, pillow-mussed hair, and the lack of alone time we've had today all tempt me to forget why I snuck into his room.

"I'm living dangerously tonight," I joke. "It happens once every seventeen years."

I shiver as a blast of air from the vent in the room meets my skin and raises goosebumps on my arms. The air conditioning must be set to match the temperature of Antarctica tonight. I was fine in my pajama tank top and shorts when I was in my bed, under blankets, but I'm freezing now.

Hunter notices. He holds up the edge of the duvet, inviting me to sit beside him. I shouldn't, because then I'll want to stay here all night, cocooned under the covers together. I do it anyway.

Any tension I've been carrying in my body since seeing Sawyer's text and my Twitter notifications melts away when Hunter puts his arm around me. I sink into the warmth he radiates.

"Are you here to tell me about our after-dinner conversation going public?" he asks.

"You know that already?"

"Paisley saw something and sent me a message. I was waiting until the morning to tell you, since I didn't want you to be worried if you were already falling asleep."

Hunter sounds and appears calm, and he seems to be more concerned about how I'm handling this. I snuggle in closer to him.

"I couldn't sleep, so I got on my phone and saw a text from Sawyer about it."

"Why couldn't you sleep? Are the dreams back?"

We've talked about the nightmares I had after what happened at The Domino, so I know these are the dreams he means.

"No dreams. I was just having a hard time turning my brain off tonight. I'm surprised you weren't already sleeping, though."

"I sometimes don't fall asleep right away when I've been awake for too long and am overtired," he explains. "It's like being exhausted but completely wired at the same time."

I've experienced this feeling more times than I want to remember while criss-crossing the world to perform, so I sympathize. Still, he needs some rest. He's been awake for almost twenty-four hours between the time zone differences and when he had to wake up to be at the airport this morning.

"You should try to sleep," I tell him. "I don't want to keep you awake and make you a zombie tomorrow. Or today, I guess."

He kisses the top of my head. "You aren't keeping me awake. If anything, I'm more relaxed now."

"Me too."

"I was about to try a sleep meditation when you texted me. Want to listen to one together?"

Hunter moves his arm so it's no longer around me. I'm about to protest when I see he's reaching for a set of earbuds and his phone, which are on the night table next to his side of the bed. He holds an earbud out to me.

I should go back to my room. I know this. Every minute I'm here increases the chance of us being caught and put on blast by the moms, even if what we're doing is G-rated and innocent. My conscience's good-girl voice is overruled for the second time in less than half an hour when I put my hand out and take the earbud from him.

"I'll listen for a few minutes. Don't let me fall asleep, though."

Hunter finds a meditation for us on his phone, and then he repositions himself so he's lying on his side, facing me. Sitting up would be better for staying awake, but I give in to what I most want to do and shift down so I'm lying next to him.

I give both of us credit, since we actually listen to the meditation. Hunter closes his eyes after a few minutes. His breathing becomes deep and even after several more minutes pass, which tells me he's asleep and it's time for me to leave.

I remove my earbud and set it on top of the duvet. I have every intention of inching over to the edge of the bed, standing up, and returning to my bedroom, but then my gaze lands on Hunter again. He looks so peaceful when he's asleep, and I'm drawn to watching his chest rise and fall. The motion is hypnotic and more soothing to me than the meditation was.

The next thing I'm aware of is sunlight dancing across my face. I open my eyes to realize it's already morning, and that I fell asleep next to Hunter. His arm ended up around me at some point during the night, and I'm loath to move it in case it wakes him up. I have to, though, since I need to get to my own bed before anyone else in the house is awake.

Hunter stirs when I lift his arm, even though the motion is gentle and slight. His eyelids flutter and I pause, willing him to be pulled back into a deep slumber.

"Good morning. I think this means I let you fall asleep?" His eyes are open now, and he gives me the most adorable and sleepy smile I've ever seen. Why was I leaving? I'd risk being caught in his room in the middle of the night all over again just to see this.

"I think I let myself do that." I reach up to run my fingers through his already-messy hair. "Did you sleep okay?"

He starts to answer me, but stops at the sound of another voice. I freeze, mid-tousle of his hair.

Mom and Melanie are both awake and talking to each other. Where they are in the house, and if I can make it out of Hunter's room and into mine without being heard, are what I can't determine.


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