Page 84 of Crash & Burn

“I want to thank him,” I explain. “For the song. The song youalldedicated to me.” Which is true, they did all dedicate it to me. I may have just noticed more weight in a certain drummer’s dedication.

“Sure you do,” Mateo says, sounding suspicious. “You guys arejustfriends, right? You and Eddie.”

“Yes.” At least we’re supposed to be, but I keep that part to myself.

“Keep it that way,” he says in his dad-voice, and I don’t argue.

“What did I say about not wanting to bone your friends?”

Mateo groans, “No. No, we are not doing this again.”

“What do you mean?” I tease. “You said no talk of ‘banging’, not boning.”

“Stop. He’s getting some air outside, I’m sure he’ll be back here any minute.” He shakes his head, but I know he is trying to keep in a laugh. “I’m going to go help Theo and Silas, so you can wait for him here.” He stands up and heads to the door.

He turns around before he opens the door. “No, funny business, Camila.”

“Don’t call me that. You only call me that when you’re mad.”

“I am mad,” he answers, even though he is totally not and trying to pretend. “Mad that you brought up banging my friends again.”

“No, I did not. I brought upboning.”

“Yeah, yeah, I don’t want to hear it. Meet us by the bar in the back, we’re all going to watch the rest of the show.” He opens the door to the green room and takes a step out.

“Mateo?” He looks over his shoulder. “You know I can take care of myself, right?”

He laughs because I have asked him this before, back when I first started coming around the Cross My Heart’s practices before the tour even started. “I know you can,” he says. Then he adds, “You are the priority, Mia. I just don’t want anyone getting in the way of you taking care ofyourself.”

I don’t get a chance to ask him what he means because he turns back out the door to find Eddie on his way in, muttering “Speak of the Devil,” as he steps to the side to let Eddie through.

“Am I interrupting?” Eddie asks Mateo. He spots me, looking surprised to see me back here. “Is everything okay?”

“All good,” Mateo says, slapping Eddie on the back of the shoulder, letting him in through the door. When Mateo is out of the door, I hear him call to me, “Anyone, Mia.”

Eddie closes the door once Mateo is gone, and I pretend to not notice he locks the door.

Chapter 28

Mia

I stand up from where I am sitting, and I walk over to him. Eddie’s back is towards me and I stop a few feet away from him.

“Eddie?” He slowly turns to me, and his face says it all. In this moment, I realize why his cheeks turned red when I asked him about the song last night, why he admitted that he wanted me to like it.

The song he was writing was always for me, since the beginning, when they talked about debuting one, the song has always been for me.

There is so much I want to say to him at this moment, but opening my mouth to let the words out feels like crossing a line that we both know needs to stay intact because I know the words will lead to a place of no return.

“Did you like it?” He asks.

I nod.

“You got to give me more than that, sunshine.”

“So it’s ‘sunshine’ today? What happened to ‘baby’?” I tease. It will always be easy to fall back into where it is comfortable with Eddie, but I know I can’t stay in the comfort zone long.

“Sunshine, baby,mi sol,which one do you want? Please just tell me what you thought,” he begs.

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