Page 53 of Last Chorus

Between one moment and the next, I cross the line into overstimulation, the chorus of voices melding into an abrasive buzz. In lieu of telling everyone to shut the fuck up so I can think, I clutch my phone and walk swiftly toward the hallway.

“I can answer it,” offers Jax as I pass the kitchen.

“I’ve got it,” I force out.

Halfway down the hallway, the chatter fades enough to no longer feel like the sensory equivalent of nails on a chalkboard. I stop beside a window and lay my palm on the glass.

Inhale. Feel the cold. Exhale. You’re fine. Just tired. Breathe.

My heartbeat eventually retreats from my temples, the tightness in my lungs releasing. Leaning my shoulder on a wall, I pull up the app for my doorbell camera. If Holly’s correct—and she probably is—I have no intention of opening the door. My neighbor, Herman, is a single retiree with a habit of showing up uninvited and ignoring cues to leave. He’s also an absolute wacko obsessed with conspiracy theories, who occasionally forgoes pants and underwear because theychafe.

The video feed is slow to load. I wince in anticipationof Herman’s cold-shriveled dick and balls. But when the image clears, it’s not Herman.

An unfamiliar woman stands at the bottom of the porch steps, her back to the camera. Shoulder-length light brown hair, a winter coat, shapeless cargo pants, and sneakers.

Torn between curiosity and apprehension, I keep staring. Ten seconds later, she seems to pull herself straighter. Then she walks into the darkness.

On her third step, my breath stalls in my chest.

Then I’m running.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

wilder

Itear open the front door and make it across the porch before realizing I’m barefoot and wearing a T-shirt. The wind off the water doesn’t care that it’s technically spring, immediately diving beneath my clothes and inducing a shiver.

Not that a blizzard would stop me.

Her retreat halted when I opened the door, but she doesn’t turn around as I jog down the brick path. Stopping a few feet from her back, I tuck my hands into my armpits.

“Evangeline?”

I’m aiming for calm, maybe even amusement, but I miss the mark by a mile. My chest heaves like my ten-second sprint was a triathlon. I sound angry.

Iamangry.

It’s been two months since the Grammys. Two months since she disappeared from the public eye. Eightlong as fuckweeks in which I’ve wondered and worried about her, my only comfort the texts she sent Lily, Rye, and her parents before vanishing. She told them she’d left Clay, was somewhere safe with Martin Page, and needed time to think.

Evangeline slowly turns around. Her head stays lowered, eyes on the ground between us and hands tucked in her coat pockets.

“I guess you’re wondering where I’ve been and what I’m doing here.”

I choke on a thousand replies, all of them too emotional.

She glances at the house, then at the two other cars parked in my driveway. “You have company. I’m sor—I mean, oops.I’ll just… go.”

I jerk forward, grabbing her arm before I even finish the thought of stopping her. “Don’t.”

She startles, chin and eyes lifting, her face finally visible in the ambient glow of the house lights. My brain absorbs new information so fast the steam from my breath might as well be leaving my ears.

I can hardly believe it, but she’s not wearing a wig like I thought. She actually chopped off and dyed her signature white-blond locks. The color, a shade darkerthan her lashes and brows, looks ridiculously sexy. She’s put on some much-needed weight, too, her cheekbones not as stark and her jawline a touch softer. And she’s tan—or as tan as she can get, her face and neck the light bronze, freckle-sprinkled hue I saw each summer as a kid. The final difference is the only one that bothers me: she’s covered her pale gray iris with a contact lens color-matched to her hazel eye.

A gust of wind slaps me out of my stunned silence. “Are you okay? Where have you been?”

Her gaze slides off my face toward the water, visible only as winks of moonlight through the trees.

“I’m fine. I was in Baja.” She sighs. “I’d still be there if a local hadn’t recognized me at the market. Lazy mistake on my part—I was wearing a hat but forgot my contact lens. Honestly, I don’t blame her for following me and taking photos. Hopefully she holds out for a lot of zeroes.”

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