Page 7 of Heartbeat Highway

I didn’t ask Bo about the band emergency. I try to trust K, really I do. I’m sure he wouldn’t have lied just to get out of spending the holidays in St. Olaf. Even if he did miss Snow Angel Fest.

When Bo visited—his mom in Sacramento travels a lot with her various boyfriends and he refuses to spend holidays with his dad—it was just pure, easy fun. We went snowmobiling and ice skating and crashed a basement party being thrown by some people I knew from high school.

I guess that’s the difference between friends and boyfriends. There’s more work and expectations with one than the other.

“How’s that gorgeous boyfriend of yours?” Lianna and I head down the hallway toward the library, which is already crammed. Most of the first and second years bolted out of our exam only to disperse to the library and coffee shops to study for the next. Thank all the law school gods, this next one is the last. I feel like my eyeballs are about to fall out of my head.

“He’s good. He’s been sending me updates from the road.” I pull up a video he sent me last night, of him onstage somewhere in Kansas. His sweaty hair falls around his shoulders and he’s leaning into a crowd of mostly women. My throat tightens.

K is gorgeous. Ash blond and muscular. Though everyone else in the band has tattoos, K says his skin is a temple and he doesn’t want graffiti.

I’m strictly sworn to secrecy that he doesn’t get tattoos because he keloids, but even then he won’t get one because he has a deathly fear of needles.

Lianna quirks a perfectly threaded eyebrow upward, her dark brown gaze inscrutable. “Looks like he’s loving it.”

“I know.” I bristle, but it’s silly to be jealous. K has always had women hanging over him, but at the end of the day, he always saysI come home to you, baby girl.

Not literally. We don’t live together, despite me dropping hints—fine, begging— last year when my landlord wanted to raise my rent an unfeasible amount. In the end, Bo offered me the studio ADU attached to his bungalow. What a godsend. It’s ridiculously cheap, too.

“When are you flying out?” She walks through the door I hold open for her.

“Tonight. So weird they have red eye flights, but I’ll get into Nashville bright and early tomorrow morning. I’m going to surprise K in his hotel.” Butterflies churn in my stomach. K does not love surprises. I tried once before, to surprise him when he played a casino outside Palm Springs. He freaked out and practically ran me out of the hotel.

“Ooh, love that. Did you buy something cute?” She shimmies her shoulders as we walk into the library and try to find two open spots.

“I got something,” I say shyly. This is not something I’m proud of, but I’ve not been liking my body lately. Over the past year of law school, the stress and the late nights have led to me gaining almost thirty pounds. I’m learning to appreciate my new body, but I’m not used to dressing myself. I watched about ten YouTube videos before I went shopping and chose a sundress and this pretty, lacy negligee. It was a little too expensive, but it’s burgundy, and it makes my blond hair pop. The sundress is pretty, too. It flares over my hips and makes my cleavage look amazing.

“You’re going to look gorgeous.” Lianna bumps my hip with hers, then stops at a study carrel where two underclassmen are playing paper football.

“Excuse me,” I say, but it’s like I’m whispering into a waterfall.

“Move,” she says sharply to them.

And move they do.

I’mexhausted when I finally get into my rental car in Nashville. I had to wait two hours for the guy I’m renting the car from, despite me telling him my flight got in at two in the morning. It’s fine. I get people don’t want to work during the wee hours of the morning. I tried curling up for a little rest on one of the chairs, but it didn’t help. I always have trouble sleeping outside my own bed.

The rental car is definitely the oddest one I’ve ever seen. If I had more money, I would have gone with an actual agency, but this was supposed to be cheap and easy and reliable. Sort of like VRBO, but with cars. I’m a little dubious the ignition will even work, but it does. It’s fine. It only has to work for a few days, and that whole time I’ll be following the bus, so there will be help if I get into trouble.

It’s still early enough in the morning that traffic hasn’t built up yet, and the hotel where the band is staying is close to the outskirts of Nashville. Even with my sense of direction, it doesn’t take me too long to find it.

I park in the free lot and take out my phone, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. I should text K. I know it.

But I LOVE surprises. I’ve always had this dream of missing someone and then having them show up unexpectedly with flowers or chocolates or something.

I stow my phone and grab my suitcase. Screw it. I’m going to surprise him.

When you walk through a lobby looking like a hot mess at six am, no one bats an eye. My heart pounds as I pretend I know what I’m doing.

A gorgeous lightly tanned man in a black sleeveless workout top and sweatpants hanging low over his trim hips steps out of the coffee shop in front of me. It must be the jet lag or the weird airport burrito I ate two hours ago, but my stomach does a low swoop.

Then he turns, sipping his coffee, and my whole body lights up when I see his profile. “Bo!”

He whirls fast enough that a few small drops of his drink spurt out the top of the plastic lid. “Lil?” In an instant, his arms are around me, and the jet lag fades away. “It’s so good to see you. K didn’t tell us when your flight was coming in.”

“Oh.” I giggle but it does nothing to decrease the discomfort in my stomach. “He forgot to send me a ticket. It’s not a big deal. I thought a surprise would be fun.”

Bo’s blue eyes widen momentarily. “Right. Well, you love surprises. That’s perfect.” He holds me another moment, and I just want it to last.

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