Two women in fluffy coats over party dresses tottered over on spiked heels. “I love you, Daniel!” one screamed. “Can we get a picture?” She thrust her phone at Catie.

Who looked annoyed because that meant an interruption of her pecan feast. But she grabbed the camera and hooked an eyebrow at Danny. He was in no mood for photos with strangers, but figuring it’d be faster to get this over and done with, he gave her a nod.

A few seconds later, with him making sure the tipsy women didn’t get handsy, the photo was done. But then the squealer pulled aside her coat to bare rather impressive cleavage. “Will you sign me?” She somehow had a marker in her hand and was waving it in his face.

“Er,” Danny began, taken aback.

“Against his contract,” Catie said smoothly. “Could get him done for harassment.” She sounded super sorry and serious.

The women’s faces fell. “Oh no,” the brunette one said. “What a bummer.”

“You have the photo.” Catie soothed them. “Oh hey, we better get going. Looks like the concert is letting out. We don’t want to be stuck in the crowd.” She was hauling Danny away before the women could argue.

He was supremely happy to be hauled.

“Is it because of stuff like that?” he asked after they were out of hearing range of the women.

Digging happily into her paper bag of pecans once again, Catie said, “What?”

And Danny detonated the grenade. “Why you don’t think we could be real.”

25

TOO REAL, TOO SCARY

Catie stopped with a pecan halfway to her lips, stared at him. Tension simmered in the night air, taut threads he could almost see, almost touch. Then she grinned, put the nut in her mouth, and chewed. “We can’t be real because of all the stuff we’ve already talked about,” she said afterward. “The groupies are just the icing on the cake.”

But Danny wasn’t about to let it go at that. Not anymore. “I want solid and true and forever,” he said, putting it all out there. “That’s what I was raised with, and that’s what I see with my brothers. I’m never going to be the guy who messes around on my girlfriend or wife no matter how many groupies throw themselves at me.”

Catie shot him a look he couldn’t decipher. “I’m not saying you would,” she said at last. “But Danny, that’s after you choose someone to be your forever. Till then, you’re used to going from woman to woman, which is fine. No judgment. I’m just the latest flavor—and if we keep it uncomplicated, we can come out of it still friends, with no bruises.”

Danny really really didn’t like what she’d said. “You’re not just the latest fucking flavor. Damn it, Catie. How could you even say that?”