The casualness of my answer seemed to encourage her. She sidled closer to me, pushing her side into my body. “That was kind of crazy, right?” From the look on her face, I knew what she really meant was, Are you making that offer too? Do you want to be fucked right now?

Seeing her looking up at me with unadulterated interest on her face was actually starting to make me nauseated. “Excuse me,” I told her. I needed air. Or Kiera. Same thing. The girl frowned as I stepped away and pulled out my phone.

It was loud in here, with girls and guys laughing, flirting, but I couldn’t wait another second—I needed to hear Kiera’s voice. She picked up on the second ring. “Hey, you…how did you know I was missing you?” Hearing the calm love in her voice almost dropped me to my knees. We’re okay…she’s still mine.

“Guess, I’m psychic,” I said with a relieved laugh. “How was your day?” Tell me anything, tell me everything…just talk to me, please.

Thankfully, she did. I talked to her right up until the D-Bags had to take the stage, and then I called her back the minute we were done. I just needed to hear her voice.

After the show, when we were all back on the bus, I saw Kurt sitting alone at a table, blankly staring out the window. Inhaling a deep, calming breath, I sat beside him. “Hey, man. I saw what happened. Are you all right?”

His dead eyes fixed outside, he murmured, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

I nodded, then got up and left him alone. If it were me, I wouldn’t want to talk about it either.

Relationships seemed to fizzle left and right after Kurt’s vocal breakup. Sometimes it was one of the guys yelling obscenities at his girl like Kurt had, other times it was one of the guys begging for forgiveness from his girl. Each time I saw it happen, it did something to me, terrified me to my core. And every time someone broke up, I called Kiera, just to reassure myself that we were still okay. Thank God, we still seemed to be.

Something else started happening shortly after Breakup-fest began. Girls started joining us on the bus, and the sound of people screwing started to become a regular thing. Listening to it really made me miss Kiera, and I started having—the best—dreams about her. More often than not, I woke up rock hard. Aching…and lonely. But I only had to wait until Christmas, then I would see her again. I couldn’t fucking wait.

“You’re in the D-Bags, right?”