This One Moment (Pushing Limits, #1)(41)

Everyone around us stopped walking, searching for their golden rock star. Once they spotted him, a handful of squealing college-age girls rushed him. A few other girls showed a little more restraint, but they too joined the small crowd fangirling over Nolan.

As I approached the group, Lindsey, who worked in the sports center part-time, looked at her phone and then over my shoulder. Her eyes narrowed.

I turned to see what she was looking at. A tall, good-looking man strode toward us, and for a moment I thought it was Nolan’s father. The similarities between the two were so overwhelming that I shuddered unexpectedly.

But this wasn’t Nolan’s father. He was dead.

“Who is that?” I asked her.

“My stepfather…I’ve gotta go.” She hurried over to him.

I watched them walk away. He said a few words and she laughed. I would be hard pressed to remember a time when Nolan had laughed at something his father said.

“How was work?” Nolan asked. His fans hung on his every word. I swore a couple even sighed. But none melted into a puddle like I tended to do whenever I heard his voice, their hearts not as screwed up as mine. Lucky them.

“Good,” I told him, and walked away from the group, not caring if Nolan followed me or not. I needed to get away from his fans. They had nothing to do with me.

Nolan reached for my hand and stopped me. “Hey, where’re you going?”

“Home.” I glanced back at his fans, some of whom still watched him, debating whether they should trail after him.

Nolan peered over his shoulder. “Do they bother you?”

I cringed that he knew me so well and how petty it would sound if I said yes. “No. Not really. Your fans are important to you.” Without them, Pushing Limits wouldn’t be as big as they were. Without them, the band wouldn’t have a chance of being bigger for the next album.

He brushed his thumb against my cheek. “But you’re important to me too.”

I gave him a small smile. “But you won’t always be here for me. You know that, right?”

“I know that. But while I am in Northbridge, I want to make sure you’re safe.”

“I can’t stop my life because of what happened. Just like you didn’t let what happened to you and your family stop you from going after what you wanted.”

He leaned into me, mere inches separating our mouths. His warm breath against my lips sent a delicious heat wave to my core. I barely kept from squirming against him.

“Except I did…” He didn’t finish the thought. His lips found mine.

The kiss wasn’t heated like last night. This kiss was something deeper. It was a part of us opening up and sharing a vulnerability inside us. But instead of making us weaker, it would ultimately make us stronger. Braver.

Or so I hoped.

Not that I understood what was going on between us. We were former best friends who were now f*cking until he left. The advanced version of f*ck buddies. As far as I could tell, Nolan didn’t do the girlfriend thing, other than in the eyes of the media.

He pulled away, breath heavy, and looked around us. “You and I need to talk.”

“I thought we were.”

He chuckled. “That’s not what I mean. I was referring to last night. About you and me. And—”

And then I got it. He meant about what happened last night. He was already regretting it. Except his arms were still around me. If his goal was to confuse me, he’d succeeded.

“And how you’ll be leaving soon.” I smiled even though it was the last thing I felt like doing. “Don’t worry, I get it. What happened between us was nothing more than a fling.” I almost said “meaningless fling,” but I couldn’t get the words out. It might’ve been meaningless for Nolan, but it was far from that for me.

He frowned. “A fling?”

“Okay, more like a…” A what? A one-night stand? A mistake? The best night of my life? Even though I wanted to, I couldn’t say the last one either.

“A one-night stand? Is that what you were going to say?” He pulled away. “Or was it just a pity f*ck, Hailey? You felt bad for me and decided to f*ck me to help me get over it?”

He might as well have slapped my face, except his accusation hurt worse.

I took a step back, needing to maintain distance between us. Fortunately, his fans had moved on. No one was listening to our conversation. “Is that all you think I’m capable of? That I’m nothing more than an empty shell who only does one-night stands?” I tried to sound pissed but sounded hurt instead.

I turned and stalked off. Last night’s storm had been nothing compared to how I felt after Nolan’s accusations.

I made it as far as the main entrance before Nolan grabbed my arm. A group of moms with young kids turned to see what was going on.

“I’m sorry, Forget-Me-Not. I didn’t mean for it to come out that way,” he said softly, doing his best to keep the conversation between us private. But it was a waste of time. Maybe if I was talking to someone who wasn’t a celebrity, no one would’ve paid attention to us. But at this point I was too angry to care either way.

“How did you plan for it to come out?” I asked.

He glanced away briefly. When he turned back to me, the battlefield of emotions was still etched on his otherwise perfect face. “I don’t want what happened last night to be nothing more than a meaningless one-night stand. I can get those anytime.”