I nodded because it was the fucking truth. If that happened now, I'd kick the retired soccer icon to the curb, but ten years ago? I would have totally been a teen mom.

"You know that day you were sick?" Gordo asked me in his quiet voice from across the table. When I nodded he continued, "He looked miserable the entire day. He kept asking once every hour if we'd checked on you. If anyone had made sure you had something to eat. Blah, blah, blah."

The words settled onto my skin, my pores absorbing them slowly.

"And he's always talking about you. ‘Gaby said this, Gaby said that.’"

Eli shook his head in disgust. "What killed me was that a few days ago, this girl—"

"That girl!" Gordo exclaimed, knowing exactly whatever girl my brother was referring to.

"This girl," Eli settled his hands in front of his chest, leaving enough space so that two melons could fit. "This girl that looked like a Victoria's Secret supermodel came up to him, and she was pretty much raping him with her eyes from the get-go. She's telling him what hotel she's in, what room number is hers, and he's just in his own fucking world. In his own fucking world. Like he wasn’t paying any fucking attention. When she left, all the TCC guys were like ‘Dude, hit that!’ What did he do? He shrugged.” My brother shook his head like he couldn’t believe the words coming out of his own mouth. “You don't shrug when somebody that hot comes onto you."

Gordo nodded in understanding.

But my brother wasn’t done yet. "So Julian tells him, ‘Sacha, she's so fucking hot. Do it.’ And this guy," he snickered, shaking his head. I couldn’t tell whether it was in disappointment or amusement. "He tells him, ‘She is hot, but she's not my type.’"

"That girl was everybody’s type," Gordo added. “Even I would have thought about going to her hotel room. You would have messed around with her, Flabby.”

I opened my mouth to make a comment about Gordo being attracted to a woman for the first time in his life, but Eli apparently needed to keep going. "And I knew it! I fucking knew it right then, and everyone else knew it right then. This motherfucker is in love, but then he seals the deal when he said, ‘I'm not interested.’"

Gordo looked like he was in church as he threw his hands in the air. "Every human being would have been interested."

"So, my point is, Flabby. That guy more than likes you," he finally finished. “Quit being dumb and worried and all shy and shit because we all know you’re really not, and get on it. ”

I was reeling. My heart felt like it could beat through softened butter. I remembered, I remembered all too well his mouth on my shoulder. On my jaw. Oh God.

"I guess that means, I gotta start saving, huh?" Eliza asked me with a squeeze to the shoulder.

"For what?" I croaked, still thinking more about what he'd said.

"Your wedding, estupid. I'll pay for your motherfucking wedding if you're going to marry Sacha one day." He held up his glass of orange juice in Gordo's direction for a toast. "I like that guy."

Chapter Nineteen

I’d almost forgotten that Sacha’s mom was supposed to drop by to see her baby boy.

Two days before the end of the Australian leg of the tour, I was completely caught off-guard by the stunning, intense woman who came into the venue while I was helping Julian put together his drum set.

Mrs. Malykhin—if her last name was still that since she and Sacha’s dad were divorced, from what I gathered—was a delicately boned woman with the same color hair as her son. Tall and slim, her carriage was erect. Seriously, if there was someone that looked like an ideal queen it would have been her.