I let out a quivering breath. “I mean, he told me he was a musician, but I just thought he played backup or something. He didn’t tell me!”

“Wow. Major cyberstalker fail.”

Josh spoke up in the background. “Tell her I hope she shaved her legs for this date.”

“Yes, you need to get naked with that man,” Kristen added.

I fanned my face with my hand. “Oh God. I’m freaking out. How do I act normal now? I have like seven of his songs in my playlist, right now. I’m a fan! I’m like a groupie! I cannot be cool, Kristen!”

“Okay, but did you shave your legs?”

“No! I didn’t! I shaved none of the things! Because I’m not getting naked with him, nor did I have any plans to! How can I go back out there, Kristen? I’m going to have a panic attack!”

Jason had just been catapulted from a man I was really into to someone I was literally starstruck by. “I can’t breathe. I stole his dog. He sent me flowers,” was all I managed to say. My brain was misfiring, shooting off realizations as the information repositioned Jason in my mind.

“Uh-huh. Well, you have nobody to blame but yourself. You should have used the Google. Now get back out there.”

“Have fun!” Josh shouted from the background, and they both snickered.

I made a pitiful groaning noise and hung up. Then I googled “Jaxon Waters” and hit Images.

There he was.

There were shots of him in a tuxedo on a red carpet. Then another picture of him sitting on a rock in the woods, playing his guitar. Oh my God. A still frame of him holding a Grammy. A fucking Grammy.

I grew up feeding celebrities out of my mom’s food truck. They didn’t fluster me. I rarely got nervous around them. But Jaxon Waters was different. His music haunted me. It spoke to my soul. It was ethereal and beautiful and I could not be nonchalant about this.

I came out of the stall with shaking hands and stood over the sink.

“Calm down,” I whispered, willing my body to comply. It didn’t listen. I think I would have been less panicked if I’d found out I was on a date with an escaped convict.

When I finally walked back out to the table, Jason smiled, a look of relief on his face at seeing me reappear. He’d probably wondered if I’d escaped out a bathroom window by how long I was gone.

“Everything okay?” he asked as I slid into the booth. “Do we need to go?”

“It’s fine,” I said, my voice a touch too high.

He raised an eyebrow. “You sure? What did Kristen say?”

My mouth had gone dry. I picked up my glass of water and downed it. He watched me with a mix of amusement and concern and I wondered if Jason found women who needed to breathe into their hands and lie down in restaurant booths sexy.

I set my glass down and cleared my throat. “I just got some news.”

“What’s wrong? Tell me.”

“You’re Jaxon Waters,” I blurted.

The amused smile that crept across his face confirmed my accusation. “Have you heard of me?”

“You said you play bass.” I glared, and my eyelid twitched ominously.

“I do.” He shrugged. “I also play guitar, I sing…” His grin got wider in proportion to my growing eyes.

“But…but I went to your house!” I said breathlessly. “Where was your Grammy?”

Another shrug. “In the pantry?”

“Jason!”

He laughed. “What? It’s a trailer. I don’t have any shelf space.”

Oh my God.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I demanded. “I…I…why?”

He’d done this on purpose. He’d purposely sandbagged this. I had been catfished, only the catfish was ridiculously good-looking and famous, and I was actually pretty impressed with what I’d reeled in.

This was too much.

Acting like a lunatic when nervous was my signature move, and I didn’t disappoint today. My eyelid dove into a full-fledged twitching rebellion at the stress of the situation. I let out an exasperated sigh and pressed my finger to my eye. My face went either sheet white or bright red. Maybe the colors were rotating. There was no telling. I was so embarrassed. I don’t think I could have looked crazier if I tried.

“My eyelid twitches when I’m nervous,” I said miserably, trying to explain my weirdness.

Jason studied my face. “Don’t you think I’m nervous too?”

I stared at him with one eye.

“I like you. And I get nervous around beautiful women I have crushes on.”

Surely he knew this was not even remotely the same thing. The man had a fanbase. My face called bullshit and his eyes danced like this was the most fun he’d had all year.

We stared at each other in a Mexican-restaurant standoff of silence, and almost comically, the waitress dropped a basket of chips and salsa between us. It broke the tension and I launched into manic giggling. This made him laugh, and when I snorted, we both lost it.

It took us a minute to get a hold of ourselves.

“Jason, I listen to your music,” I said a moment later, biting my lip. “A lot. I love it. Your last album got me through a really rough time in my life.”

He wiped at his eyes, still recovering. “And I’ve eaten the food from your blog. I’m probably a bigger fan of yours than you are of mine.”