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for a tube of lip gloss. Some people smoked cigarettes or chewed nails; Cara applied lip gloss. “I just can’t believe she called me,” she said, waving a wand over her lips with a shaking hand. “We haven’t spoken in four years. I was sure she hated me.”
    “You guys were best friends forever,” Shane reassured her. “You know she could never really hate you.”
    I would never have admitted it, but I was probably more nervous than she was. “Just play it cool, okay?” I said, giving her a hug. “Remember today is supposed to be a total surprise, so you can’t let on that you know anything about it.”
    Some of Cara’s nerves melted away and she gave me a cocky grin. “Have some faith in my ability,” she said. “I am an award-winning actress, you know.”
    “Daytime,” I teased, as if it were a lesser accomplishment. Ever since she won Best Supporting Actress for her role on that soap, I’d teased her mercilessly. She loved it. She knew how proud I was of her.
    “Be nice, or I’ll spill the beans,” she threatened.
    She gave Shane one last kiss and climbed into her car. Once the top was down and she’d wrapped a scarf around her head to keep her hair in place, she blew Shane and me each a kiss. “We’re going to see Val!” she squealed as she drove off.
    We watched the car disappear around the bend and Shane turned to me. “You ready for this?”
    I felt myself grin. I was more ready for this than I’d ever been for anything in my life. Six months of hard work, and today would be my first payoff. I hoped.
    Shane and I climbed into my car. Cara was having lunch with Val, but Shane and I had to be at the studio early for sound check. This was it. Today I was finally going to see Val again.
    Shane said nothing about the way my knee bounced uncontrollably all the way to the studio. Then, he kept quiet about my nervous pacing once we were in a special guest lounge waiting to surprise Val. He did raise an eyebrow when I passed up the buffet table—crafty had gone all out for us today—but otherwise he let me keep pretending I was fine. It was Embry who finally called me out.
    Once I’d written a few songs, Shane and I had to find a band to help us lay a demo track. We’d contacted the awesome cover band from my birthday party and we’d liked them so much we asked them to stay on as my official band for my solo album. They were psyched, and we killed it in the studio. Not to pat myself on the back or anything, but my new album was sick. I had more Grammys in my future.
    “Relax, dude,” Embry said, smirking at the way I was chewing my thumbnail, as he joined me on one of the sofas in the waiting lounge.
    I tried to hold still, but the large TV screen mounted on the wall in front of me went from showing the standby screen to a live feed, kicking my anticipation up yet another notch. Screw it, I thought and went back to work gnawing my fingernails down to their beds. Better that than have my whole body start shaking, tipping the guys off as to exactly how messed up I was right now.
    “Yeah. I’m cool.”
    Embry snorted with laughter. “No, you’re pathetic. Doing all this to impress some chick whose not even going to sleep with you? And you’re afraid of her, no less.”
    I rolled my eyes, but cracked a smile. Embry was cool. “Not helping, you douche.”
    Embry nodded at the television where the queen of daytime women’s talk shows was now spouting stupid crap about some lame blog she’d discovered. “So what are you going to do if your woman’s already spoken for?”
    I let out a breath. At least I had that much going for me. “She’s not married. Google said so.”
    Embry hit me with a suspicious look. “That doesn’t mean she’s not taken. What if she’s madly in love with some boyfriend?”
    I was worried about that myself, but I refused to let Embry know it. “That didn’t stop me four years ago,” I said with a hell of a lot more confidence than I felt. “If she’s with