Prologue

New Year's Eve Three Years Ago

Kat

"Kiss me," I whisper into the dark as sounds of cheap paper horns and Happy New Year! waft from the party inside, and fireworks explode in the distance.

The porch swing continues to creak, and the gorgeous guy sitting beside me plucks Auld Lang Syne on his guitar. "Hmmm. Tempting, Katheryn.  Sadly, also criminal. Serving time is not on my list of New Year's resolutions."

I smile at the way he's calling me Katheryn tonight, instead of Kat.  It makes me bold. Or maybe my courage is more of the liquid variety.  Either way,  I keep the banter, and my hope, going. "One New Year's kiss is not a crime."

He leans close,but veers toward my ear. His words are soft. "Kissing you might not be a crime, but it's definitely a gateway drug." He pulls back, looks at my lips, then shakes his head sadly. "Nope. Can't risk it. One kiss and you could ruin me."

His playful regret is so cute, I laugh when I really want to punch him. "You're such an asshat for teasing me like that."

"Teasing you is another hard habit to break. Been doin' it as long as I can remember." He slaps his guitar in abrupt finish as he points his pick at me. "But you started it."

Inside the house, I can see that the frantic-find-a-partner-to-kiss is over. The partiers have either returned to drinking and dancing, or their New Year's kisses have progressed to making out in corners. "Never mind. The magic moment is over," I grumble.

Trace chuckles and keeps playing his guitar.

I squint at him. He's a little blurry. He's very drunk. Oh wait, that's me.

I huff, and reach down for the champagne bottle at my feet. Who knows where the hell these cases of champagne came from and where the parental homeowners are? My friends and I live in McMansions in the suburbs of Atlanta, where booze is abundant and supervision is often lacking. Lots of parents went downtown to overnight at hotels for New Year's Eve. How considerate of them to leave their wine cellars unlocked at home.

Not that New Year's Eve is much different than most weekends. Since I started high school, parties have become fairly standard stuff. Kissing guys is also standard. Hounding my lifelong older neighbor to kiss me is not. What is wrong with me? Trace and I are friends, nothing more. We've always been friends.

I take a long swallow of the champagne. I don't usually drink this much, but for some reason alcohol mixes well with mixed emotions. The good news that Trace has shared with me tonight has me a little twisted.

Trace teases the bottle from me, turns it up briefly, but settles it on the ground to his left, far out of my reach. "Hey, that's my bottle," I protest. "Get your own."

"I'll give it back," he promises. "Just slow down. I don't want you passing out on me."

I tuck my arm beneath his and put my chin on his shoulder. "Oh, so you do want to have some fun, huh?"

He laughs and strums the opening to Everlong by the Foo Fighters. Trace band's, Soundcrush, is what music bloggers are calling the New Alt Revival, but he learned to play the guitar on the classics. "You know, I'm really going to have fun teasing you even more tomorrow. Drunk Kat is a handful."

I eye him, suddenly bold enough to ask what I've always wondered, what I'm afraid to have answered.

"Are you not into me because you've hooked up with my sister?"

He shoots me a dark look. "I have never hooked up with Ashlynn. We kissed one time, playing truth or dare at some party when we were younger than you are."

I snort. "She said you kiss like a puppy."

"Hmmmm. So typical of Ashlynn to kiss and criticize. But since she already told you our chemistry was less than stellar, I don't mind telling you...the feeling was mutual."

I do my best not to sigh in relief.  Trace and Ashlynn are the same age—both sophomores in college— but they have never really gotten along. And not in the love-hate way either. They are very different people. I'm glad she and Trace were mutually disinterested.

"I was maybe fourteen, you know," he says defensively. "I haven't had any complaints recently."

I pucker up and tap my lips, "I'll give you honest feedback."

He shakes his head. "Clever girl, throwing down the Ashlynn gauntlet like that. Now I'm really tempted to wear your lips out."

My stomach flutters at the thought, and I think I let out a small, tipsy squeak.

He laughs, low and sexy. "But you've had a lot to drink," he continues. "If I ever do kiss you, it would be nice if you remember it."

"Come on," I insist. "Give me one good story to tell at parties. THE Trace Gallant kissed me on New Year's Eve, before he was famous. It's only a matter of time, now. I mean—you just told me your band got signed. You're quitting college to go on a national tour. Soundcrush is going to be huge. You are going to be famous. The least you can do is give me something to remember you by."

The strumming stops as he slaps the guitar abruptly, and leans close. So close I can feel his fringe of hair tickle my forehead and the heat of his lips tease mine. It's dark, and I'm drunk, but I can still see his eyes—so pale they are almost grey—glinting with amusement.

"That's not why you want me to kiss you," he says.

"No?" I challenge.

"No," he says decidedly.

I pat his cheeks, laughing. "Tell me, All-Knowing Lord of My Motivations, why do I want you to kiss me?"

He moves away and resumes playing. "Just admit the truth, and maybe I will kiss you."

I swallow hard. Did he really just say that he would kiss me? "Admit what?" I whisper.

"Admit that you've always been into me."

Is this guy stupid? Of course I'm into him.

I can't do it. I can't say it. Trace is special to me, but I don't want him to be. Trace himself, my parents and the state of Georgia all agree—he's too old for me. I'm wasting my whole high school career hung up on a guy I can't have. And even if he weren't four years older than me, I certainly don't want to tell him that I'm crazy about him now. He's leaving for Hollywood in three days, and who knows when or if I will ever see him again?

"Admit nothing, that's what you taught me." I pull his guitar away, and climb over him to reach the champagne bottle.

He sighs. "Ahh, the student has become the master."

It's true. I have been his protege-in-rebellion, growing up. I guess it's not surprising that an almost rock star could be a bit of a bad influence. He introduced me to forking the neighbor's yards when I was barely six. By the time I was eight, he and I were breaking into neighbor's garages to synchronize their sprinkler timers, so that we could run through yard after yard playing in the spray—and never mind that my house has a pool. Juvenile delinquent water recreation is more fun. Later, he took me to my first party, and last year, he gave me my first drink. Upon that occasion he also advised me to leverage my older sister's diary secrets against her, so she didn't rat me out to our parents. Yeah, Trace has always been the bad-boy-next-door, the one I followed into mischief  while he kept me just short of real trouble.

So why the hell is he trying to take my champagne away now? I'm reaching for my bottle, and he's reaching for it, too.

"Quit," I slap his hand away and take another swig. Mmmmm...champagne is my favorite.

The fairy lights strung around the porch stream like shooting stars in my bleary vision. "Pretty," I say with a giggle, stretching my hand toward them. I lose my balance and tip forward, right into Trace's face.

"Very," he says, but he's not looking at the lights. His head is tilted back, and he's looking up at me.

Ha. Is he kidding? He's the pretty one. He's got rich brown, messily styled hair, a squared up jaw, and icy eyes fringed with dark lashes. All of that makes him good-looking, but it's his attitude that makes him gorgeous. He's effortlessly sincere. Casually intense. Insanely talented with a guitar. The best way to describe him is the most cliched:

Trace Gallant was born to be a rock star.

How did I come to be straddling this soon-to-be rock star, exactly? I've never been on top of a guy like this before.

"Okaaayyy, Sweetheart, thanks for the lap dance, but you should hop off now." He twists my hips around, plunking me down on the cushion beside him. He swipes the bottle from me. "And you're cut off. Christ, you're only fifteen. Do you drink like this all the time now?"

"No," I pout. "It's only because of you."

Damn. I didn't mean to say that.

He makes a disapproving sound. "Holding your hair while you puke isn't the way I like to spend time with you, you know."

"Don't be an ass, Trace!" I snap. "I'm not drinking because you're here to babysit me, I'm drinking because you're leaving."

It's hard for me to tell because it's dark and I'm drunk, but I think Trace's expression changes—softens, somehow. "Hey," he says, "I've been down in Athens for three semesters already, and that didn't change things between you and me. We've always been tight. We'll always be tight, Kat. This tour...it won't change anything."

"It will." I shove him a little. "I just have this feeling, everything is about to change for you. I don't want to be just one of millions of girls with a crush on you," I sniffle.

"Shit, Kat." Trace bumps shoulders with me. "You'll never be just one of millions. More like one in a million. You're my girl, you know that."

I swallow hard. "Really?"

His mouth twists into that devilish grin. "All those drunk dials on Saturday nights didn't clue you in?"

"I just figured you were bored because you can't get lucky," I murmur.

"Right," he laughs. We both know that's not true. Trace is hotter than asphalt in August and his band already has local groupies in Athens. I know why he drunk dials me at two am on a Sunday morning—he's hooked up with somebody, but for whatever reason, he's thinking of me. I know that—I just never know how to feel about that.

"If I'm your girl, prove it. Kiss me," I say stubbornly.

"Kat, it's not that I don't want to." His voice is very low. "It's just...sort of...wrong, you know?"

"When has that ever stopped you from doing what you wanted to do? Are you going to be a fucking rock star or what?" I glare at him. His eyes flare. I grin. Trace isn't one to back down from a challenge.

He sits up, puts one finger beneath my chin, and draws my face forward to meet his.

"Just one kiss, okay? You're drunk, and I don't want to be a creep. It can't be more..." his lips are almost brushing mine as he whispers, "...just one...little...innocent...kiss, understand?"

"Yeah, okay." The air between us blooms white with the shaky breath I let out, and Trace makes a soothing, shushing noise as his lips touch mine.

Then his mouth stops making sounds, and starts making magic.

One little innocent kiss, he said.

Ha.

It was not little. It was far from innocent. And it was most definitely not like kissing all the other boys I had kissed.

Trace's kiss was...epic. The entire time he kissed me, I was in free fall.

Then, the night came crashing down, in a way I wasn't expecting.

Everything happened so fast after we kissed. Everything changed. I haven't told a single person what really happened that night, even though Trace wrote a song about it.

The song doesn't tell the real story. The song is just a metaphor.

But the kiss? That was real. And I've been trying to forget it ever since.