Now I laughed louder. “I have not, and I will not. Just consider my mind a blank canvas.”

“Oh, come on, admit it, Reya. You’d love to have my kids,” he prodded playfully.

“You’re being so bloody weird, quit it,” I said and lifted a pillow to throw at his head. He chuckled when it hit him in the face. I cleared my throat, typing a reply to Marlene as I continued under my breath, “Besides, they’re more likely to be pale with brown eyes.”

I chanced a glance at him and he was smiling so wide my heart gave a quick, hard thump.

“Either way, they’d be fucking adorable.”

I shook my head. “I just can’t with you sometimes.”

We fell into companionable silence after that, but something weighed heavy on my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about how things ended between us two years ago and how maybe I could’ve done things differently.

“Trev, can I ask a question?”

He glanced away from the TV to look at me. “Ask me anything.”

“It’s sort of a heavy subject.”

“I’m good with heavy.”

I rubbed my hands on my leggings, my throat tightening as I met his gaze. “I was just thinking about that last call we had when I broke things off, you know, before.”

His expression darkened and he sat up straight, his shoulders tense. “What about it?”

“Well,” I started, “you don’t know this, but I smashed my phone after we hung up and had to take to get fixed.”

A loaded silence fell. Trev didn’t breathe a word, and somehow, his normally bright eyes looked cloudy. He was remembering that time, which was probably why his voice held such an edge. “I don’t entirely get where you’re going with this, Reya.”

I cleared my throat, needing to get the words out. “It took a few days to be repaired, so when you called and left all those messages, I didn’t see them until long after.”

Another lengthy, deafening silence fell between us. Trev’s face showed a whole range of emotions, from regret to anger to frustration and then the tiniest hint of resignation. My chest tightened to see how the truth affected him. Eventually, he broke the silence.

“C’mere.”

His simple command surprised me. I expected him to be angry, but when I slid my computer off my lap and approached him, Trev held his arms out and I sank into his embrace. His face was in my hair and he inhaled deeply before he murmured, “Why did you feel the need to tell me that?”

“I’m not sure. I think I dreamt about it last night. It’s been weighing on my mind all day. I guess I just wanted you to know that I didn’t intentionally ignore your calls. By the time I saw them, you’d resigned yourself to the fact that we were over. I thought it would be easier on both of us not to drag things out.”

“If you’d said that two years ago, I would’ve fought you on it tooth and nail.”

“I know,” I whispered.

“But then I probably would’ve let you down again.”

“I know that, too.”

“So, although I hate the time we lost, I know it was a necessary evil. If I never lost you, I probably never would’ve sought treatment. Things might’ve ended worse than they did. I might’ve lost you forever.”

I shifted to look at him, and my expression must’ve shown my surprise because his voice held a hint of humour. “Not what you expected me to say?”

“I thought you’d hate me for not calling you when I finally got those messages. It’s literally been eating me up inside.”

He stroked my hair and levelled me with a sincere look. “Reya, I could never, ever hate you. Not in a million years. It pains me to think of how careless I was with you back then. If I hadn’t been so messed up I swear I would’ve treated you like a princess. You had every right to break things off.”

Emotion pricked at me hearing his tenderly spoken words and I snuggled closer. He continued stroking my hair, his hand dropping down to intermittently rub my back. My hands wandered across his shoulders and down to rest at the base of his spine. I thought I felt him shudder but I couldn’t be certain. We stayed like that for what seemed like forever and it was nice to just be held. Touched.

“Have you been writing any new songs lately?” Trev asked, his uninjured hand twisting through my wavy hair.

“One or two.”

“Can I hear something?”

My pulse quickened, because the only song I’d halfway finished writing since I came on this trip was about him. Still, there was something about the moment we shared that made me want to open up.

“I’ll need to set up my keyboard,” I said, shifting out of his hold.

He smiled, the sexy dimples in his cheeks deepening. “I’m not going anywhere.”

A few minutes later we were in Leanne’s and my bedroom. I sat by my keyboard while Trev arranged my pillows to his liking. Once he was comfortable, I played a little tune, but it wasn’t the song I intended. I was stalling, for obvious reasons.

“This song isn’t finished yet. It still needs a few more verses, but it’s, um, well, it’s actually about you.”

“What’s it called?” he asked, slightly hoarse.

I worried my lip and answered, “Hearts on Air.”

His expression showed the tiniest hint of surprise as he leaned back into the pillows, his posture relaxing. It really wasn’t fair how pretty he was. “Sing it for me.”

I shut my eyes, took a deep breath, and played the opening chords. I was so nervous I messed them up and had to start over again. I could imagine Trev’s encouraging, tender smile, which only made me more flustered. Finally, I pulled myself together and sang.

If the violin is a voice

Then the drums are a heart

And the piano is my body and soul

If the air is a street

Then the clouds are a path

And your feet so easily close the distance

You walk on air like it’s concrete

My heart’s on air like it’s incomplete

Then you leap and it’s like I have no breath

I made the mistake of opening my eyes just as I finished the first chorus. Trev sat upright, his attention rapt, his gaze relentless and full of heat. My breath caught and my heart thrummed. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to fall into his arms and taste his skin, run my hands along every inch of him. I. Wanted. Him. The desire was so strong it was jarring. I stopped playing abruptly and stood, almost knocking over the keyboard stand in the process. My hands shook as I ran them through my hair.