Going Nowhere

Scarlett Jackson has spent years perfecting the art of disappearing. The daughter of a rock star mother and a powerhouse talent agent father, she knows better than anyone how the spotlight can burn. After a devastating betrayal in high school, she retreated into a quiet life. Preschool teacher. Suburban house. Four cats. No boyfriend, no music, no public profile. Safe, predictable, invisible. Then Xavier Smith comes home. Scarlett has always known Xavier as the moody family friend who made her teenage years a misery. What she didn't know is that he's spent the last five years as Vax — the brooding lead singer of Going Nowhere, the band whose music has been the secret soundtrack to her carefully constructed quiet life. The rock star she's had pinned to her wall is the boy she always despised. Except he isn't that boy anymore. Xavier is older, tattooed, and carrying guilt so heavy it has shaped every reckless decision he's made since leaving town. He sees straight through Scarlett's careful disguise — the girl who pretends she's ordinary, who flinches at cameras, who swears she hates music. And Scarlett begins to see past his armour to the man who wrote a love song about her years before she even knew he existed. But wanting each other and being good for each other are two very different things. Xavier is convinced he's a liability, and every time Scarlett gets close enough to matter, he runs. Meanwhile, Scarlett — who has spent years protecting herself from being used and hurt — is finally learning to stop hiding and start living. A secret talent. A hidden past. A stalker with a twenty-three year grudge. And a father who interferes with equal measures of love and damage. Going Nowhere is a slow-burn romance about two people who have spent their whole lives running from themselves, and the moment they finally stop — and run toward each other instead.