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“And the run extends over several months.”
“Wow! You know what this means?” Evie grinned. “I’ll have lots of chances to see you sing on stage!”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” Lifting her hand, Nick gave her knuckles a gentle kiss. “I’ll send you orchestra seats and plane tickets.”
She snickered. “Plane tickets? I’ll be in London, silly. You know, for uni?”
“Yeah”—Nick’s throat bobbed as he lowered her hand—“but I won’t be.”
“Won’t?” Her stomach twinged. “Why?”
“It’s a touring production. We’re performing in Japan and Australia, then we move on to Europe.”
Touring? Evie deflated into the pillows. “We’ll be apart for months.”
Nick budged closer, his thumb stroking back and forth over her hand. “But we don’t need to be! Like I said, I’ll fly you out regularly. I can even book a weekend off and fly home. I just have to give them a bit of notice so my understudy is ready and my travel can be sorted.”
Nice in theory, but… Evie dragged her orca onto her lap. “You’d fly all the way back from Australia for a weekend? Isn’t that, like, a twenty-four-hour flight?”
“Well, maybe not Australia, but I could from Europe.”
That’s months away. She let go of his hand. “Right.”
“Tigs, this doesn’t change anything. We’ll still see each other, but instead of you coming up to Salford or me traveling down to London, we’ll hang out in Osaka or Sydney. How cool is that?”
The thought of a long-haul flight left Evie nauseated. How would her Crohn’s hold up, flying across multiple time zones? What if it flared so far from home? How would her illness impact Nick or his performances?
How would I even do this?
“When do you leave for London?” she asked quietly, stroking what was left of her orca’s loved-off black plush.
“Tomorrow morning.”
Her heart fell along with her face.
“I know, baby, I’m sorry.” He spoke quickly. “But there’s no way around it. Rehearsals started last week and I have SO much to learn and—”
“Nick”—Evie clutched his hand—“it’s okay. Really. I’m just surprised by how fast everything’s happening. It’s all…it’s a lot to take in.”
“I know.”
As they slipped into silence, Evie’s mind raced as the laugh track from her father’s favorite sitcom drifted upstairs. So much is changing, too fast, too soon. She chewed the inside of her cheek, fretting over their carefully constructed plans now scattered like toppled Jenga pieces. “I guess the flat in London next summer won’t be happening? Not if you’re returning to uni after the tour.”
“No, but we can get it the year after that.”
Evie looked down, averting his gaze again. “So two years from now.”
“Better late than never, right?”
Two years. Two years was an eternity. Evie ran a finger over a repaired hole on her whale, her throat feeling sharp and tight like she had swallowed a seashell. Don’t cry. She blinked back the rising sting in her eyes. DON’T CRY.
The reality of him leaving and being absent for months on end was doubly troublesome. What if the person she’d become by his side ended up disappearing too?
Nick tilted his head. “Evie?” Placing a finger under her chin, he lifted her face up to meet his. “Hey, it’ll still happen. I promise.” Leaning in, he kissed her. “I’m going to take care of you. For always. You and me, right?”
Suppressing her tears, she felt her chest tighten. She nodded, letting out a breathy “Right.”
“We might even see each other more, you know? I’ll buy plane tickets to every city on the tour, we’ll have an amazing time exploring them together, yeah?”
