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JOVIE: You’re quiet.
JOVIE: No pressure, but I know you’d love this band …
JOVIE: Also, I have center seats in the third row.
She could have nosebleed section seats and I’d still want to go with fucking bells on.
ME: I’ll let you know by tomorrow.
I can’t believe I’m even considering this.
She sends me a link to some YouTube video next. I click to open it, landing on a four-minute cover version of The Postal Service’s Clark Gable… a song I introduced to her a lifetime ago—a song about wanting to believe that the kind of love you see in the movies can be real.
A song with a line about using a stand-in. It always made me think of her, Jude, and me.
I was always the stand-in.
JOVIE: This is the band … I mean, come on. They’re incredible. How can you say no?
She isn’t wrong.
JOVIE: I know I said no pressure, but here’s one more …
She sends another link, this time to a cover the band did of The Shins’ New Slang—a song that lyrically made little sense but put a slow, wistful smile on Jovie’s face the first time I played it for her. She called it “emotionally devastating in the best way possible.” We both agreed it was a song you played when you wanted to feel it and not simply hear it.
The truth is, this local band could be ruining Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin classics via god-awful screaming emo covers, and I’d still suffer through them just to spend a couple of hours next to her.
ME: I’ll think about it.
I tell her again. I need to buy some time—and hope to God I can talk myself out of what I really want to do.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jovie
* * *
Age 22
* * *
I wait on the other side of airport security, rising on my tiptoes to peer over the crowd of weary travelers lugging bags behind them, stepping off the escalator one by one like tired lemmings. My heart trips a little when I spot Jude’s signature neon orange Nike ball cap. I clap my hands together and wait patiently for him to spot me from his side of the crowd.
For the past week, he’s been in Tulum with spotty cell service. We probably talked a total of ten minutes combined. After the first couple of days, I told him not to worry about it, that I wanted him to have a good time and I’d be right here waiting for him when he got back.
Our eyes lock from across the room and I give him a smile and a wave. He makes his way toward me. Stone walks a couple of steps behind him, his chin tucked low as he scrolls through his phone.
“Hi, baby!” I throw my arms around Jude, breathing in his faded aftershave and the musky scent of his warm skin. “Look how tan you got … damn.”
Rising, I press my lips against his—only to be met with a quick peck.
I brush it off. It’s almost 10 PM, and they’ve been traveling all day. I’m sure Jude’s hungry and exhausted. Knowing him, he’s probably counting down the minutes until he can take a shower. He always feels grimy after flying.
“You two have a good time?” I ask them as we make our way to baggage claim.
No one answers me, though Stone has ear buds in his ears so he gets a pass.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I tease, elbowing Jude.
From the corner of my eye, I study my boyfriend. He yawns, his eyes watering, and he scans the crowd. Despite being right beside me, he somehow feels a world away.
Twenty minutes later, the three of us are piled into my car, and I’m driving them back to to the apartment they sublet for the summer. I moved out of the one we shared the week after graduation, opting to save some money and live at home for the summer (or until I land a full-time job). But the two of them stayed back. Jude’s dad had recently sold his house and moved to Florida, so it’s not like they had anywhere else to go.
It's a silent two-hour drive from the airport to their place in Orono. With Stone passed out in the backseat and Jude scrolling through his phone and clearly not in the mood for idle chat, I pull up a playlist on my phone and let that fill the background.
By the time we arrive, it’s close to midnight.
Stone climbs out of the backseat before I have a chance to shift into park. After a quick “thanks for the lift,” he heads inside, wheeling his bag behind him.
Jude hasn’t moved … he’s simply sitting there, staring blankly over the dash, his eyes unfocused.
“You okay, babe?” I rub his arm and lean closer.
He recoils. Or maybe it’s a flinch. It happened so fast.
