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“‘Axel, I’m going to L.A. to see a lawyer and fix my old life. I’m fine. Please, please don’t call me or follow me for a while. I need to do this on my own. Without you.’” He paused, raising his blue eyes to me. “Ouch.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Don’t be. I’m a big boy.” He turned to the letter, reading again. “‘I’m in love with you. Maybe you figured that out.’ See, that part makes it better.”
I pressed my hands over my eyes.
“‘I don’t know when it happened,’” he continued reading. “‘Maybe it was when you said yes to me for the first time.’ Is that the night we fooled around, Brit? Interesting. I was gone long before that.”
I dropped my hands, but he was looking down again, reading from the letter. “‘I can’t see the future, and I’ve given up trying. But you asked me what I want, and now I think I know. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me. Love, Brit.’” He folded the letter and put it back in his pocket. “Yeah, I’m keeping that.”
“I meant it,” I said.
Axel nodded. “So I get this letter, and since she asked me to, I leave her alone. And as I finish the tour and I go about my life, I’m thinking. Always thinking. What do I do? When do I try and talk to her? Maybe she’ll stay in L.A. and never come back—what the fuck do I know? I’m thinking, thinking. And the thing that keeps coming back to me is that when I was doing rehab, when I was doing all of that work, sometimes it seemed too hard. And I’d think, why am I doing this? Why am I trying so hard to have a life? What’s the point of my life, anyway?”
My eyes stung again. “You didn’t.”
“Oh, I did. And when my head cleared, I could see that there’s always a reason to keep going, and eventually, I’d know. And now I’m thinking, thinking, and I realize that part of the reason I made it this far is so that I can love you and make you happy.” He shrugged, the gesture hard. “So I took a gamble and came to L.A. I figured I’d risk it.”
I wiped tears from my cheeks as the weight of the burden I’d been carrying left me and everything started to fall into place. It was like a jumble of puzzle pieces suddenly aligning so I could see the picture that had always been there. I didn’t know exactly how the future looked, but I knew that it would be with Axel. And that felt absolutely right. “We’re doing this,” I said.
“Is that a question?” Axel asked.
I shook my head. “If you want to do this, Axel, then so do I. We’re doing this.”
He stepped forward, boxing me against the wall. “We’re going to do a lot of things.” He kissed me gently. “First, I’m going to take my girlfriend out to a nice dinner. You know, like a date. And I want to hear about everything that’s been going on with your legal case.”
I put my arms around his waist, then rose up and kissed him in a way that told him he was going to get lucky. “Okay, but I won’t do all of the talking. I want to know everything that’s going on with my rock star boyfriend.”
He pulled me close and kissed my neck, and I felt him smile. “Good. I have so much to tell you.”
THIRTY-FOUR
Axel
Four months later
It was barely eight a.m. when I pushed open the door of the coffee shop in the small town of Carrillo, California. I pushed the hood of my sweatshirt back off my head. Southern California in January was chilly, the off-season, and I was the only customer here. The woman behind the counter smiled at me.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning. Two large coffees, please.” I looked at the bakery case. “Are the blueberry muffins fresh?”
“Baked this morning.”
“I’ll take two.”
As the woman gave me my change, she looked at me closely. She was close to fifty, with the slightly weathered skin of a local who is outdoors all the time. “I’ve seen you around here before.”
“I’ve been staying in town for the last few days.”
“You a surfer? Only the diehards are here this time of year.”
I shook my head. It was the blond hair that gave the wrong impression. “Nope. I wish I was.”
Her expression turned a little sour. This was a surfing town. “You’re not an actor, are you?”
“I’m a musician.”
