AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Jay shakes his head and lets out a soft chuckle. “No, Kitten, I always have one. Haven’t gone a day since we met without picking out a song for you.”
“What?”
Jay holds out his phone. “Here. Take a look.”
I survey him for a minute, trying to wrap my mind around what he’s saying. When he doesn’t elaborate, I take the phone and scroll through what looks like a never-ending playlist.
“Go to the first one,” he says.
I stare at him stupidly.
“The first thing I noticed when I saw you in the café were the gold flecks in your eyes. Youcalmedme. I have no idea why.” He chuckles. “You were frazzled. And you were completely destroying my business with your inability to work a damn coffee pot.
“I was evil. Completely uncaring about anyone but myself. Focused on nothing but my task—to destroy your family. And then I saw you, looked into your eyes, and that damn song started to play on repeat.”
“There are hundreds of songs here,” I mutter.
“Four thousand, seven hundred and fifty-three, to be exact.”
“What?”
“A song for every day since I met you.”
“But…” I shake my head, at a loss for words.
“There wasn’t a day while we were apart that I didn’t pick out a song. An inordinate number of them are titled ‘Only you.’ You’d be amazed by how many there are. My favorite is by Parmalee. Actually, I take that back. I love Harry Connick Jr.’s too. That’s a classic.”
My heart stutters in my chest and my head spins at his admission.
“Honestly,” he continues, taking a step closer, “it kept you close. Even when my heart was breaking without you. They’re not all sad, though. I got glimpses into your life. I’d see your smiling face in a magazine, and it would turn my week around. Even while we were apart, you’d give me enough light to make it through the next dark spell. To keep me going. Because, Cat, many days, I wondered why I was still alive. What my purpose was, when the only person I’ve ever loved hated me.”
“I didn’t hate you,” I croak.
He chuckles as he wipes a tear from my cheek. The gentleness of his touch is a contradiction to the rough pad of his thumb. “You hated me, Kitten, and I deserved it.”
I shake my head. “Even then, I knew there was a reason. I didn’t understand it…and it broke me…but I never hated you. Swear it.”
Another piece of my heart rights itself when, hair falling over his eyes, he ducks so we’re eye to eye and gives me that shy smile, the real one that he saves for only Chloe and me.
“Almost five thousand songs on the playlist. It will take me an eternity to get through this,” I say with a breathy laugh.
“My goal is to make sure you never do.”
“Why?” My heart pounds wildly at the reverence I see in his expression.
“Because I plan to give you one a day for the rest of our lives. For as long as I’m alive, Cat, my heart is yours. Until my last breath, you’ll have music in your life.”
“Jay,” I whisper, stunned. All I can do is breathe through the emotions coursing through me.
“Go to the first song, Kitten.”
Tears blur my vision as I swipe aggressively.
But when I reach the first song, the air burns in my chest. It’s not “Poker Face.”
“How?” I ask, sure he changed it.
“Even then, I knew.”
