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It was a message. For her. And only one person could have sent it.
Jack. He was somewhere nearby, he had to be. He wasn’t on that plane to London. He washere, at the show, convincing Nigel Black to dedicate a song to her. And not just any song.The song.
She looked out at the audience. The younger faces sang along; the older ones looked confused yet no less entertained. Glowing phones lit up the rows and rows of bodies swaying and singing, but she didn’t see Jack.
Gemma turned to Lila, who was lost in a craze of beloved lyrics, and gripped her arm. “Lila!” she screamed over the noise. “Lila, he’s here!”
Lila bobbed her head and punched the air to the hardened lyrics. She finished singing along to the chorus before responding. “Who’s here?”
“Jack!” Gemma shouted. “It’s Jack! He knows this is my favorite song! He dedicated it to me as a message!”
Lila’s eyes went full-moon size and her mouth fell open again. “Are youserious?!”
“Yes! I have to find him!” Her heart was going to beat out of her chest. Her whole body might have been about to explode.
She eyed Nigel centerstage, singing his heart out to a song she never would have imagined he knew the lyrics to. Rosy lights pulsated off him. The whole stage had become a sea of swirling, warm red glow. He hit the second verse with as much passion as if he’d written it himself. She felt like she was in a dream: her favorite singer singing her favorite song—for her, by special request.
She scanned the crowd again, desperate. She had to find Jack.
The chorus came back around, and she threw her eyes across the stage. The band was giving the song one hell of a rock-glam glow-up, and everyone was enthralled. Even the techs and roadies lingering in the wings looked entertained.
And there he was.
On the opposite edge of the stage, right inside the wing like she was, stood Jack. He gave her a small but eager wave, as if he’d been watching her the whole time and patiently waiting for her to see him.
She almost collapsed with relief, excitement, joy, and another very strong feeling she wasn’t sure she could articulate without seeing him up close.
Her body thrummed with exhilaration. She suddenly ached to touch him, to speak to him. To tell him everything she now knew she needed to say. But a raging, live performance stood between them.
She waved back and pointed upstage. She’d meant it asI’ll come to you, but when she stepped over cords and wires and managed not to trip as she rounded behind the drummer’s platform in a hurry, there he was waiting for her.
They reached for each other, gripping each other’s arms, and the relief she felt at his solid form stole her breath.
“I thought you left!” she shouted over the song still pounding on.
He looked bewildered. “Left?”
The panic she’d felt at the airport, the crushing loss, came back to her but only to intensify her relief. “Yes! I ran into Angelica at a restaurant, and she told me that you were leaving for Europe.”
His eyes, still shining in the swirling lights, grew wide as if he realized how close he’d come to disaster. “No! I only told her that to get rid of her! I didn’t think you were going to run into her!”
Gemma’s heart surged with understanding. It had been a decoy. If only she’d known.
But if she had known, she thought, would she have gone chasing after him and realized her true feelings? Probably not. But she had—shehadrealized how she felt—and it had led them to this moment like it was all meant to be.
As if she had been running on a wheel or a fixed belt, Gemma suddenly felt that she had been set free. No longer stuck in a rigid track of her own making, of denial and cautious self-preservation, in admitting the truth, she felt a freedom she had never known before.
Her words came tumbling out. “Jack, when I thought you were leaving, I realized I’d made a huge mistake, so I went looking for you to try and stop you. I went to the airport—”
“You went to the airport?” He watched her with wide eyes, eager and interested, and looking both surprised and thrilled she’d gone to such lengths.
“Yes! And this horrible woman at the ticket counter wouldn’t listen to me, and they called security on us, and then Lila convinced this TSA agent to help us sneak in, but we were too late! I thought you were on a plane to London, and I watched it leave! I thought I had ruined everything. You’re right; we need each other. And the truth is, I haven’t let myself feel anything for so long that I was holding back. But you make me feel everything, Jack. All this time I was protecting myself by walking away because I was afraid. I was afraid of what I felt, but I’m more afraid of losing you. I don’t want to walk away from you. Ever. I—”
He gripped her arms and pulled her into a kiss. He kissed her and kissed her, and it felt as enormous as their kiss at the bar. The whole world—maybe the universe—tilted and put Gemma right where she knew she was supposed to be. She threw her arms around him and leaned into the feeling.
And just like that, it was as if a door opened in her mind, and she could walk through the past one hundred and forty-seven days.
She saw the first coffee collision, Jack’s smile, his eyes. Sitting with him in the coffee shop, talking to him on the sidewalk. He’d told her about his job; she’d shared about hers. She saw their dates: the sweet, embarrassed flush in his cheeks when he took her to a barbecue place and she told him she was vegetarian; him gently swiping a dribble of strawberry ice cream from her lip when she’d ordered it togo after lunch and the zing his touch shot through her body; them attending Lila’s birthday party and keeping to themselves in the corner as if they were the only two people in the world. She could even feel, somehow, through the stretch of time and mystery her urge to be near him on all those previous days. To know more about him, this beautiful, alluring stranger who somehow felt like an old friend. But as strong as that pull had been, she also felt how her own resistance had met it like an anchor.
