Stone Cold, page 19
Stone’s jaw clenches.
“Is that true?” I ask him.
“He told me our relationship was stale.” Jude turns to me. “That you didn’t have that fire in your eyes anymore when you looked at me. We had a whole conversation about it in Tulum, didn’t we, Stone? You told me life was too short to spend it with someone who doesn’t make me feel alive—but fuck me. You just wanted to break us up so you could have her for yourself.”
“That’s not—no,” Stone says. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Then what was your end game? Huh? Because you sure had a compelling argument that day.” Jude’s flustered complexion deepens again, and he grabs a fistful of hair.
“I wanted you to leave her so she could find someone better, someone who actually deserved her.”
Jude’s hand falls to his side with a lifeless flop, and he scoffs.
“And who would that be?” He looks Stone up and down.
“Anyone but you,” he says.
Without another word or any sort of warning, Stone charges at Jude again, this time with his arm pulled back and ready to swing. I scream as Stone blocks his strike. Jude stumbles back, his chest puffing and his eyes crazy.
In a frenzied instant, their friendship flashes before me—at least what I know if it.
The loss of their mothers, stories of their boyhood, their infallible loyalty …
While the two of them continue to scream words at each other they’ll probably regret one day, I dash upstairs, throw last night’s clothes on, grab my things, and go.
Jude isn’t perfect.
Neither is Stone.
But they’ve always had each other, and I can’t come between that.
Chapter Fifty
Stone
* * *
I make my way to Jovie’s apartment door Sunday morning, a paper gift bag in hand. She left in the midst of all the chaos yesterday at my house, and I haven’t been able to reach her since. She isn’t returning my calls or texts, and while I don’t blame her, I still need to know she’s okay.
There was a lot that didn’t get unpacked.
I can only imagine what she’s thinking … and what she’s assuming … especially when it comes to the conversation Jude and I had in Tulum.
I rap on her door and wait. There isn’t a floorboard creak, the hum of a TV in the background, or any other sign of life. I noticed her car parked out front when I got here, but it doesn’t mean she’s home.
Taking a seat on her welcome mat, I place the gift bag beside me and wait.
When she’s ready to talk, I’ll be here.
Until then, I’ve got nothing but time.
Chapter Fifty-One
Jovie
* * *
I round the block towards my apartment and tighten Domino’s leash. Yesterday, Ida decided to attend a quilting convention upstate and she asked if I could stay at her place and watch her dog overnight. The renovations were apparently complete and she made a point to tell me her guest room was all ready for me.
Desperate for a distraction from the events of that morning, I didn’t hesitate to tell her yes. I’d have said yes anyway, but her request couldn’t have come at a better time.
I packed an overnight bag, put my phone on silent, and spent my Saturday night with a spotted mutt, delivery pizza, and a Grey’s Anatomy marathon.
None of it made me think of Stone any less.
“Hold up, buddy,” I say when I spot Jude’s car parked out front. On closer inspection, I surmise that he’s not in it, which means he’s probably at my door. “This way, Domino.”
I lead him to my building and we make our way through the front door and up the stairs to my unit. He whimpers the instant he smells Stone. Within seconds, he’s pulling on his leash so hard I worry he’ll choke himself, so I unclasp the lead. He darts to Stone, who’s sitting on my doormat, and he smothers him in wet kisses. The poor thing is wagging his tail so hard, the rest of his body wags with it.
Stone gives him a satisfying scratch behind the ear, all the while dodging his wet slurps, and eventually manages to get on his feet.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Yeah.” Lowering my chin, I say, “I thought we could use a little bit of space after yesterday.”
He frowns, his hooded eyes squinting in the low light of this hallway. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” I insist, injecting a lighter tone in my voice. But it isn’t true. I’m not okay. I was floating on cloud nine only to have it explode in my face unexpectedly. “A little shell-shocked, maybe, but I’ll be fine. What about you? Are you okay?”
I inspect his face for any black eyes or busted lips.
But he’s clean as a whistle.
As handsome as always.
“I am,” he says before scratching at his temple. “Jude on the other hand … he might need some time.”
“Some time for what?”
“To accept that this,” he motions between us, “isn’t going anywhere.”
I try to speak, but the words refuse to leave my tongue.
This isn’t what I expected at all after yesterday. In fact, I expected the exact opposite of this.
Stone steps closer, narrowing the distance between us and pinning me into place with his icy Alaskan blues.
“I wanted to clear something up that Jude said yesterday,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “When he told you I’m the one who talked him into ending things with you … it’s true.”
I rub my lips together as the sting of his words soak through me. At the time, I was hoping it was something Jude was making up in the heat of the moment. I wanted it to be a lie.
“I don’t understand,” I say, pressing my hand against his chest. “And just to be clear, I’m not angry … Jude breaking up with me was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I just want some context.”
Stone massages the back of his neck, peering over my shoulder as he searches for his words.
“I was tired of him hurting you,” Stone says.
“What do you mean?” Up until then, Jude had never hurt me. At least not to my knowledge. Aside from a handful of quarrels here and there, we were happy and in love.
“Do you remember the night the two of you had that big fight, and you went home to stay with your parents to get some space for the weekend?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“And you tried to call him and he told you he was out with me?”
I nod.
“He slept with someone else that night,” he says. “Some random girl from a bar.”
My stomach hardens. Five years, a career, and a failed marriage later, the betrayal stings the same.
“I’m sorry.” He takes my hands in his. “I tried to stop him …”
“Don’t apologize for him, Stone. It wasn’t your fault.”
“He begged me to cover for him the next day, and he swore it was a one-time thing,” Stone continues. “And then he met Stassi in Tulum, and all the apologetic bullshit from that morning was out the window. Maybe I should’ve stayed out of it, but goddamn it, Jovie, I couldn’t stand back and let him take advantage of your trust like that.”
“So you told him you thought we were stale?”
“Something along those lines.” He exhales. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for him.”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt. In the end, you got hurt anyway.” His eyes fall to my thighs, where the tail end of my scar is visible from beneath my shorts. “You could have died that night.”
His beautiful eyes rest on mine, and I drink him in the way he’s done to me countless times since he’s been back in my life.
“I always wondered why you had this chip on your shoulder,” I say. “Now I’m thinking it wasn’t a chip at all. It was the weight of Jude’s bullshit and lies.”
He manages to crack some semblance of a smile.
“You said Jude didn’t deserve me,” I say. “But he didn’t deserve you either.”
Brushing his thumb along my lower lip, he grazes his mouth across mine. It’s the tenderest of kisses, an apology and a promise all wrapped into one. I melt against him, slipping my arms around his broad shoulders.
“You don’t have to pick me over him, you know,” I say. “I’d understand—”
“—stop,” he says. “I want you. And if he wants to be a part of my life, he has to accept that. I made that clear to him yesterday. I also made it clear that he’s been a shitty excuse for a best friend, and if he wants to keep throwing that term around like it means something to him, then he needs to start acting like it.”
I suck in a breath, impressed.
“How’d he take all of that?” I ask.
“Not well,” he says. “But he’ll figure it out when the time is right.”
“Optimism is a good look on you,” I tease.
“I think some of your sunshine must have rubbed off on me lately.” He leans down for another kiss, but I turn my cheek. “What?”
“There’s one more thing we need to discuss before any of this moves forward.”
“All right.”
“You lied to me about the night we met,” I say. “You told me you didn’t remember. From the gist of your shouting match yesterday, I think I determined that it had something to do with both of you liking me and you stepping back so Jude could have me? Didn’t realize I was a commodity to be had, but okay …”
“Jude was coming out of a bad breakup and you brought out this part of him I hadn’t seen in years.” He rolls his eyes. “That entire thing had nothing to do with you being traded like an NFL quarterback and everything to do with me trying to do the noble thing at the time … the kind of thing I’d want him to do for me if it was the other way around.”
“Hate to tell you, but he wouldn’t have done the same for you.”
“I know that now.” He grabs a gift bag off the ground and hands it to me. “Anyway, I’m sorry I lied, and I hope this makes up for it.”
Reaching in, I pull out a soft, wash-worn t-shirt in a faded shade of black.
“The night we met, you told me you were one of thousands of Bon Jovi babies.” His eyes twinkle with humor. “Whether or not that’s true is impossible to know. What I can tell you is there are approximately one hundred and fourteen t-shirts being sold online from the 1996 These Days tour.”
I unfold the fabric and feast my eyes on a vintage image of Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, David Bryan, and Tico Torres in all their nineties rocker hair glory.
“Believe it or not, I bought this a week ago,” he says. “Had it overnighted. I was so nervous to give it to you, but I wanted to come clean about that night. I was hoping this would be a way to soften the blow.”
“The fact that you remembered at all …” I flip the shirt over, reading off all the tour dates until I get to Sarasota—the night I was conceived. “Thank you. This is probably the most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me.”
With the shirt clenched in my hand, I throw my arms around his shoulders.
“I know this isn’t some love story out of one of your books,” he says, “and I can’t promise you that any of this will be predictable, ever, but Jovie, I’ve been in love with you for over eight years. And I promise you, I’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved—the way you always should have been loved.”
He kisses me, deep and hard. A kiss Clark Gable would have been proud of—a kiss I feel in the unexcavated depths of my soul.
“I love you,” he says, his mouth grazing mine.
“I love you too,” I say. “I always have.”
Stone isn’t cold anymore.
He’s fire.
And now? He’s finally mine.
Epilogue
Stone
* * *
2 years later
* * *
They say when you know, you know.
Granted, I’ve known Jovie was the one for me from the minute I laid eyes on her from across the room at that party ten years ago. But it’s time to make it official.
The ring box damn near burns a hole in my pocket as I wait in line. Several yards ahead, she’s set up at a card table, surrounded by stacks of paperbacks that she’s signing for readers who lined up at 6 AM for a chance to have thirty seconds with her.
“Are you a big Jovie Vincent fan?” the middle-aged woman behind me asks. She wheels a cart of books behind her, all of them bearing Jovie’s name.
“You could say that.”
“You don’t strike me as a Regency romance guy.” She giggles as she looks me up and down. “Did your girlfriend or boyfriend put you onto these books?”
“My girlfriend did, yes.”
“I always tried to get my husband to read them,” she says. “I used to dog ear the good scenes and leave the books on his nightstand. You’d have thought I was asking him to donate a kidney or something.” She swats a hand. “He just hates to read, is all.”
The line moves ahead at a snail’s pace.
I peek around the crowd, sneaking glimpses of Jovie doing her thing. Her hair is curled, bouncing at her shoulders as she speaks emphatically with her hands, her lips are slicked in red gloss, and she’s wearing her favorite gold reading glasses—the ones with the cat-eye frames. A baby blue sundress hugs her curves, but she promised I could rip it off of her tonight.
“Won’t be much longer now,” the woman behind me says as she watches Jovie from our post back here.
I’ve been waiting ninety minutes so far, and by the looks of things, it could be another ninety before I get anywhere near her table.
Still, I waited years for this woman—what’s another hour or so?
“Where are you from?” the woman asks.
“Here in Portland,” I say. “You?”
“Montpelier.” She scrunches her nose and shrinks her shoulders as she offers a proud smile.
“Wow. You drove all the way here to meet Jovie?”
“I’m her number one fan,” she says, nodding to her cart of books.
“It appears that way.”
“A few years ago, I had surgery on my foot, and I was laid up for weeks. My daughter-in-law brought me a stack of books from the library, and one of Jovie’s was in there. I’ve been hooked ever since,” she says.
The line trudges ahead once more.
“What do you do in Portland?” she asks.
“I’m an attorney.”
“Oh, how lovely. My niece is an attorney too. She does corporate law. I don’t pretend to understand any of it. It’s all Greek to me,” she says. “What does your girlfriend do? I assume she lives here as well?”
“She’s an author, actually.” I nod toward the front of the line, and the woman offers a confused half-smile as she tries to understand my gesture. “Jovie is my girlfriend … Jovie Vincent.”
Her jaw falls and she fans her face. “You’re kidding me. Oh, my—wow. That’s … what are you doing in line? Shouldn’t you be up there with her?”
I lift my finger to my lips. “She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Sliding the red ring box from my pocket, I show just enough for her to comprehend what’s going on.
With tears in her eyes, she claps her hands over her mouth.
“I won’t say a word,” she says.
“Appreciate it.” I give her a smile and a nod before glancing toward the front of the line again.
For the past eighteen months, we’ve been holed up in my townhome. I converted the guest room to an office, where she can write day or night with a view of the bay out one window and the downtown skyline out of the other.
Most of the time I can find her there, our rescue pup, Duke, keeping her feet warm as her fingers clack away at her keyboard until all hours of the night. It never gets old—Jovie crawling into bed in the middle of the night after a long stretch of writing. She always feels bad for waking me, but I don’t mind. I usually take her tired hands in mine, give them a gentle massage, and listen for her breath to grow slow and steady as she falls asleep in my arms.
A few months ago, we ran into Jude at the farmer’s market. With jeans, a t-shirt, and a pretty brunette on his arm, he looked every bit the part of the man I know and a far cry from the man he was when he was with Stassi.
The two of them calling off their wedding was a wise move on both parts.
I can spot a divorce coming a mile away, and those two were about to book a one-way ticket.
He gave me a wave from across the way, followed by a bittersweet smile of sorts. I wish I could say he grew up and learned the errors of his way. I also wish I could say he was happy for me, the same way I was happy for him all that time ago.
Paul has assured me everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
Maybe with a little time, we can revive the remains of our friendship and see if it still has a pulse. For now, it lives on in my memories. But I don’t spend much time thinking about the past these days.
I don’t live there anymore.
The line moves again, and I pull out my phone to go over my proposal speech again.
Early in our relationship, Jovie made me promise that we’d never talk about getting engaged nor would we look at rings together. She wanted it to be a genuine surprise.
I check the ring box, inspecting the inside to ensure the antique rose-cut stone is still securely inside.
With my heart hammering in my chest, I wait patiently for my turn. And the minute I’m up, Jovie squeals, running out from behind her signing table and throwing her arms around me.
“You came to surprise me,” she says. “That’s so sweet.”
“Actually.” Digging into my pocket, I produce the ring box and promptly fall to one knee.
Her red lips form a perfect O-shape as she realizes what’s happening.
“Jovie Annabeth Vincent,” I say, “You’re the love of my life. My blue sky. My lighthouse. You’re my personal plot twist and the song that’s been stuck in my head for the past ten years. I want to spend the rest of my life falling asleep with you in my arms and waking up to your blaring podcasts as you take your hour-long showers and use all the hot water.”
“Is that true?” I ask him.
“He told me our relationship was stale.” Jude turns to me. “That you didn’t have that fire in your eyes anymore when you looked at me. We had a whole conversation about it in Tulum, didn’t we, Stone? You told me life was too short to spend it with someone who doesn’t make me feel alive—but fuck me. You just wanted to break us up so you could have her for yourself.”
“That’s not—no,” Stone says. “You couldn’t be more wrong.”
“Then what was your end game? Huh? Because you sure had a compelling argument that day.” Jude’s flustered complexion deepens again, and he grabs a fistful of hair.
“I wanted you to leave her so she could find someone better, someone who actually deserved her.”
Jude’s hand falls to his side with a lifeless flop, and he scoffs.
“And who would that be?” He looks Stone up and down.
“Anyone but you,” he says.
Without another word or any sort of warning, Stone charges at Jude again, this time with his arm pulled back and ready to swing. I scream as Stone blocks his strike. Jude stumbles back, his chest puffing and his eyes crazy.
In a frenzied instant, their friendship flashes before me—at least what I know if it.
The loss of their mothers, stories of their boyhood, their infallible loyalty …
While the two of them continue to scream words at each other they’ll probably regret one day, I dash upstairs, throw last night’s clothes on, grab my things, and go.
Jude isn’t perfect.
Neither is Stone.
But they’ve always had each other, and I can’t come between that.
Chapter Fifty
Stone
* * *
I make my way to Jovie’s apartment door Sunday morning, a paper gift bag in hand. She left in the midst of all the chaos yesterday at my house, and I haven’t been able to reach her since. She isn’t returning my calls or texts, and while I don’t blame her, I still need to know she’s okay.
There was a lot that didn’t get unpacked.
I can only imagine what she’s thinking … and what she’s assuming … especially when it comes to the conversation Jude and I had in Tulum.
I rap on her door and wait. There isn’t a floorboard creak, the hum of a TV in the background, or any other sign of life. I noticed her car parked out front when I got here, but it doesn’t mean she’s home.
Taking a seat on her welcome mat, I place the gift bag beside me and wait.
When she’s ready to talk, I’ll be here.
Until then, I’ve got nothing but time.
Chapter Fifty-One
Jovie
* * *
I round the block towards my apartment and tighten Domino’s leash. Yesterday, Ida decided to attend a quilting convention upstate and she asked if I could stay at her place and watch her dog overnight. The renovations were apparently complete and she made a point to tell me her guest room was all ready for me.
Desperate for a distraction from the events of that morning, I didn’t hesitate to tell her yes. I’d have said yes anyway, but her request couldn’t have come at a better time.
I packed an overnight bag, put my phone on silent, and spent my Saturday night with a spotted mutt, delivery pizza, and a Grey’s Anatomy marathon.
None of it made me think of Stone any less.
“Hold up, buddy,” I say when I spot Jude’s car parked out front. On closer inspection, I surmise that he’s not in it, which means he’s probably at my door. “This way, Domino.”
I lead him to my building and we make our way through the front door and up the stairs to my unit. He whimpers the instant he smells Stone. Within seconds, he’s pulling on his leash so hard I worry he’ll choke himself, so I unclasp the lead. He darts to Stone, who’s sitting on my doormat, and he smothers him in wet kisses. The poor thing is wagging his tail so hard, the rest of his body wags with it.
Stone gives him a satisfying scratch behind the ear, all the while dodging his wet slurps, and eventually manages to get on his feet.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
“Yeah.” Lowering my chin, I say, “I thought we could use a little bit of space after yesterday.”
He frowns, his hooded eyes squinting in the low light of this hallway. “Are you okay?”
“Of course,” I insist, injecting a lighter tone in my voice. But it isn’t true. I’m not okay. I was floating on cloud nine only to have it explode in my face unexpectedly. “A little shell-shocked, maybe, but I’ll be fine. What about you? Are you okay?”
I inspect his face for any black eyes or busted lips.
But he’s clean as a whistle.
As handsome as always.
“I am,” he says before scratching at his temple. “Jude on the other hand … he might need some time.”
“Some time for what?”
“To accept that this,” he motions between us, “isn’t going anywhere.”
I try to speak, but the words refuse to leave my tongue.
This isn’t what I expected at all after yesterday. In fact, I expected the exact opposite of this.
Stone steps closer, narrowing the distance between us and pinning me into place with his icy Alaskan blues.
“I wanted to clear something up that Jude said yesterday,” he says, his eyes searching mine. “When he told you I’m the one who talked him into ending things with you … it’s true.”
I rub my lips together as the sting of his words soak through me. At the time, I was hoping it was something Jude was making up in the heat of the moment. I wanted it to be a lie.
“I don’t understand,” I say, pressing my hand against his chest. “And just to be clear, I’m not angry … Jude breaking up with me was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I just want some context.”
Stone massages the back of his neck, peering over my shoulder as he searches for his words.
“I was tired of him hurting you,” Stone says.
“What do you mean?” Up until then, Jude had never hurt me. At least not to my knowledge. Aside from a handful of quarrels here and there, we were happy and in love.
“Do you remember the night the two of you had that big fight, and you went home to stay with your parents to get some space for the weekend?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“And you tried to call him and he told you he was out with me?”
I nod.
“He slept with someone else that night,” he says. “Some random girl from a bar.”
My stomach hardens. Five years, a career, and a failed marriage later, the betrayal stings the same.
“I’m sorry.” He takes my hands in his. “I tried to stop him …”
“Don’t apologize for him, Stone. It wasn’t your fault.”
“He begged me to cover for him the next day, and he swore it was a one-time thing,” Stone continues. “And then he met Stassi in Tulum, and all the apologetic bullshit from that morning was out the window. Maybe I should’ve stayed out of it, but goddamn it, Jovie, I couldn’t stand back and let him take advantage of your trust like that.”
“So you told him you thought we were stale?”
“Something along those lines.” He exhales. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop apologizing for him.”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt. In the end, you got hurt anyway.” His eyes fall to my thighs, where the tail end of my scar is visible from beneath my shorts. “You could have died that night.”
His beautiful eyes rest on mine, and I drink him in the way he’s done to me countless times since he’s been back in my life.
“I always wondered why you had this chip on your shoulder,” I say. “Now I’m thinking it wasn’t a chip at all. It was the weight of Jude’s bullshit and lies.”
He manages to crack some semblance of a smile.
“You said Jude didn’t deserve me,” I say. “But he didn’t deserve you either.”
Brushing his thumb along my lower lip, he grazes his mouth across mine. It’s the tenderest of kisses, an apology and a promise all wrapped into one. I melt against him, slipping my arms around his broad shoulders.
“You don’t have to pick me over him, you know,” I say. “I’d understand—”
“—stop,” he says. “I want you. And if he wants to be a part of my life, he has to accept that. I made that clear to him yesterday. I also made it clear that he’s been a shitty excuse for a best friend, and if he wants to keep throwing that term around like it means something to him, then he needs to start acting like it.”
I suck in a breath, impressed.
“How’d he take all of that?” I ask.
“Not well,” he says. “But he’ll figure it out when the time is right.”
“Optimism is a good look on you,” I tease.
“I think some of your sunshine must have rubbed off on me lately.” He leans down for another kiss, but I turn my cheek. “What?”
“There’s one more thing we need to discuss before any of this moves forward.”
“All right.”
“You lied to me about the night we met,” I say. “You told me you didn’t remember. From the gist of your shouting match yesterday, I think I determined that it had something to do with both of you liking me and you stepping back so Jude could have me? Didn’t realize I was a commodity to be had, but okay …”
“Jude was coming out of a bad breakup and you brought out this part of him I hadn’t seen in years.” He rolls his eyes. “That entire thing had nothing to do with you being traded like an NFL quarterback and everything to do with me trying to do the noble thing at the time … the kind of thing I’d want him to do for me if it was the other way around.”
“Hate to tell you, but he wouldn’t have done the same for you.”
“I know that now.” He grabs a gift bag off the ground and hands it to me. “Anyway, I’m sorry I lied, and I hope this makes up for it.”
Reaching in, I pull out a soft, wash-worn t-shirt in a faded shade of black.
“The night we met, you told me you were one of thousands of Bon Jovi babies.” His eyes twinkle with humor. “Whether or not that’s true is impossible to know. What I can tell you is there are approximately one hundred and fourteen t-shirts being sold online from the 1996 These Days tour.”
I unfold the fabric and feast my eyes on a vintage image of Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, David Bryan, and Tico Torres in all their nineties rocker hair glory.
“Believe it or not, I bought this a week ago,” he says. “Had it overnighted. I was so nervous to give it to you, but I wanted to come clean about that night. I was hoping this would be a way to soften the blow.”
“The fact that you remembered at all …” I flip the shirt over, reading off all the tour dates until I get to Sarasota—the night I was conceived. “Thank you. This is probably the most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me.”
With the shirt clenched in my hand, I throw my arms around his shoulders.
“I know this isn’t some love story out of one of your books,” he says, “and I can’t promise you that any of this will be predictable, ever, but Jovie, I’ve been in love with you for over eight years. And I promise you, I’ll love you the way you deserve to be loved—the way you always should have been loved.”
He kisses me, deep and hard. A kiss Clark Gable would have been proud of—a kiss I feel in the unexcavated depths of my soul.
“I love you,” he says, his mouth grazing mine.
“I love you too,” I say. “I always have.”
Stone isn’t cold anymore.
He’s fire.
And now? He’s finally mine.
Epilogue
Stone
* * *
2 years later
* * *
They say when you know, you know.
Granted, I’ve known Jovie was the one for me from the minute I laid eyes on her from across the room at that party ten years ago. But it’s time to make it official.
The ring box damn near burns a hole in my pocket as I wait in line. Several yards ahead, she’s set up at a card table, surrounded by stacks of paperbacks that she’s signing for readers who lined up at 6 AM for a chance to have thirty seconds with her.
“Are you a big Jovie Vincent fan?” the middle-aged woman behind me asks. She wheels a cart of books behind her, all of them bearing Jovie’s name.
“You could say that.”
“You don’t strike me as a Regency romance guy.” She giggles as she looks me up and down. “Did your girlfriend or boyfriend put you onto these books?”
“My girlfriend did, yes.”
“I always tried to get my husband to read them,” she says. “I used to dog ear the good scenes and leave the books on his nightstand. You’d have thought I was asking him to donate a kidney or something.” She swats a hand. “He just hates to read, is all.”
The line moves ahead at a snail’s pace.
I peek around the crowd, sneaking glimpses of Jovie doing her thing. Her hair is curled, bouncing at her shoulders as she speaks emphatically with her hands, her lips are slicked in red gloss, and she’s wearing her favorite gold reading glasses—the ones with the cat-eye frames. A baby blue sundress hugs her curves, but she promised I could rip it off of her tonight.
“Won’t be much longer now,” the woman behind me says as she watches Jovie from our post back here.
I’ve been waiting ninety minutes so far, and by the looks of things, it could be another ninety before I get anywhere near her table.
Still, I waited years for this woman—what’s another hour or so?
“Where are you from?” the woman asks.
“Here in Portland,” I say. “You?”
“Montpelier.” She scrunches her nose and shrinks her shoulders as she offers a proud smile.
“Wow. You drove all the way here to meet Jovie?”
“I’m her number one fan,” she says, nodding to her cart of books.
“It appears that way.”
“A few years ago, I had surgery on my foot, and I was laid up for weeks. My daughter-in-law brought me a stack of books from the library, and one of Jovie’s was in there. I’ve been hooked ever since,” she says.
The line trudges ahead once more.
“What do you do in Portland?” she asks.
“I’m an attorney.”
“Oh, how lovely. My niece is an attorney too. She does corporate law. I don’t pretend to understand any of it. It’s all Greek to me,” she says. “What does your girlfriend do? I assume she lives here as well?”
“She’s an author, actually.” I nod toward the front of the line, and the woman offers a confused half-smile as she tries to understand my gesture. “Jovie is my girlfriend … Jovie Vincent.”
Her jaw falls and she fans her face. “You’re kidding me. Oh, my—wow. That’s … what are you doing in line? Shouldn’t you be up there with her?”
I lift my finger to my lips. “She doesn’t know I’m here.”
Sliding the red ring box from my pocket, I show just enough for her to comprehend what’s going on.
With tears in her eyes, she claps her hands over her mouth.
“I won’t say a word,” she says.
“Appreciate it.” I give her a smile and a nod before glancing toward the front of the line again.
For the past eighteen months, we’ve been holed up in my townhome. I converted the guest room to an office, where she can write day or night with a view of the bay out one window and the downtown skyline out of the other.
Most of the time I can find her there, our rescue pup, Duke, keeping her feet warm as her fingers clack away at her keyboard until all hours of the night. It never gets old—Jovie crawling into bed in the middle of the night after a long stretch of writing. She always feels bad for waking me, but I don’t mind. I usually take her tired hands in mine, give them a gentle massage, and listen for her breath to grow slow and steady as she falls asleep in my arms.
A few months ago, we ran into Jude at the farmer’s market. With jeans, a t-shirt, and a pretty brunette on his arm, he looked every bit the part of the man I know and a far cry from the man he was when he was with Stassi.
The two of them calling off their wedding was a wise move on both parts.
I can spot a divorce coming a mile away, and those two were about to book a one-way ticket.
He gave me a wave from across the way, followed by a bittersweet smile of sorts. I wish I could say he grew up and learned the errors of his way. I also wish I could say he was happy for me, the same way I was happy for him all that time ago.
Paul has assured me everything worked out the way it was supposed to.
Maybe with a little time, we can revive the remains of our friendship and see if it still has a pulse. For now, it lives on in my memories. But I don’t spend much time thinking about the past these days.
I don’t live there anymore.
The line moves again, and I pull out my phone to go over my proposal speech again.
Early in our relationship, Jovie made me promise that we’d never talk about getting engaged nor would we look at rings together. She wanted it to be a genuine surprise.
I check the ring box, inspecting the inside to ensure the antique rose-cut stone is still securely inside.
With my heart hammering in my chest, I wait patiently for my turn. And the minute I’m up, Jovie squeals, running out from behind her signing table and throwing her arms around me.
“You came to surprise me,” she says. “That’s so sweet.”
“Actually.” Digging into my pocket, I produce the ring box and promptly fall to one knee.
Her red lips form a perfect O-shape as she realizes what’s happening.
“Jovie Annabeth Vincent,” I say, “You’re the love of my life. My blue sky. My lighthouse. You’re my personal plot twist and the song that’s been stuck in my head for the past ten years. I want to spend the rest of my life falling asleep with you in my arms and waking up to your blaring podcasts as you take your hour-long showers and use all the hot water.”
