Not me—at least not then.
But as I read, I feel her becoming me. The way she laughs. The way she runs. The way he can’t stop chasing her.
I hand it back to him, unable to speak.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Even when I didn’t know, I knew. You were always in there somewhere. I just had to live enough life to see it.”
And it hits me—all at once.
I’m not just a muse. I’m not just a lyric.
I’m hishome.
I climb into his lap, straddling him, my forehead against his.
“Jaxon Steele,” I whisper. “I love you so much.”
“I’ll take it.”
“And even though it hurt so much to have you leave, I’m glad you did. I’m glad we were able to grow into the people we are now, so we’d recognize we were meant to be more than friends. And I’m so glad we made it back to each other.”
“I love you, Iz.”
We stay like that for a while, our foreheads pressed together, the past and future colliding in this perfect in-between.
And eventually, when we do make it to bed—when his arms wrap around me and our bodies find that rhythm that feels like music and prayer and love all at once—I don’t think about the meeting tomorrow.
I don’t think about anything except how grateful I am that he came back.
That I let him in.
That he’s mine.
Tomorrow will be another busy day in the recording studio for Jaxon and in the office for me, preparing for my meeting with W&R Mercantile—the one that will now be in person rather than virtual.
But tonight?
Tonight is ours.
And for once, I don’t feel like I’m chasing something I can’t catch.
I’ve already found it.
Chapter fifty-one
Epilogue
Izzy
Five Years Later
There’ssomethingaboutthesound of a stadium filled with voices singing along to the love of your life’s songs that never gets old. It rattles your bones in the best way—a reminder you’re alive, even when you’re covered in spit-up.
In the five years since we started dating, I’ve been to almost all of Jaxon’s concerts. Our life was crazy at first, balancing demanding careers with dating and exploring our lives together once it was clear our relationship was anything but fake. I still laugh at how naïve I was when I made that deal—as if Jaxon and I could ever be in each other’s orbit without becoming the center of the universe. It’d been that way when we were best friendsgrowing up, and it certainly was that way now that we’ve been married for three years.
I balance our sleeping daughter on my chest, making sure my gentle swaying doesn’t knock off her baby headphones as I dance to Jaxon’s newest release—a ballad from his most recent album about love and home and family. A song that, if you listen close, sounds an awful lot like a promise to his young daughter.
I press a kiss into her soft curls, damp from the humid Tokyo night.
