Her eyes go wide with something like panic. “Wait. Did you fly all the way out here to break up with me? Because ifthat’s what this is?—”
“No.” The word explodes out of me with more force than I intended. “Hard no. I’m doing the opposite.”
She stares at me like I’ve started speaking in tongues. “Then what?—”
“There was this girl at the Lantern,” I rush to explain, the words tumbling over each other. “Wearing a tour T-shirt. And the song she played on the jukebox, it was like it punched me in the gut and said, ‘Go to her.’ Literally, it actually said that. So I did.”
Lucy’s mouth curves into a bewildered smile. “That... I have no idea what that means.”
“It means I love you.” The words hang in the air between us, simple and terrifying and true. “I love you, Lucy Calder. Not just the version of you that waits up when I work late and makes dinner on the hard days. I love the you that conquers stages and moves across the country with no one supporting you. I love your ambition and your fire and the way I feel when you look at me.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “Nash?—”
“I love that you’re brave enough to chase your dreams even when it scares the hell out of me. I love watching you become everything you were meant to be, even if it means watching from three thousand miles away.”
A tear spills over, leaving a clean track through the glitter on her cheek. “I love you too,” she whispers, voice thick with emotion. “So much it terrifies me. When I saw you in the crowd tonight, I almost stopped mid-routine because all I wanted was to run to you.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh, yeah.” Her smile is watery but radiant. “I’ve been miserable without you. Like, pathetically, dramatically miserable. Ask anyone. I’ve been impossible to be around.”
I cup her face again, wiping away tears with my thumbs.
A voice booms down the hallway: “Final call for Bus A! Lucy, we need you!”
Her face crumples slightly. “God, I hate this. Twenty minutes wasn’t nearly enough.”
I press my forehead to hers. “Where’s your next stop?”
“Houston. We’ve got a three-day break before the next show. Means we’ll have plenty of time to talk. In fact, I don’t intend to hang up the phone with you until I absolutely have to.”
An idea crystallizes in my mind, crazy and impulsive and perfect. “Don’t get on the bus.”
“What?”
“Skip it. Let me fly you to Houston in a day or two. We can have forty-eight hours that belong to just us. No schedules, no buses, no crew members yelling about load-out.”
She glances toward the hallway where the other dancers are filing out, their voices echoing off the concrete walls. When she looks back at me, there’s hope flickering in her eyes like a candle in the dark.
“Are you serious?”
“Dead serious.” I brush a strand of hair away from her face. “Give me two days, Lucy. Let me love you the way you deserve to be loved.”
Her smile starts small and grows until it’s blinding. “That’s the best offer I’ve gotten in weeks.”
“Is that a yes?”
Instead of answering, she kisses me. Deep and desperate and full of promise, her hands tangling in my hair, her body melting against mine like she’s trying to memorize the shape of me. I can taste the salt of her tears and something sweet from whatever she drank after the show, and underneath it all, just Lucy.
When we finally break apart, we’re both breathing hard.
“That’s a yes,” she whispers against my lips.
“Thank God.” I rest my forehead against hers, feeling like I can breathe properly for the first time in weeks. “I was running out of grand gestures.”
She laughs, the sound bright and infectious. “Well, showing up in a Sandro shirt was pretty grand. Very committed to the bit.”
“I aim to please.”
