“Do you see her?” Jonah asks, breathless.
“Not yet.”
“Dad, we have to find her before she goes through security or we can't get to her!”
“I know, JoJo. We're not giving up.”
The security line is long and slow and I scan every face in it with my heart hammering. She could already be through. She could already be at the gate, headphones in, gone to me in every way that matters before the plane even moves.
I pray we haven't missed her.
And then, from the corner of my eye, bright as a copper penny in the sun coming through the terminal windows, as eye-catching as the first time I ever glimpsed her in that lake, I see her coming out of the coffee shop. Iced coffee in hand. Looking down at her phone.
She has no idea we're here.
“There!” Jonah shouts, loud enough that three strangers turn to look.
We run across the terminal.
I'm not a man who runs through airports. I'm not a man who makes scenes in public places or acts without thinking. I came back to Marble Falls in search of a quiet, simple life. I wanted to put the circus behind me and raise my son and make my music and not need anything from anyone.
Then Sadie Sullivan walked into my life, and everything changed.
I'm aware, distantly, that people are recognizing me. The double-takes starting, the nudges, the phones coming up. Walker Rhodes, sprinting through Marble Falls airport with his five-year-old in tow.
Whatever's about to happen, it's already being filmed.
I don't care even a little bit.
We pull up to Sadie. If there were dust around we’d be kicking up a cloud of it, the way Jonah and I slide to sudden stop.
“Darlin',” I say, a little out of breath.
She turns.
The coffee cup nearly slips from her hand. She puts it on the display table next to her, hands trembling a little.
Her eyes go to me first. Then drop to Jonah. Then come back up to my face, and I can see the exact moment she understands that I’m going to tell her something important.
The people nearest to us have already stopped walking. Awoman at the coffee shop counter has her phone up. Two teenage girls by the window are grabbing each other's arms.
I step up to her and take both her hands in mine.
Her fingers are cold from clutching the iced coffee. Almost as cold as her skin was that first day I touched her, when she emerged from that freezing lake.
This time, I don't let go.
“I owe you a question,” I say. “I've been telling you things all summer. What I feel. What I want. What I think you should do. I told you to go wander down that other path. I told you I'd be right here waiting. I told you all of that. But I never asked. So I'm asking.”
My thumbs move across her knuckles.
“You forged your own path. You kept your vow. You did every single thing you said you were going to do, and I am so proud of you for that. But I'm asking if that's still the life you want. Now that you know this one exists.”
She's looking at me with those blue eyes and she's not saying anything and I can't read her, which almost never happens. My heart is thundering and I've never wanted anything this badly in my entire life.
I keep going because stopping now isn't an option.
“If you want to work, there are jobs here. A teaching job in Marble Falls, which I know isn't New York, but I'll turn this valley upside down to find you something worthy of you. Or you can write songs with me. Or both. Or neither.” I feel slightly insane. I don't stop. “And if you stay and you hate it, you get on a plane and you go and I'll drive you to the airport myself. But I'm asking you to try. I'm asking you to choose this. To choose us. Me and Jonah and Wild Rose and the whole damn thing.”
