I don’t know what to say, so I just nod.
She drives away. I stand in the driveway, watching her taillights disappear.
My phone lights up.
Levi:Can I call now?
I answer before the second ring.
“Hey.” He sounds tired but warm. “I missed hearing you.”
“You talked to me this morning.”
“That was ages ago.”
I sink onto the porch steps, letting the evening air wash over me. “How was the meeting? Really?”
“It went…complicated.” A pause. “They want me back, Delilah. Really back. New album, a tour, the whole thing.”
My stomach drops. “What did you tell them?”
“I told them I needed time to think.” A longer silence. “And that I have something in Twin Waves I’m not willing to give up.”
“And what did they say?”
“They said I have a few weeks to decide.”
A few weeks—that’s not much time.
“Levi—”
“Don’t.” His voice is soft but certain. “Don’t tell me to go, or that my career is more important. I already know what everyone thinks I should do. I want to know what you think.”
I close my eyes. The sunset fades, pink turning to purple turning to deep blue, and somewhere down the street someone grills dinner while a dog barks and the world keeps spinning.
“I think,” I say slowly, “that I want you to come home.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. But I also...” I take a breath. “I think we need to figure out what home actually means. For both of us.”
He’s quiet for along moment.
“I’ll be back tomorrow. We’ll figure it out together.”
“Together.”
“Together.”
I stay on the porch long after we hang up, watching stars emerge one by one.
Together—a nice word, a scary word.
But maybe, for once, the right one.
SIXTEEN
LEVI
