"Yup," he said, opening the can and handing it to Darla.
"Tell me about yourself,” Dan said, sitting across from them, clearly ready to hear all about her. "This is the first time Mach’s ever brought someone for me to meet."
"I’m a nurse, I try to fix people. It’s sort of my thing." Darla tucked a stray piece of hair that fell from her ponytail behind her ear. "But I’m not sure what’s going to happen now that we’re giving this a go. I guess I’ll have to figure out how to be Mach’s number one groupie and still do what I love."
"You will," Dan said, nodding. "As long as you understand that he’s not broken.Hedoesn’t need fixing." Dan pulled his lips into a line, sinking into his thoughts. "That’s the problem. People always thought he was broken, but he wasn’t. The kid doesn’t need fixing. He needs to be loved."
Darla’s throat got thick. That was profound. Mach squeezed her tighter against his side.
"And if there’s a time that he won’t let me?" This Darla asked, looking up straight to Mach.
But it was Dan who answered, "Something I learned a long time ago working with these kids—they’ll always let you in, if you wait ’em out. That’s the trick. You see them as a whole person and eventually they will too." Dan looked at his shoes. "I thought Mach was there already, but I was wrong. I think he is now."
"Mach?" Darla asked.
"I’m there." He lifted his thumb to trace her lip. "I’m there, Gorgeous."
And she believed him, because that’s what people did when they loved each other. When they found the perfect matching half that made them realize they were whole the entire time.
Epilogue
MACH
Mach had one question,and that question was, "What the fuck?"
He and the guys finished up the last show in Edinburgh and then they took the red-eye home early to surprise the girls. The girls who all came home two weeks ago to, apparently, tear shit up.
"Whoa," Tanner said, stepping beside him.
"What time is it?" Mach asked, not looking to Tanner but lifting his sunglasses and squinting as he kept his eyes on the insanity that was their backyard.
"No idea," Tanner replied. "Maybe this is a dream, and we need to wake up."
That didn’t make sense, since the sun was up, and Darla and Sam were in the backyard of the house they all shared. Darla had moved in, and she and Mach had their half of the monstrosity while Tanner and Sam had theirs.
Right now, though, Darla was laughing and pointing at something off to the side while Sam beamed with pride.
That wasn’t the part that had him swearing. No, the part that had him swearing was the part where the sidewalk leading from the back door of the house to the pool and then the gate was all torn to shit. There was a construction crew working in a flurry of madness as they poured new cement into molds where the perfectly fine old cement had been when they’d left for Scotland.
"Darla?" he called, heading towards her.
She glanced to him, then waved her hands, shouting, "You’re not supposed to be here! Don’t look!"
Those were the words she said, but she still ran at him like she always did when they’d been separated for any length of time. She jumped up into his arms with such force he fell back on one boot.
"Seriously, don’t look," she said, earnestly.
"That’s not the hello I was thinking I’d get," he said, even as she squeezed the stuffing out of him.
"It’s not done," she said. "You can’t see it yet."
"Gorgeous, I’ve already seen it." He set her down and took in the scope of a project he had no idea was happening.
"Here’s the thing." She patted his chest. "Sam and I had an idea and we thought it’d be fun. But you’re not supposed to be home for two more days. So it’s still a mess."
"What’s the idea?" he asked.
"C’mere," she said, skip-walking to the side of the new path. She pulled back a tarp and there was a pink star in black granite like they’d seen on Hollywood Boulevard. Except this one had his name on it in gold.
