He nodded. “It is nice.”
They fell into silence for a beat.
“Gavi’s asleep?” Sydney asked.
“She’s always been a good sleeper.” Winter let out a laugh. “Wish I had that kind of peace of mind.”
Sydney smiled. “Niall says sound sleepers make for poor agents. So I suppose it’s for the best that you don’t.”
Winter chuckled, then studied her face. “You don’t like that he’s retiring.”
Something about his words made her shrink inward, as if there were walls going up around her heart. She shrugged. “Just makes my life harder, is all,” she said. “I won’t know whoever it is that’ll replace him, and the thought of getting to know a new analyst makes me feel tired.”
“Is that it?”
Sydney said nothing, and for a while, they stood on their separate balconies and just stared out at the nightscape.
“Winter,” Sydney said after a while, and he turned to look at her. “Do you remember that night, in London, when you couldn’t sleep?”
“You’ll have to be more specific. I remember several sleepless nights.”
She snorted. “The one where you went downstairs and danced in the living room.”
He struggled to remember, and then recalled a night when he’d woken up in the middle of the night and gone downstairs to walk off his insomnia.
“I didn’t know you heard me that night,” he admitted. “I thought you were still asleep.”
She shook her head. “I go, you go. What kind of bodyguard would I be otherwise?”
“Why are you asking about it?”
She hesitated, then looked back at him. “Was that the night when you wrote those song lyrics about me?”
Immediately, he knew what she was talking about. The little leather notebook that always traveled with him had been open on his nightstand that night when he’d returned to his bedroom. And when he’d started writing down lyrics, they had been about Sydney.
The words returned to him, as solidly as if they’d been seared into his mind.
Do you ever feel guilty for everyone’s mistakes?
Ever wish you could take someone else’s place?
Do you ever feel like dying?
Do you ever want to live forever?
And this hurricane goes on and on
Every time I look at you
You are my meditation
Am I ever yours, too?
He cleared his throat, his cheeks reddening at the realization that Sydney had remembered those lyrics.
“It was,” he said slowly. “Why?”
“How did you know that?”
