It was just words, but it felt like when you made pinkie promises as a kid and meant them so deeply, they carried all the weight of something bound by law.
Jake laughed lightly before gesturing between us and around at the café. “Us being here. Me flying out. You about to ace something else. I’m getting déjà vu. I feel like I should be quizzing you on how to spell SAT words.”
“I can still spellincandescent,” I bragged jokingly.
“You still look incandescent, Luciana,” Jake repeated, just as seriously as he had back then.
A peal of laughter left my lips as I threw my head back. “I still maintain that the card didnotsay that.”
“AndIstill say you wouldn’t know that unless you cheated by peeking at it,” he countered.
It’d be sunset in a bit, and the last hour of daylight was sending out warm beams of light around us. Jake was taking me in with that look in his eyes again, the one that made it seem like I’d stolen all of his focus and was holding it in the palm of my hand.
And I knew. Iknew. Amber was wrong, I didn’t have everything I wanted—not yet.
I wanted to make Jake and me work.
I wanted Jake to listen to how my first days being away at college went. I wanted to encourage him to follow his heartdespite all the noise, and to pursue writing new songs I knew would make the world sing along. I wanted us to still be there for each other, even when we were miles apart.
We could do it. This time, I couldn’t let him walk out without having the courage to say something.
In a rush, before I lost my nerve, I blurted out, “Jake, there’s something I want to tell you.”
Except, at the exact same time, he said, “I need to say something before I go.”
We accidentally spoke over each other, our sentences crisscrossing like a harmony. At the sound of it, we fell silent, staring at each other.
I searched Jake’s eyes, sure this was the daydream I’d locked away in the back of my mind for years, thinking it would never happen.
“What were you going to say?” I asked softly, daring him to say it all out loud and finally make it real.
“Lucy, these past few days with you gave me something back that I’d been missing,” he began, andoh, he must really have been nervous and trying hard to get his words right, because his accent slipped out again, all musical and strong.
“Me too,” I assured him.
“So I wanted to say...” He faltered, and I wondered why, before I realized a familiar song had begun playing over the speakers. “That—”
Slow grin, quick wit.Sharp and silver tongued...
I suppressed a sigh. Of course it was “Lovely, Aren’t Ya.” It was always “Lovely, Aren’t Ya.”
Why did the radio have to play that song right now?
An odd look passed over Jake’s face, making his dark lashes flutter. He shook out his shoulder awkwardly, as if to shake off the interruption.
“That,” he repeated himself, unable to get any more words out, as he looked over at the café speakers, a peculiar expression on his face.
I couldn’t imagine how strange it would be to get interrupted by the recorded version ofyourself. Singing about yourex.
I could build a home in your heartbeat,the chorus lilted menacingly.
“Hold on,” I said, as Jake still stood there silently, looking thrown. “Let me just turn this off.”
Knew it from the moment you—
I reached over the counter and shut off the speaker, flooding the café with peace.
“There,” I said in satisfaction. “That’s better.”
