That earned a genuine smile from Megan. “They wouldn’t have made it without me.”
“Exactly.”
Just like Dean wouldn’t have made it without her. Without the perfectly timed breakfasts. The ironed shirts. The polite, composed dinner parties where she played hostess with a practiced smile and a glass of white wine she never finished. Without the life she’d shaped around his needs like clay.
Except now? She was done managing.
Let someone else keep the trains running on time.
Leanne was ready to miss a train or two. Maybe hop a different one entirely.
She tucked the shirts under her arm and turned her gaze back tothe stage, where her mother, her wild, impossible, fearless mother, sang her heart out beneath the Woodstock sun.
And for once, Leanne didn’t feel like the grown-up in the room.
She felt like someone just beginning.
She was ready to live.
Chapter Forty-Two
Nora scribbled a few lines across the page of her notebook, her pen moving quickly, words pouring out. Something about a girl with thunder in her veins and a boy who kissed like rock and roll, unpredictable but somehow always right on time.
Mind-blowing. Magical.
The start of something. Or another practice page in what she was starting to think might be a novel.
“Is this seat taken?”
She glanced up, blinking against the sun, to find Joe standing there, notebook under one arm and a vinyl record under the other. His dark curls were still damp from the shower, and he smelled faintly of soap and something woodsy.
Her cheeks flushed, and she shut her notebook with the pen marking her spot.
The thought of him in that shower—with her—sent a ripple down her spine.
“I’ve always got an open seat for you.” Nora patted the seat, aimingfor casual, though her pulse had other plans. Joe settled beside her, and she swore her entire side lit up just from his nearness.
“I picked something up for you yesterday.” He held out the record.
She took it carefully as if it might combust in her hands. A Jimi Hendrix album—The Jimi Hendrix Experience—the iconic bright yellow cover with the band encircled in brilliant colors. But what stopped her was the sharp black marker scrawl across the front.
“‘To Nora,’” she read, stunned. “Jimi signed this?”
Joe shrugged, grinning. “I figured it might be a decent way to remember the summer.”
Her fingers traced the loops of Hendrix’s signature like it might disappear. “This is insane.”
“I know. You’re welcome.”
She stared at him for a beat longer, heart thudding. “Robin Stone has nothing on you.”
Joe raised an eyebrow. “Robin Stone?”
“FromThe Love Machine,” she said, cheeks warming. “He’s supposed to be the ultimate fantasy, right? Powerful, sexy, mysterious…”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Sounds like a real catch.”
“He doesn’t hold a candle,” she said, lifting the record. “This is better than fiction.”
