Page 76 of That Reunited Feeling

The strum of guitars fills the room, the backbeat of the drums, then the magical voice of Dominique Sebastian, the lead singer.

This might be a bluesy rock song, but when Dylan went through a phase of being stressed out after he’d just started school and couldn’t sleep, I switched it up a bit and sang it to him as a lullaby. He loved it, and it exercised my musical muscles. Although, why I’ve bothered trying to keep them toned for all these years, I’ll never know. It’s not like there’ll ever be any call for them to be used.

I close my eyes as I drift back toward the center of the room and join in with the backing harmonies. Although I loved being a lead vocalist when I was a teenager, since then it’s the backing that’s fascinated me more. It can make or break a song. The background vocals are what give the richness, the depth, the nuance.

Like a kid in a fairy tale, I twirl around the room, arms outstretched, letting the music wash over me, immersing myself in Tom’s life that surrounds me. Is this what it would be like to be with him? To live in this fabulous place? To be able to jet off at the drop of a hat to one of our other houses in some other glamorous part of the world? To have a record collection to die for?

As I hit the crescendo of the harmonic final note, I flop onto the sofa, sinking into the huge pile of pillows. This has to be the most glorious place on earth.

The soft opening strains of the next track, a ballad, wrap around me, and I close my eyes to soak it all in.

I come around to the vibration in my back pocket. Where am…oh yeah, Tom’s place. London. On the world’s most comfortable pile of cushions on the world’s most comfortable sofa. I must have nodded off. And now I feel like I’ve just woken from a general anesthetic. Or a night of too many cocktails. Or a lump of concrete to the head. Christ, jet lag is a bitch.

There’s a soft clicking noise in the background. A sound I haven’t heard in forever. The sound of a needle having reached the end of the record and click-crackling in and out of the center.

I pull the phone from my back pocket. Texts from Dylan and Rachel. My finger hovers over Dylan’s name when the time catches my eye.

Two-thirty-four.

Holy fucking shit.

My first of the pre-interview calls was scheduled for two o’clock.

The second for two-thirty.

21

HANNAH

Where the fuck is the home office?

My head is still spinning from getting up too quickly, when I open a door to a bedroom, then a powder room, then—hallelujah!—a room with a desk facing the view over the river.

On the desk, there’s a laptop with a sticky note on it that reads, “For Hannah!”

Shit, I can’t believe I’ve already missed two meetings. This is fucking terrible. I’m never late for anything. Yet here I am screwing this up and letting down Tom, making his company look like a disorganized mess that can’t even get its act together for a bunch of casual chats.

I slam myself down in the black leather chair and open the laptop. There’s another sticky note on the screen, “Password is your boss’s surname!”

With an uppercase D, or lowercase?

The perky person with the exclamation point habit needs to be more specific. I can’t risk getting myself locked out of this thing by trying too many times.

Actually, there are only two alternatives, and I’m sure getting it wrong once won’t lock me out. My brain is spiraling out of control and feels like it’s a thousand miles behind my body somewhere over the mid-Atlantic.

I’ll go with a capital D.

Yes.

I’m in.

I open my company email account and look for the call schedule I emailed myself before we left yesterday.

Thank the Lord I was organized enough to do that.

I copy and paste the email address of the first person into a new message and type the subject, “Technical Difficulties!” Exclamation points seem to be the order of the day.

“Hi, Rhona. Sorry to leave you hanging for so long. We’ve had connectivity issues on our end. Would it be okay if we rescheduled for…”

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