Page 17 of From Us, Forever

It was well over an hour before I yawned into my palms and shut my laptop, done with work for the day.

Jay was in deep concentration, perfecting the riff that he had played over a hundred times already but I still wasn’t bored listening to it. I loved gawking at him like a high school girl waiting on her crush whenever he played the guitar.

“New song?” I asked as I curled up beside him, careful not to touch the body of his precious guitar.

“Yeah. I’ve been working on it for a while, but something seems to be missing, and I just can’t get it right,” he muttered.

“Maybe you need a break,” I suggested, my eyes scanning over the notes on his paper. I had no idea how to read music, but all the symbols looked complicated. “Or maybe one of the boys can help.”

“Lan helps me sometimes. Only if he picks up his calls.”

“Do you have any idea what’s wrong with him?”

“No.” He shook his head, sighing as he set his guitar aside. “I have no clue, and Katy won’t say a word. Now that she’s back in LA, I doubt we’ll get any word from them.”

I frowned. “But he’s still a part of the band, right?”

“He always is. Lan likes to get into himself when something bothers him, so we usually give him the space until he comes around.”

“People deal with things differently.”

“Yeah, but it’s frustrating. We only want to help him.”

“Maybe he still needs you guys, just maybe not right now.”

“Probably. What do you want for dinner?” he asked, as he drew me into his arms.

“Hmm, pizza?” I mumbled against his chest.

“Pizza it is, then,” he muttered, pulling away from me. “Let me order it. Same toppings?”

I nodded, missing the heat of his body.

My eyes pinned on the storming rain outside. It was wild and angry but so beautiful. The tiny shimmering lights of the Manhattan skyline felt like distant stars amid the pouring rain. The flash of the lightning and the crackle of the thunder calmed me for some reason.

It took about five minutes before Jay returned, gathering me in his arms once again, and I sighed happily, melting into him.

“I have a present for you,” he whispered in my ear.

The steady beat of my heart was replaced by a fluttering rhythm. “What present?” I eyed the glow in his blues.

He gently retrieved my hand and placed a small, deep-blue rectangular box in my hand. The flutter in my heart only heightened. “What is this?” I mumbled as I opened it, only to see a plain silver key. My finger clamped over the cold metal and raised it. There were no markings on it. It was just a key.

Was it a key to his place?

But didn’t we just have a conversation that he wouldn’t be asking me to move until I was ready?

“A key?”

“Yes, it’s something I’ve been meaning to give you for a long time. More than six years, to be exact.”

My brows furrowed in confusion. “You’ve been meaning to give me a key for six years?”

“Well, it’s not just any key. It’s the key to the house in Bellevue.”

“The house?” My eyes rounded. “You mean the blue-painted house Auntie M and I lived in?”

“Yes, that.” A faint smile tugged his lips. “I promised to buy you that house. And I did with my first paycheck, and I’ve been holding on to it for this long. But now it’s yours.”

---