Page 25 of You Rock My World
I still come back for night three. But when Billie Rae makes an impromptu appearance on stage and they sing one of their love songs together, something inside me shatters. I leave the venue, tears streaming down my face, vowing to let his voice fade from my heart, to let it become an echo I won’t chase anymore.
As I step out into the night outside the stadium, I inhale the fresh air and tilt my head to the stars. They seem to wink at me, as if to say,It’s fine, you’ll be fine.And maybe they know that letting go is the only way to move forward, to find the love and happiness I deserve somewhere else. In a place where Dorian can’t come.
Sometimes, the greatest love stories are the ones that remain unfinished…
16
DORIAN
September—Present Time
I’m in the home office, sitting at the large meeting table with my team. Sunlight pours in from the French doors, pooling on the polished white surface. Everyone’s here except Josie. Her unoccupied chair across from me a gaping hole.
Victor, my ever-impatient agent, leans forward, glancing at his watch. “Should we start without PR and catch her up later?”
I check the time on my phone. “Let’s give it a few more minutes.”
I drum my fingers on the table, wondering why she’s late. Josie doesn’t strike me as someone who’d be tardy without a reason. Did something happen to her? Was she in an accident?
Just as my mind conjures increasingly absurd possibilities, Tessa’s phone buzzes. She glances at the screen, then at me. “The gate guard just pinged me. Josie has arrived.”
Relief sweeps over me in an oddly physical way, like stepping into the shade after hours under an unforgiving sun. But it’s joined by an aching anticipation that presses against my ribs.
Footsteps in the hallway make my pulse trip, and when the door finally opens, gravity forgets its hold on me for a beat, everything inside me suspended and weightless.
Josie rushes in. She tugs at the strap of her bag, wrestling it over her head in a flurry of movement.
She’s wearing one of her floral milkmaid dresses, flowy, kind of old-school but in a trendy way, with a blue floral pattern over an off-white soft fabric. The sleeves are puffed up, and the neckline dips enough to be interesting without trying too hard, with these little strings tied in a bow in the middle that are as innocent as they’re maddening.
Her hair is half-up, half-down, same as the night we met. But unlike that night, when her skin was a constellation of freckles and flawless perfection, she has a black curly mustache drawn on her upper lip.
My own lips twitch as I trace the lines of the doodle with my gaze, both smooth except for the right curl that’s smudged at the end. At once, I’m intensely curious about the story behind the mustache.
Has she taken up morning theater lessons? Maybe it’s a new viral trend I’m not cool enough to know about. Whatever the reason, I’ll never guess because it’s Josie—delightfully chaotic, a riddle wrapped in humor and heart, impossible to pin down yet always what I need.
“Morning,” Josie says, out of breath. Her cheeks are flushed, and a few stray wisps of hair cling to her temples. “Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?”
Tessa shakes her head. “We were about to start.”
Josie nods, acting as if everything is perfectly normal with her circus-chic look. She slides into her chair, setting her bag on the floor. “Great. Go ahead, then.”
Glances dart around the table, a silent game of chicken to see who will address the elephant—or rather, the mustache—in the room.
Victor, predictably, caves first. He gestures vaguely toward his upper lip, his voice hesitant as he brings it up. “Are you aware that you have?—”
Josie doesn’t let him finish. “A curly mustache drawn on my face, yes, I’m aware.” She doesn’t offer any explanation.
Tessa clears her throat, clearly hoping to steer the meeting back on track, but it’s a futile attempt; all eyes remain fixed on Josie’s mustache. I lean back in my chair, fighting not to grin.
I follow the outline of that imperfect curl again before speaking. “What Victor meant is that we’re all going to have a hard time focusing on anything else unless you could maybe share why the mustache?”
Josie closes her eyes, taking a deep inhale in a sort of “finding my inner peace” way. When she reopens them, she takes her notepad and pencil out of her bag and, without looking at anyone in particular, tells the group, “I had to take my niece to school this morning and learned last minute it was Bring Your Dad to School Day. Since Penny doesn’t have her dad, she asked me to go.”
Josie doesn’t specify whatdoesn’t have her dadmeans, but that moment in the elevator when she broke down slams into me with vivid clarity. Josie must mean that Penny’s father is dead. Was he Josie’s brother? Her brother-in-law? From what I remember of her saying how she didn’t have the right to break down because technically, whatever caused her pain hadn’t happened to her, I guess brother-in-law.
I will her to meet my gaze, but she doesn’t. She studiously keeps her head down as she fights a slight tremor in her voice. “Of course, I agreed to go. But Penny decided I looked too pretty to play the part of a dad.”
I silently agree. Josie is too pretty for everything. Too pretty to make sense of, too pretty to keep my sanity as she sits across from me, impossibly beautiful even with a silly doodle on her face, too pretty and so fantastically unaware of it.
