Page 113 of Ghost Note

“Where to?”

“Every-fucking-where.”

I blinked, feeling my skin prickle with both dread and excitement. “What about all the things you just said? The need to set me free. The need for me to discover myself. The whole reason for us parting in the first place.”

His smile rose. “Have you any idea how different you are now? You’re wildfire wrapped up like a delicate daisy. You take no shit, not even from me, and you’ve grown so damn much. You have your own business. You have your own life. Maybe you’d have had that all along, no matter if I’d stuck around or not, but that’s not the point. You have itnow,and I’ve got to be honest, it’s really fucking beautiful to see.”

“You can’t just want me now you think I’m fixed.”

“I never stopped wanting you. Not even for a day.”

“This is a lot to process.”

“I know.” He nodded, leaning closer. “I know, wildfire.”

I couldn’t help the grin that broke free. “Wildfire, huh?”

“Ragingallthe time,” he teased.

I rolled my eyes playfully. “I’ve not been angry for a few days now. I’m not as strong as you’re making out.”

“I’m going to tell you something that someone I respect told me not so long ago: giving in to what you truly want requires more strength than you realise. It’s easy to stay weak and keep everyone else happy—to worry about what every fucker out there will say—but following this…” he raised his hand to lay it on my heart, “takes a whole truckload of courage.”

I stared into green eyes I never wanted to look away from.

“So, come with me, Zee, and let’s make a life together.”

God, I wanted to. The thought of being by his side for the rest of our days filled me with so much warmth and hope, I probably could have floated through the air from it. Imagining us together, travelling the world, and me watching him play that guitar a thousand times or more made my skin prickle.

But life didn’t work that way, and I wasn’t about to regress and become the very thing he said he didn’t want me to be: a woman who rolls over at her love’s every command, following him blindly, and putting her own dreams aside.

“How is that even possible? I can’t just come with you. Not after a few days. I can’t pack up my life here and drift on down the road because you think the timing is right now, or because you think I’ve passed some test you set that I never even knew I had to take.”

“It wasn’t a test…”

“Yeah, it was, Danny,” I said quietly. “I don’t have to like it to respect it, and I do respect it. If you’d have told me that’s what you were doing, you’re right, I would have argued for you to stay. I’d have said the right thing to make you happy with no regard for myself, but it was still wrong of you to go and let me believe you didn’t care anymore.”

His hand slipped, landing on the brick ledge with a thud. “I’ve known that since the day I left you, I promise.”

“We both made sacrifices, and from those, we both built two separate lives apart from each other.”

“We could bring them together. Make it work somehow.”

“How?”

“I don’t know, but we could try.”

“And what happens if I try? What happens if I throw everything I’ve built up away because you swept me off my feet for a few days, and then I get out there in the big bad world with you, and I hate it?”

“I don’t—”

“I can’t come with you, Danny,” I said, cutting him off before he made my mind cloudy again. “I’m not Saff.”

“I don’t want you to be her. I want you to be you, however I can have you.”

“I’d be in the way, stumbling around you and the band, not knowing where I fit in or what my purpose was other than to be your girl.”

“You’ll always be my girl.”

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