Page 56 of Ghost Note

“That oomph?” I arched a brow.

Danny rolled his head my way. “That spark. You need that spark to get anywhere in life. You need to be able to push against the pull and to not be afraid of failing. She didn’t have that… not until Jules came along.”

“The lady with the baby,” I said, not wanting to inform him of my chat with her in my shop.

“Yeah.” His smile erupted. “She definitely has that spark.”

A weird knot of jealousy tugged at my stomach. “What makes her so special?”

“Everything. She lives honestly. She’s not afraid to do what needs to be done. When Jules came along, she got rid of the crap we didn’t need, and in two years, she’s turned us from an okay band into the next Youth Gone Wild. Even with a name like Front Row Frogs.” He smirked. “The problem with that though is that we’ve been busier: producing more music, more time in the studio. More time on the road. More buses and blacked-out windows, private jets. More events. More fans. More noise.” He squinted in thought. “So much fucking noise, Daisy,” he whispered. “I can’t remember the last time I bathed in silence.”

“It’s peaceful here.”

“Yeah, and I want to bottle this feeling up. I want to carry it around with me and inject it into my veins when things out there get too… too…”

“Hectic?”

He nodded, his eyes finding mine again. “There’s only one thing that could make this more perfect than it already is.”

“What’s that?”

“If you’d come and lay down beside me.”

I hitched in a breath, my first thought being to run and tell him that there was no chance of that happening, only to be followed by a longing that made my heart thump and my chest burn.

A few awkward seconds passed by. Danny never took his eyes from me.

“Okay,” I whispered, pushing my bag out from underneath me and sliding it next to his head. Using it as a pillow, I laid down beside him.

“You can come closer than that if you want.”

“I’m good here,” I said, too afraid to get closer than I already was. There were two feet between us, yet I lay there, rigid, with my arms down by my sides and the clear night sky above.

“You’re lucky, Daisy, you know that?” I rolled my head on the bag to look at him. My handsome Danny, vulnerable and open. Honest and true. “I wish Hope Cove had been enough for me. I wish I didn’t need to do everything, see everything, and be everything. I wish I could sit still long enough to be happy with peace, always.”

“Why?”

“Because then I’d be able to be up here every night, doing this… maybe with you, instead of everything always being so loud. So fast-paced. So…”

“You’re slap bang in the middle of the life you wanted for yourself, Danny. You can’t have peace and chaos living side by side. They don’t co-exist.”

“I’ve always known that.” He swallowed, his jaw tightening. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish they could.”

“You can’t have it all,” I said softly—because he couldn’t. None of us could. We had to be happy with the gifts we were given and stop wishing for more. When the lamp can only be rubbed three times, we have to make the most of those choices we’re about to make.

“If you could have it all, what would that consist of for you?” he asked, staring up at the sky.

You, and everything we had before you threw it all away.“I don’t know,” I lied, because lying was easier on my heart than the truth at that moment, and I was in survival mode, doing what I needed to do to make it from one hour to the next.

“I think you do,” he whispered. “I think we both do.”

“Some things are better left unsaid.”

“I don’t believe that.”

I didn’t think I did, either, but I was fresh out of answers for both him and myself.

Sliding my hand across the roof, I let it rest closer to his—an offering of peace in the middle of a war of emotions. “You want my advice? Enjoy what you have while you can, instead of always thinking about what’s to come and what won’t be there.”

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