Page 83 of The Déjà Glitch

As much as she’d wanted to know him in all those days, she hadn’t allowed herself. And she realized, wrapped in his arms now, that she’d fully welcomed him, that it had had everything to do with her and nothing to do with him.

While her mind tumbled down a chute of sweet, recovered memories, she also saw all the times she’d walked away. She saw texts from Patrick saying he was stranded at a new airport and couldn’t make it home, despite her demands. She saw herself turning down the interview at work, not visiting her father. She saw dozens and dozens of different versions of Lila’s birthday party, all of them with her alone and in a foul mood after a bad day. She saw herself stuck in the same day over and over again, refusing to see that much of it was her own doing.

She opened her eyes and saw Jack, face flushed and a shine in his beautiful eyes, and knew that he was the key—her key—to seeing that she needed to change.

Happy tears washed her eyes and made her vision sparkle in the spinning lights. She wiped one away and smiled up at him. “I remember, Jack. I remember everything.”

He jerked in surprise and tightened his grip. “You do?”

She nodded. “I do!”

“Oh, thank god!” He lifted her off the ground to spin in a circle. Her dizziness was not helped at all when he set her down and went back to kissing her.

The song roared on in front of them; the crowd kept cheering. Gemma wondered at how her heart could withstand so much emotion in one day, so many ups and downs, because it currently felt primed to burst.

She pushed back from Jack and smiled at him with a shake of her head. “How did you do this?” She gestured at the band.

His eyes flashed in a signal that it was no small feat, but he smiled like he’d do it again. “I had to think of a way to keep you from walking away. This is the first time you’ve ever gotten passes for this show, and I knew you weren’t going to miss it because of what Nigel means to you. You’ve walked away every other day, no matter what I do, so I figured I should pull out the biggest stop I had. I had nothing left to lose.”

Gemma gazed at him in wonder. “And how did you get in here? I gave your pass to my coworker.”

He shyly smiled and ran a hand through his hair. “Turns out I know some people too. Also, I guess there’s a video of us from outside the museum that went viral? People kept recognizing me from it.” He held out his arms in a shrug like he was confused but would take the easy win.

Gemma rolled her eyes. “Yes, you can thank Lila for that.”

“Thank me for what?” Lila shouted from behind Gemma.

She turned to see her standing there with her phone at the ready. The little camera light was not glowing, but thelook on Lila’s face said that was only because she was waiting for permission to record.

Gemma grinned at her and reached for the phone. She pressed the white button toGo liveand handed the phone back to her. “This,” she said.

She grabbed Jack and kissed him for everyone online to see. The song crescendoed into its ending. The drummer only feet from them thrashed and kicked as Nigel’s vocals rang out the final lyrics. They cut off in unison, and all the lights snapped out with a dramatic beat.

The crowd went wild, Lila kept recording, and Gemma kept kissing Jack.

CHAPTER

15

The air rangwith sounds of the show long after the stage lights had gone out, as if the hills themselves were singing in the dark. Gemma, Jack, and Lila—along with Hugo, Carmen, and her girlfriend, who eventually materialized in the mayhem—ended up backstage with the band. They crammed into a crowded green room hot as an oven and littered with bottles and body odor and wisps of smoke from those going in and outside. It was a grungy rock-’n’-roll mess straight out of a movie, and they were living for it.

Through the clinked glasses, dozens of once-in-a-lifetime photos that Gemma would blow up and hang on her walls, and conversations that made her sure she was dreaming, Jack’s hand remained quietly but firmly in hers. He hadn’t let go of her, and she hadn’t let go of him. The warmth of him beside her and the sight of Lila’s head thrown back in laugh after laugh as she flirted her way through the room filled Gemma with a dizzying sense of happiness so overwhelming, she knew they’d landed on the best iteration ofLila’s birthday party to date. If only Patrick had been there to put all of Gemma’s favorite people in one place.

She hoped he was sound asleep in a New York City hotel, given that it was nearing midnight on the West Coast.

After an hour of noise and booze and bodies pressing up against her, Gemma found herself slowly drifting to the fringe of the party, as she was prone to do. Jack had gone to find her a bottle of water. When he returned with it, he slipped the cool, damp tube into her hand and leaned close to say something over the blaring music.

“Not really your scene?” His lips brushed her ear and sent a tingle to her fingertips.

She smiled, knowing that he’d said the same thing to her the night before at Lila’s party. He knew she was not a fan of small, loud places full of strangers getting drunk, and she knew that he wasn’t either, yet there they were again.

“No, not at all,” she said, turning to him and reciting the same thing she’d said in the bar.

He held her gaze with a satisfied comfort, like the game they were playing was a physical and precious thing between them. “Mine either.”

Instead of asking him what he was doing there like she had the previous night, she took a swig of her water, the smooth nothingness like a balm on her throat after shouting all evening, and grinned at him. “Do you want to get out of here, then?”

Jack’s eyes flashed at the reroute in conversation. The corners of his mouth lifted, and he nodded. The sight sent Gemma’s heart tumbling. They’d never made it so far together, and what came next was entirely up to them.

---