Page 62 of P.S. I Miss You

“I have a job in New York,” she says. “Just a contractual, thirty-day thing.”

“You didn’t tell me this.” I swipe my hand at her. “Sit down. Talk to me. Do you have time?”

Aerin checks her Apple Watch and bites her lip. She’s always been the type who needs to be the first passenger to arrive at the gate. She likes to get the best seat—preferably by a charger so she can work on her laptop while she waits for the boarding call—and she likes to have a seat closest to where the line begins, so she doesn’t get stuck at the back of the crowd.

“I have a couple of minutes.” She takes the chair across from me, lowering herself into the seat and crossing her legs. “So what’s new? I haven’t talked to you since Tuesday night at The Bungalow.”

I reach for my coffee, smiling and rolling my eyes but in the most content of ways.

Where do I begin?

“Oh. I heard Nick was back in town,” Aerin adds. “Have you seen him?”

“Yeah, actually,” I say. “He, um … did this whole thing Thursday where he basically said he’s loved me our whole lives.”

“What? No way. What did you say? You’ve always kind of had a thing for him, too, right?”

I only met Aerin a few years ago, and while she’s quickly become one of my closest friends, I’ve always tended to underplay my childhood crush on Nick. Maritza is the only one who ever knew because she was always more of a sister than a cousin to me growing up. Plus she was there from the beginning too. She understood.

“It’s the strangest thing …” I hold my coffee between both palms, staring down at the brown table top. “I thought Nick was what I wanted …”

Pulling in a deep breath, my eyes lift to hers.

“ … and then I met Sutter,” I say.

Aerin rests her chin on the top of her hands, listening but not gasping or giving me a wide-eyed look of any kind.

“You’re acting like you’re not surprised.” I chuckle.

“Because I’m not.” She sits up straight. “I could tell there was something going on between you two at the bar the other night. The way you looked at each other. The way you were so casual together, like you were comfortable. And he never took his eyes off you once, Mel. Not in a creepy way or anything, but he was always making sure you were safe. That no one was bothering you. That you made it home safe. Those kinds of things.”

“Really?” This is news to me.

“There aren’t a lot of guys like that. Not anymore. And definitely not in L.A.,” she says. “Hang onto that one. Hang on tight and never let him go.”

“That’s the plan.” A slow smile paints my mouth and I can only envision the dreamy, far-off look in my eyes.

Aerin stands, checking her watch again. “I should get to my gate.”

“Yeah, they’re probably going to be boarding in a couple of hours …”

“Hush.” She fights a smirk.

I rise, giving her another hug. “Have fun in New York.”

“Have fun shooting. Can’t wait to hear all about it.”

Aerin wheels her bag away, heels clicking on the tile floor as she disappears into a crowd of travelers, and I return to my script.

I miss him already.

WHEN DID SHE HAVE time to do this?

I yank a yellow Post-It off a small MP3 player resting on the shelf next to the bathroom sink when I return from dropping her off at LAX.

PRESS PLAY WHENEVER YOU MISS ME.

Missing her now more than ever and fully consumed with curiosity, I push the little triangle button. A second later, a recording begins to play.

It’s Melrose.

Singing.

No.

Belting at the top of her lungs like a Broadway legend.

“ … and all that jazz …”

That woman …

I let the song finish because hearing her voice puts a stupid, dopey smile on my face and makes me forget about life for a while.

Hell, I might even play this stupid thing when I’m in the shower, though I won’t tell her that. Not yet. She has me, but I don’t want to let her know quite to which extent because then she’ll start gloating and it’ll be this whole thing and I’ll have to punish that smart little mouth of hers the way I did this morning after we squeezed into the shower together for an encore presentation of that glorious 6 AM wakeup call surprise she pulled on me.

I slide the MP3 player into a drawer where it’ll be safer from the humidity and rogue bathroom sink splashes, and then I head downstairs to check on Tuck.

He starts at his new school on Monday, so I want to do something special this weekend, something to keep his mind off the impending change. God knows we could both use the distraction.

---