Page 20 of The Second Chance Year

Jacob gazes at the singer. “Are you asking if I could get onstage, play the piano, and sing a Tom Petty song?” He nods. “Yes.” Then, after a pause, “Are you asking if it’s ever going to happen?” He looks down at his hands and shakes his head. “Not a chance.”

And suddenly, it hits me. Jacob isshy. He’s not uptight and judgmental like I’ve been assuming about him in my head for so long. He’s just… painfully shy. Something about that realization has my heart doing all kinds of little flips in my chest.

“Jacob Gray,” I tease. “Are you telling me that after all these years of playing music, you have stage fright?”

Two pink spots appear on his cheeks. “Let’s just say I’m more of a composer than a performer.”

I tend to be a talker, and it’s in my nature to start firing questions at him. But something tells me that with Jacob, you’ve got to keep quiet and let him take his time if you want to get to the real heart of things. Silence stretches across the table while he traces the wood grain with a finger. Finally, he looks up at me. “Even though I know thousands of people watch the films or play video games with my music in it, at that point it’sjust a piece of someone else’s project. But when I’m composing and playing it, it’smine, it’s personal. I can’t imagine getting up there with just an instrument, and being that…”

“Vulnerable?”

He looks up, right into my eyes. “Yeah. I guess… vulnerable.”

“So, you never play for anyone? Ever?” I have a huskiness in my voice that wasn’t there before.

“Well, my family. And obviously Owen, but he’s basically family.”

I don’t know what I’m asking, exactly. Am I waiting to hear that I’m the only woman who’s ever heard him play a sad, melancholy song on the piano? It’s completely irrational that I’d want that. But the more I spend time talking with Jacob like this, the more bizarre it becomes that we’ve had such an intimate moment, and he’s completely unaware. I know the weight of his body, the sound of that little satisfied growl in the back of his throat, the taste of his mouth pressed against mine. But none of it happened in his world. For twenty-something years, we were just acquaintances who never had much to say to each other. All of that changed for me, but in his mind, that’s all we are.

The last chord of the pink-haired girl’s song reverberates across the stage and out into the audience. When she puts down her guitar for a break, I push my chair back. “Well, I should go.”

Jacob channels Mr. Darcy and politely stands up when I do. “Thanks for hanging out.” He does that awkward shuffle again, a movement sort of like when you’re about to hug someone before they leave. Without thinking, I reach out myarm to wrap it around his neck. His eyes go wide, and his back stiffens. Oh God, this is so awkward. He didn’t mean to end this conversation in a hug, did he?

But then his hand slides around me, settling on the small of my back, and the other arm pulls me even closer. I feel his razor stubble scrape my cheek and hear his sharp intake of breath as he presses me against the hard muscles of his chest. I stay like that for a beat, and then one more, and he doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to let me go, either.

Finally, we both pull away, and I peek up at him. His cheeks are flushed and eyes bright behind his glasses.

“It was nice to see you, Jacob.” I can hear my voice shake at the end.

“You, too, Sadie.” He gives me a crooked smile and looks away.

“Well, I should go.” I repeat, slowly taking another step back. As I turn and head back across the café toward the door, I can still smell his cinnamony Jacob-scent, so familiar to me now. And just like that piano song he played on New Year’s Eve, it lingers around me long after I’ve left.

Chapter 11

What do you think—Thai or Indian?” Alex slides open a kitchen drawer and grabs a stack of take-out menus. With just the slightest push of his hand, the drawer slides back silently on its track, catching at the end so it doesn’t slam into the frame like the ones in my apartment do. He holds out the crumpled, oil-stained papers, and I’m surprised he allowed them into this pristine space.

Unlike my place with its mismatched furniture, cluttered array of abandoned earrings and Post-it note grocery lists on the coffee table, and shoes spilling from the closet, Alex’s brand-new downtown apartment is sleek and minimalist. Until last summer, he lived in student housing at Columbia with two other guys from his program, so this place is quite an upgrade, one he could afford thanks to his investment banker salary. It’s a couple of blocks away from his Wall Street office building and around the corner from the high-end bars where they all like to hang out after work.

Alex hired his boss’s decorator to furnish the place in dark leather, chrome, and mahogany, and when I brought in a bright orange throw pillow to add a pop of color to the couch,it mysteriously disappeared a couple of weeks later. Alex never seemed like the kind of guy to hang a blank canvas smeared with gray paint on his wall, let alone to call it art. But now that I’ve been to Zach’s place for that New Year’s party, it all makes a little more sense. If you switched around the floor plan and exchanged the dark gray canvas for a light gray one, this apartment could belong to any number of Alex’s investment banker friends. They even share the same cleaning woman who makes the rounds once a week to keep their apartments looking as austere as the MoMA.

I choose Thai food, and Alex places our order, then hands me a glass of my favorite sauvignon blanc. He always keeps a couple of bottles in the wine fridge for me, even though he doesn’t drink it, and he bought a set of stemless glasses when he noticed I prefer them. Aside from the orange pillow incident, Alex has always gone out of his way to make sure I’m comfortable here. I was charmed the first time I found my favorite shampoo and body wash in his shower, and he keeps the pantry stocked with flour and icing sugar even though it drives him crazy to watch me sprinkle it across his dark marble countertops like a snowstorm blowing across Mount Everest.

To be honest, I’m probably the reason he hired the cleaning woman.

Alex neatly stacks the menus back in the drawer and we settle on the couch with our drinks.

“Bake anything good this week?” Alex asks, taking a sip of the whiskey in his glass.

I tell him about my newest creation: mini saffron Bundt cakes covered in a rich chocolate coconut ganache anddecorated with candied grapefruit peel. “I may just have one in my bag for you,” I say. “For after dinner, of course.”

Alex grins and runs his palm up my thigh. “I was thinking of a different kind of dessert.”

I lean over to give him a quick kiss, but before he can tug me closer, I slip off the couch and grab my bag from the chair across the room. “I’ll put this on the counter for you.” I hold up the cake box.

His brow furrows, and I know he’s probably wondering what’s going on with me. Before my Very Bad Year ruined everything, our sex life was pretty great. In his version of reality, nothing should have changed. But ever since I woke up to find myself in this wild time loop, I’ve been hesitant when it comes to intimacy, and I can’t quite explain why.

Maybe it’s because I’m still getting used to having him around after all those months apart. Or maybe it’s because I remember how much it hurt when he walked away.

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