He stood in the doorway and she stood on the broken concrete outside the room, but her hand was still on his chest. “You forgive me?” There was sweet air in his lungs again.
“I’m considering it.”
“That’s fair. I fucked up mightily.”
“Everything about you is large scale, Jay, and I deserve you.”
He went to ask if that was sarcasm and she shut him up with a gesture. That hand on his chest moving to wave in his face. “I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be loved and have a job I choose, and other things too.”
“Other things?” Hope might slice open his throat.
“Music. I deserve that, but in my own way.”
She deserved more focus, attention and understanding than he’d given her. His Evie was about hide and seek. About kissing in dark corners and making out in public but somewhere they’d never get caught. He’d always known that grand gestures were the opposite of the way to love her. He’d let starlight blind him to the truth.
“I’m sorry, Evie. I made it about me, what I was feeling, what I wanted for you, for us, and that’s fucked up.”
“You’ll have to do better.” She sighed. “I have to forgive you and I’m not happy about it.”
He aimed for light because he could do better and she was still standing there, and any flavor of forgiveness was palatable. “Because you don’t want to be responsible for Mum quitting and my insurance premium skyrocketing?”
She made a scoffing sound. “That’s on you. I never asked you to let everyone else in your life down.”
“I’m hoping I don’t have to let them all down, because I think I just heard you say you had to forgive me.” It was one grade up from considering it. It was one more clean, deep breath.
“I have no choice if I want Layla Flowers to sing my lyrics.”
“What?” He yanked at his hair as if that would help him make sense of what she’d said.
Evie shrugged. “She made me an offer. She gets my words. I get paid and get to keep my privacy and my sanity and my business.”
Layla Flowers was one of those hot indie pop singers. She was good. She’d be better with Evie’s lyrics. “Wait. You have to forgive me because of that.”
“I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t.”
No, no, no, no, no. That wasn’t forgiveness, that was nothing but resentment, compromise, not a valid second chance.
Evie shifted her weight impatiently to one hip. “I have to forgive you because of that and because I know you screwed up. I know you didn’t think it all the way through. Didn’t intend to hurt me. I have to forgive you because you’re the king of rock, because you can’t disappoint your fans, because you’re the only man I want to kiss and wake up beside, because I love you, I need you, you gave me back my music. If you do anything like that again, I will mess you up and my life would suck without you.”
There were a lot of reasons packed into those sentences. It took him a second to sort them. the chorus was a strong refrain. She loved him. She had her music back. They weren’t going to repeat their history. They were going to be okay. It wasn’t very rock and roll to cry but he had to wipe the back of his hand across his face. “Do you want to come in?” He had a lot of making things up to her to do starting now.
“I do and I don’t.”
What kind of a reunion response was that? “This is our room.” He opened his arms. He needed her in them.
Evie’s mouth quirked. “I know.” She touched a finger to the water on his cheek. “And I know what will happen if I come in.”
“A whole lot of lip action.”
She stepped into his arms. “And nakedness.”
Top to toe his body untensed. “And make-up sex.”
“We’re making up,” she said, her head resting on his chest.
“We deserve each other, and we deserve the naked sex part.”
“I want to, but you have a plane to catch.”