CHAPTER ONE

~Jake~

I never saw it coming, but I really should have. You don’t love someone so much for so long without knowing that you’re headed for the edge of a cliff and the brakes haven’t been working right lately. I hear the ultimatum in Erika’s words and I wrack my brain for an appropriate response. She’s not giving me time, though. She slides her hands into my unbuttoned shirt and rubs my back, pulling me toward her as she does. Only moments ago, happily ever after took a big hit from my girlfriend of forever. She just turned my world upside down and now she’s shaking it up and mixing it with seduction. This is not a good place for me to be.

“Shit,” I sigh under my breath, closing my eyes to intensify the feeling of her touch on my skin, sending me back to denial. My eyes roll back behind my lids as Erika gently prods me toward the point of no return. Her warm hands soothe and heighten my senses. I want to forget for just a while longer. I want to go back in time—only a few minutes—to when I was nineteen, hopelessly in love, and foolishly believing in till death do us part.

Erika continues her magic, but I’m distracted now. I’ve been shaken, and stirred, and I find it quite distressing. I open my eyes and reality does its job; I back away from her.

“What?” she asks.

“Tell me,” I look straight into her eyes. “Tell me I didn’t hear you right.”

Demurely she looks down between our feet and then raises her eyes to my chest as she reaches out and runs her hands up my abs to my shoulders. A diversionary tactic for sure. I gently take her wrists and remove her hands from my body.

“Don’t,” I say. “This is too important.”

“I love you, Jake.”

“Then none of this makes sense.”

“I thought you’d be happy for me.”

“How can you know me your whole life and still think that? Maybe if you would’ve talked to me about it before you just went ahead and planned the rest of your life—our lives.”

“Why can’t I live my dream and love you, too? You know how much my music means to me.”

“I just never thought . . .”

“. . . I was that talented?”

“. . . you’d ever leave me behind.”

She backs up and sits on my bed. This was supposed to be a romantic interlude, a stolen afternoon while my grandparents are away at work, but it’s turning into a train wreck right before our eyes.

“I’m not leaving you behind. I want you to come with me.”

Ah, now she’s cut into the heart of happily-ever-after. I rub my hand along the faint stubble on my chin, taking time to think before I say the wrong thing.

“What about my dreams? I’m just supposed to walk out after a year of college and move to Chicago with you?”

“There are colleges in Chicago, Jake.”

“And there are orchestras around here. You don’t have to drive nearly three hours to live your dream.”

Her jaw is set and she fixes her eyes on the ceiling of my bedroom as if she’ll find some answer there. She’s wasting her time; I’ve been doing that unsuccessfully for years.

“You just don’t understand.” Her voice is even, frustrated.

But I do. I do understand. I guess that’s the problem. Denial time again. I don’t want to admit what a gifted violinist she is and that she should be in Chicago studying music and that this is the opportunity of a lifetime. I want it to be about my love of the simple life. Marrying Erika, having kids, and living happily ever after in rural America. That’s what we always talked about when we were kids. Our life was all set before she started all this craziness last year when we graduated from high school.

Since then she’s been going for interviews and auditions. She said she was just curious how far she could get. It was a challenge, just for the fun of it. I’m not sure when it ceased being fun for her and became an obsession instead, but I’ve felt something unsettling whispering in my ear for a while now. I kept tuning my head, refusing to give it authority until just now when she told me she’s moving to Chicago to pursue this amazing opportunity.

Erika gets up and steps closer to me again. She pushes my shirt off my shoulders and kisses my chest and my neck and on up until she finds my lips. “Let’s don’t waste our time fighting,” she whispers hotly on my mouth.

I tangle my fingers in her silky dark hair and kiss her in a way to drive all the demons from our love and make us remember a simpler time. It takes only seconds for the effect to take hold in both of us. The phone’s ringing somewhere in the real world a million miles away, but we’ve crossed over and there’s no way I can answer it. No matter—I’m not usually home this time of day anyway.

We lose ourselves in each other and the love we share. We’re good at that. She makes me feel as if I can fly, as if I am flying. My body is so alive and the mid March afternoon sunshine bursts around us and lights up the room, showering sparks of excitement and warmth all over us. God, how I wish this was all there is to life. This moment. This amazing feeling.

After the euphoria ramps up to a fever pitch and then settles softly around us like a blanket enfolding us in our secret world, I let my body relax and settle contentedly on the bed. Erika dances her fingers across my back.

“That was nice,” she sighs. She makes nice sound like chocolate ice cream.