I’m dreaming.

I have to be dreaming.

There is no way that Charlie Cash is standing on the sidewalk outside the bar that I stopped in at random when the empty feeling started pressing in at work.

I don’t even think about it. I slide off the barstool, completely abandoning the drink I’d ordered—something fittingly called a Hurricane—and going toward the bar entrance. Nobody seems to notice that I’m here, that I’m even moving among them. Who the hell knows? Maybe I did pass out, and this is the fantasy of my fevered passed-out mind.

He looks glorious, out there in the sunshine, but then I register another essential detail—the dark-haired woman standing next to him. Young. Elegant. She looks like she was born in a business suit. My heart sinks. My outfit is a black sheath I bought with the goal of saving enough money for my next month’s rent, and suddenly I feel like I’m wearing a paper sack. What does my hair even look like? Not as perfect as hers, that’s for sure.

When she takes him by the shoulders and turns him to face her, looking right into his eyes, a part of me crumbles into dust.

This is perfect. No, this is actually perfect. He’s moved on, like I knew he would, like he had every right to do, and it’s all playing out right in front of my eyes. I try to breathe a sigh of relief and it comes out as a half-sob, three feet from the entrance. This is good. No more sleepless nights imagining the lines of his face, or how my name sounds in his mouth, or replaying the unselfconscious, satisfied, low sound he makes when he comes. I can put it behind me.

Then the woman jabs her finger in my direction, adjusts her purse, and steps around him. In a few seconds she’s out of sight. He turns to say something to her. This is how I’ll always remember him, I’m sure of it. The light spilling over his cheekbones, his sandy hair lit by the sun, his white dress shirt flawless against his body with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. 

“Charlie?” My own voice seems to come from far off. How am I standing here? Why am I standing here? Even if I pinched my lips shut with my fingers, the words would still spill out. “What are you doing here?”

He can be here if he wants. It’s a stupid question, but there it is.

Charlie turns, facing me head on, and when his blue eyes meet mine it’s all I can do to keep breathing. Did my heart stop? No, there it is, throwing itself with a wild abandon into my ribs. My lips feel like menthol in a cold breeze. I want to touch them, to make sure they’re okay, but in the next moment I’m afraid to move. What if the movement chases him away?

He sticks his hands in his pockets, not breaking my gaze. One heartbeat after the next comes and goes, and the city moves around us, traffic swimming in the street, people chattering in the bar behind me, the sun wheeling through a blue summer sky. Charlie’s lips part and my soul stretches tight like a rubber band. “I’m hoping you’re not a hallucination,” he says finally.

It breaks me out from the spell I’m trapped under and the rest of the world fades away. I leap out of the doorway. I hit the steps so hard that one of my heels threatens to snap, throwing me off balance. 

I collide with Charlie too hard, but his muscled body barely moves under the force of the connection. Then it’s all heat and light, one arm around my waist, one arm stroking my hair back from my face, and his lips covering mine, a kiss so desperate that if he were anyone else I would be embarrassed to be doing this in public. Me. And I’m not usually the type to be embarrassed in public.

I don’t notice the tears leaking out from underneath my eyelids until he pulls back and looks down at me, eyes shining. “You’re crying.” He lifts the pad of his thumb to my face and wipes them away.

“I missed you,” I choke out, tearing my gaze away from him. “It’s fucking stupid, I know—”

His hand is on my chin, lifting my face so that I’m looking back into his eyes again. “I’ve been furious with you. Furious, Josie.”

It breaks my heart all over again. “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

“I’ve been so furious at you, and it’s myself I should have been pissed at.”

I lean back into his arm to test his strength, to feel him holding me up. “You didn’t do anything wrong,” I say, my voice trembling. “I should have told you everything from the moment you took me back to your room. I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted—”

“You wanted to spend as much time as possible feeling good.”

“I got a job!” I blurt it out as if the words can keep him from disappearing back into the city. “I got a job, Charlie, and my own place. I’m not even taking money from my parents anymore. I don’t need—”

His eyes burn into mine. “I don’t give a fuck about money,” he says, his voice low, the intensity sending shivers down my spine. “I need you. I need you, Josie. I’ve been a fucking wreck without you. I swear, I’m going to have a heart attack from the stress of not seeing you every day.”

I tilt my head up toward the sky and let the words sink in. “You have no idea,” I say through a fresh wave of tears, “how much I wanted to follow you off that plane.”

“I wish you had. I wish you’d fought.” Charlie’s face twists into a mask of pain. “I should have been the one fighting.” He shakes his head. “I thought I was protecting myself, staying away from you. But I’ve been killing myself instead.” Then he laughs, and his expression is transformed. “My sister wanted me to come in here and chase after you. She—”

“That was your sister?” I’m flooded with relief. So much relief that I feel like a firework ready to explode in a brilliant display of light.

He arches an eyebrow. “Out here on the sidewalk? Yes. My sister Julia.”

The confirmation is so sweet that I kiss him again.

When we come up for air, Charlie takes me by the hand. “After what I did, I’ll understand if you say no, but…do you want to go somewhere and talk?”

I squeeze his hand. “I thought you’d never ask.”