“I won’t, Blue. Not when it comes to Lyric.”

“Then three months it is. That gives me time to try to figure out how to be the cool dad.”

“You already are the cool dad. She’s going to be fascinated with your long hair, your tattoos, all your jewelry. She’s very artistic like you.”

“She sounds awesome,” he says. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

He genuinely sounds excited and sincere. I’m hoping all the crap from his past stays in the past and doesn’t creep back up to ruin this for him or for her.

A faint, wandering melody fills the silence for a few minutes. I close my eyes and get lost in it, just like I used to. I’m taken back to the park, to his sexy smile, to falling in love with him. I wish we could go back to that time.

“Do I have to wait three months for you, too?” he asks.

“Oh, Blue,” I say with a small amount of exasperation. “What am I going to do with you?”

“What do you want to do with me?”

Where to start? So many things...

“That’s a hard question to answer. I’ve tried to spend the last three years detoxing myself from you. Just like you said you went through withdrawal and felt sick and depressed? That’s how it felt for me, too, trying to get you out of my head, not letting myself call you like a psycho or email you or sit and cry over you.”

“Babe... I had no idea you were going through that. You’ve never told me you felt like that.”

“I did. And it wasn’t the first damn time, either. I’ve let myself get in that place over you a lot and it makes me feel like a fool. My friends and my family think I’m a dumbass, a doormat, for allowing you to come back into my life after you disappeared the first time. And then you hurt me again.”

“You’re not a doormat, Piper. I’ve never thought of you that way and I never wanted to hurt you. I was just fucked up.”

“That’s really not a good excuse.”

“I know, but it’s all I got. I don’t know how to make you understand that I don’t know why I constantly fuck things up.”

I want to pull my hair out in frustration. “How am I supposed to trust you then? If you don’t even know what the heck goes on in your own head? How am I supposed to trust you with our little girl?”

“Because I’m trying. And I’m not letting drugs and alcohol stir up the mess in my head. I feel good, Piper. Better than I have in a long time. I’m writing new songs again, we have a tour scheduled, the band is getting along great. Things are all falling into place.”

“That’s all great, and I’m proud of you. I just don’t want to get hurt again. I’m petrified of it.”

“I know you are, and I don’t fucking blame you. I just... I can’t let you go. We belong together.”

I wonder if because we both feel that way that means it’s right? Is there some cosmic rule that if two people feel they’re meant to be together, then they should be together no matter what? Or sometimes do we have to walk away from the person we believe we’re meant to be with? And if we do... does that feeling that we’re missing our true other half ever go away?

I wish there was a way to get these answers.

“My aunt used to say something to me when I was younger,” he says softly. “She used to say, don’t listen to the voices in your head, listen to the voice in your heart, and you’ll always be okay. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

The voice in my heart has always spoken Blue’s name. Always.

I finger the beaded bracelet on my wrist, just inches away from my ladybug tattoo, and one of my favorite memories plays out in my mind:

“There’s a myth that if a man and a woman see a ladybug at the same time, they’ll fall in love.”

“No… I didn’t know that.”

“We just looked at yours at the same time.”

“That doesn’t count. It’s a tattoo. It’s not a real ladybug.”

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Did that playful conversation seal our fate? Do we ever really know when it happens? That moment where we know, that this person, is our person?

“Can we take it slow?” I ask. “And see how things go?”

“We can try, Ladybug. But I think you know there’s no such thing as slow with us.”

That might be true, but I’m going to do whatever I can to keep everything at a snail’s pace with him.

Chapter Thirty-Five

“Ooh, we’re going over there,” Ditra says as we walk from our favorite small Italian restaurant to my car.

“Where?” I follow her tipsy gaze. She had a few too many glasses of wine over dinner and I really want to get her home. Her attention is fixated on a run-down Victorian house with a big yellow neon blinking PSYCHIC sign in the window.

I grab her arm and try to pull her toward the car. “Are you crazy?” I laugh. “We’re not going in there. It’s late.”

She tugs me back. “Come on, it’ll be fun! I’ve always wanted to go, just to see what they say. The open sign is lit on the door.”

“She’s going to say ‘ooh I see a man and lots of wine and naps in your future,’ then charge you fifty bucks.”

“So what? It’ll be fun. I’ll pay for both of us.” Hooking my arm in hers, she leads me to the edge of the road and we wait for an opening in the traffic, then skip across the street.

“This place is scary,” I say, peering up at the peeling paint of the house and the crooked green shutters. “They could be running a sex trafficking ring in there and the psychic sign is just a lure.”

“I doubt it. I have a gun in my purse, if anything shifty happens, I’ll pull it out, and you run for help.”

“Great plan. I feel safer already.”

We climb the worn stone stairs, press the glowing amber doorbell, and wait. A few seconds later, an older woman with huge gold hoop earrings, an entire palette of eye shadow, and about ten gold necklaces draped around her neck answers.

“You ladies must be here for a reading,” she says.

I lean closer to Ditra and whisper in her ear. “Wow, she’s got the gift! She knows why we’re here!”

She elbows me in the gut and answers the woman. “Yes, we’d love to have a reading.”

“Come on in.” The woman swings the door open and we enter a dim parlor room. Pictures of tigers line the walls in mismatched frames. They’re all crooked and I want to straighten them all right now. We follow her through a beaded curtain into an adjacent room.

“Please have a seat,” she gestures to two old cloth chairs facing a wooden desk covered in candles, statues, tarot cards, and crystals. Cones of incense are burning on a bookshelf in the corner. Ditra and I sit while the woman lights a bundle of sage before settling into the ripped chair behind the desk. The room smells distinctly like the sweet scent that clings to almost every object in Headlines, one of my favorite local stores to buy silver jewelry and the faerie figurines that Lyric collects.

“My name is Loretta. Would you both like a reading tonight?”

“Yes,” we respond at the same time, but inside I’m wondering, shouldn’t she know the answer to that already?

“Would you like the readings in private, or together?”

Ditra and I glance at each other and then answer in unison. “Together.”

“Very good. My fee is fifty dollars per reading.”

Fifty dollars!

“Do you take credit cards?” Ditra asks, pulling out her wallet.

“I do.”

Ditra hands her a credit card. “I’m going to pay for both of us.”

“Thank you,” I whisper as Loretta runs the card. The mix of burning incense and sage is filling the room with smoke that tickles my nose, putting me in that awkward I-think-I-have-to-sneeze-but-I’m-not-sure mode.

The psychic hands the card back and eyes me as Dee signs her name on the receipt. I’m sure I’m still making a strange sneeze face.

“You’re interested, yet skeptical,” Loretta says.

I nod. “Yes.” Her comment doesn’t mean she’s reading my mind. I’m sure everyone who walks in here is interested and skeptical. Her talents still remain to be proven.

“Let’s see if we can change that,” she says. “Who wants to go first?”

“Me!” Ditra pipes up.

“Give me your hands, love.” Loretta reaches across her cluttered desk to grasp Dee’s hands in hers.

“Do you need my name and birthdate?” Ditra asks.

Loretta smiles. “No, that’s not necessary for a reading.”

We both watch quietly as Loretta rubs her thumbs against Ditra’s palms. The psychic closes her eyes, exposing bright blue and purple-covered eyelids.

“You work with your hands,” Loretta says.

Don’t we all, really? We can’t do much of anything without using our hands.

“I do,” Dee confirms.

“You’ve recently settled down. I see love for the first time.”

“True.”

“I see many changes coming for you. A wedding.”

“Mine?” Ditra practically yells.