I pulled my face out of his chest.

“There’s nothing going on between you and Jenna?” I looked up at him raw, vulnerabil-ity on the table bared to him.

“There’s only you baby.” Jack paused and reached down and lifted me up, cradling me into his arms. “I belong to you.”

Chapter 22

Weeks passed and my angst about Jack’s other life and the people he shared it with began to subside. We began to fall back into a routine and we even went out with Jack’s friend Tyler that I met in Hawaii and his new girlfriend a few times. We were beginning to settle in as a couple and, although it scared me, I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

Sunday morning we were reading the paper in bed when my cell phone rang and flashed a picture of Sienna. “Hey.” I didn’t even get to finish the word, Sienna was already talking over me. I had to ask her to slow down just to be able to make out the words that she was saying, her voice was screeching with excitement and she was going a mile a minute. I was only able to make out the last sentence. “The Smiths, Syd, can you believe it!”

I was confused and my conversation had gotten Jack’s attention too. He looked at me silently asking if everything was all right and I shrugged my shoulders in response. “What about the Smiths?” Sienna took a deep breath to calm her on the phone. “They want us to open for them Syd! They want us, me and you, us, to open for them!”

“What, when?” I loved the Smiths.

Years ago, when Sienna and I had a band back in Boston, we had made friends with a lot of other local bands, one of them was the Smiths. We had a mutual respect for each other’s music and we had always joked that some day we would alternate opening for each other’s bands when we went on tour.

Years later, the Smiths made it big and Sienna and I were happy that, if it couldn’t have been us, we were glad it was them. Sienna and I had been to a dozen concerts over the last few years together and I knew they were about to release another album.

“On their tour Syd.” Her voice was elevating back to screaming. “They want us to open for them for their whole tour!”

“I didn’t even know they had a tour set up here anytime soon.”

“They don’t, it’s a European tour Syd. Four months of singing and traveling through Europe with the Smiths! Can. You.

Fucking. Believe it!”

I held the phone away from my ear as she continued to scream. Oh. My. God. It was my dream come true. I had no idea how it happened, but it was every musicians dream. I turned and looked at Jack and suddenly my heart was in my throat. I saw in his face that he overheard the news that Syd had just shared. How could he not have, she was screaming every word.

Sienna blabbered on and on, as I struggled to keep my composure on the phone with her. I felt like I was just punched in the stomach and the wind was knocked out of me. I was thrilled and excited, but scared and sickened at the same time.

“When does it start?” I had to feign excitement, but it broke my heart as Jack rose from the bed and went into the living room.

“A week?” I was exasperated.

“When do they need an answer?”

“An answer?” Sienna laughed. “I already gave them one! Of course we are doing this Syd!”

A few minutes later I was able to get Sienna off the phone and found Jack standing against the window, looking out over the city. I wrapped my arms around his back and hugged him tightly, my front pressed into his back. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes.

“When do you leave?” Jack turned to face me, clasping his arms around my back.

“In a week. It’s a four month European tour.”

I caught Jack’s jaw tense, but he tried to hide it from me. He brushed my hair back from my face. “Congratulations Syd.

It’s your dream come true.” I thought about his words. He was right. It was my dream come true, but why did it feel like my worst nightmare? “Thank you. I think I need some time to process it all.”

***

A few days passed and Jack and I went about our lives as usual. We talked about the tour schedule, the travel plans and the venues we would play, but we steered clear of the thing we both needed to talk about most. Us. What would my leaving do to us? Would we be able to survive as a couple with months of not seeing other?

Would we even try a long distance relationship? I wasn’t sure why we hadn’t talked about it yet, but I was terrified of the answers that needed to be said.

Two days before I was to leave, I woke up to find Jack in his home office working. I couldn’t leave without having the conversation, no matter how much I dreaded having it. I sat on the other side of his desk, something I had never done before. The only place I ever sat in his office was on Jack’s lap. Jack looked up at me and waited for me to speak.

“What’s going to happen to us when I go Jack?” My voice was low.

Jack stopped what he was doing and his hands rubbed his forehead. “What do you want to happen Syd?”

“I don’t want to go Jack. I’m afraid to leave you, I don’t want to lose you.” A tear escaped before I could stop it.

“I don’t want you to go either Syd.

But you have to. When we first met in Hawaii you said yourself that you had forgotten who you were when you were with Michael. You need to do this for you. It’s your dream.” He came around the desk and lifted me, setting me down on top of his lap. “I’ll come to Europe to see you and you can come home when you have a few days between shows.” His face was serious and his tone was unwavering.

I knew he was right, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. I looked into his eyes and saw his sacrifice. “I love you Jack.” I hadn’t planned to say it, the words just came out on their own.

Jack lifted me up and carried me to the bedroom, setting me down on the bed gently. I watched as he unbuckled his pants and took off his boxers, never taking his eyes off of me. He sat me up and pulled the tank top I was wearing over my head. He climbed on top of me and gently kissed my lips. He pulled his head back just enough to look me in the eyes. “I love you too Syd.” Then he made love to me.

***

On the morning of my flight, I was surprised that Jack said he needed to stop at the office. “I just have to pick up something.

We can stop on the way to the airport, it will only take five minutes.” We were both quiet, but it didn’t have anything to do with the unplanned stop at Jack’s office. I wasn’t going to see Jack for three full weeks, until I had a break in my schedule. We planned for him to fly to Rome for four days then. He was going to come for the Rome concert and then we were going to stay three days together, before I had to fly out to Prague for the next show.