Chapter Nineteen
When Russ awoke the next morning, Shelby was lying beside him, her hand on his bare chest, gazing up at him.
“Hey,” she said with a smile, running her fingertips along his collarbone, which sent shivers coursing through him.
“Good morning.” He smiled at her. “How long have you been awake?”
“Not long,” she said. “Last night was amazing, Russ.”
He grinned. “It was.”
After she’d shown up at the bar, he’d taken her to dinner at Le Balzar, where they’d shared a Comté cheese soufflé and a bottle of C?tes du Rh?ne before having beef bourguignon and roasted chicken for dinner.
They’d talked for hours, lingering over coffees and a shared tarte Tatin before finally strolling several blocks back to his place, where they’d talked for an hour more, in between increasingly deep kisses, and, finally, fallen into his bed together.
He’d taken his time with her, gently undressing her and pausing several times along the way to make sure she was all right.
Afterward, she’d fallen asleep in his arms, a smile across her face.
Now he watched her pull on the shirt he’d worn last night, which had been discarded on the floor.
She smiled at him again and then padded into the bathroom, grabbing her purse and her dress and bra along the way.
When she emerged five minutes later, she was dressed and had fixed her mussed hair and applied some lipstick.
But there was something else different about her, too.
“I have to go,” she said, her voice flat.
It was then that he noticed she was clutching her cell phone, her hand so tight around it that her knuckles were white.
“Everything okay?” Maybe something had happened to one of her friends; when she’d called them last night to tell them she wouldn’t be back to the hotel until morning, they had been out at a bar somewhere doing shots with guys they’d just met, and Russ had felt a ripple of concern. “Did your friends get back safely?”
“What?” She looked confused. “Oh, I mean, I don’t know, but probably. I doubt they’re awake yet.”
Russ glanced at the clock. It was only eight in the morning. “Are you sure you have to go so soon?”
She nodded, glancing at her phone again. He tried not to notice how stiff her posture had become and how she was already inching toward the door. Maybe she was worrying that this hadn’t meant anything to him.
He hurried to say, “Shelby, I’d love to take you to dinner again tonight if you’re around.”
Now she looked physically pained. “That’s really sweet. I’ll call you, okay?”
“Yeah, sure.” Russ felt unsettled as she crossed the room and planted a quick kiss on his lips. He wasn’t sure what else to say. “I’ll see you later, then.”
Shelby hesitated a second before smiling at him. “Right. See you later.”
And then she was gone, the door to his apartment clicking closed behind her.
After a moment, he pulled on his jeans and moved to the window.
When she emerged from his building, hurrying away without a glance back, she was already on her phone, listening with a stricken look on her face, and Russ had the terrible, sinking feeling that whatever had happened between them last night was already lost.
After a moment, he turned away, ready to face the day—and his growing certainty that whatever happened with Shelby, he needed to make some changes in his life. It was time to get out of the rut. It was time to sell his share of the bar.
Jackson had been up half the night, his guitar in his hands, a notebook beside him, as he coaxed out melodies that matched the words that were suddenly pouring out of him.
It was like someone had unlocked a vault, and every thought he’d had about love over the past several decades had all come tumbling out at once in a jumble of lyrics.
But none of them were good. At least they weren’t good in the same way that Henry McGee’s lyrics in “City of Light” were, and Jackson should know, considering how many times that song had come out of his mouth.
The notebook he’d filled overnight was, of course, about Julia. It didn’t make sense how much he felt for someone he hardly knew yet, and many of the words he’d written were about that.
How can I feel what I’m feeling so far
When there hasn’t been time to know who you are?
How can I feel what I’m feeling for you?
And is it too much to hope you feel it, too?
Everything he wrote filled him with dread, though. He was writing love songs—dozens of them, if the filled pages were any indication—for a woman who didn’t even know his real name.
In the Hollywood version of this, she’d learn who he really was and they’d have a good laugh about it and live happily ever after.
But he knew that the real-life version was more complicated.
She didn’t seem like a woman who’d be all that impressed by fame.
Her daughter was clearly the center of her life, and who knew if there was room in it for a normal guy like Sam, never mind a one-time rock star like Jackson?
If I told you the truth, would you turn away?
Would you go or would you stay to hear what I might say?
Would you see all the reasons that drove one deception?
Would you listen to me and make an exception?
He sighed and pushed the notebook to the side, his head a jumbled mess of lyrics and lies. He wanted to sing to her. He wanted to explain everything. He wanted to use his words and his music to set everything right.
But the more he wrote, the more tangled it all became for him. Finally, just past nine in the morning, he made a decision. He picked up his phone and dialed a number he’d just added a few days earlier. Henry McGee answered on the third ring.
“It’s Jackson Quick,” he said. “Am I catching you at a bad time, Mr. McGee?”
“Please, it’s Henry.” The songwriter’s warm voice came through the line. “And I have a few minutes. I’m just having coffee with my granddaughter, Melanie, before I go see Celeste.”
“The woman you wrote ‘City of Light’ for.”
“Yes. She hasn’t remembered me yet, but there are glimmers. And where there are glimmers, there is hope.”
His words, delivered so easily, sounded like song lyrics, and Jackson was momentarily filled with even more doubt. If Henry could effortlessly put such delicate thoughts into such beautiful phrasing, what was Jackson even doing? Maybe he should leave the songwriting to the professionals.
“Is there something you need, son?” Henry asked after a moment, and Jackson realized that he’d been so caught up in his own thoughts, he hadn’t said a word.
“Oh, yes, sir,” Jackson said. “I—I’m trying to write a song, and I was wondering whether you might have the time to sit down with me for a few minutes this afternoon.
The thing is, I’m not sure how to make any of it sound the way I want it to, and, well, it’s very important to me to get this right.
” He felt like a fool admitting it, but Henry’s response was warm and immediate.
“A song? Why, that’s wonderful. I always thought you should write your own music. Did your label discourage you from doing so?”
“I can’t blame them. The songs I brought to them at the beginning weren’t very good.”
“But no one can write great songs until they’ve known great love,” Henry said. “That’s what I think, anyhow. Have you known great love, Jackson?”
“Not yet,” Jackson admitted, feeling pathetic.
All these years of living, and it was something he’d never found.
“But there’s a woman here, in Paris, who’s different from anyone I’ve ever met before, and these words are pouring out of me, and I don’t know if they’re any good, or if they’re terrible, or… ” He trailed off, embarrassed.
Henry chuckled, but the sound was warm rather than unkind. “My favorite part of a love story. The beginning.”
“I’m not sure it will turn out to be a love story.”
“Ah, but Jackson, it already is. A love doesn’t have to end in happily ever after in order to change your life forever. But let’s hear what you have, shall we? I could meet with you in a few hours, after I’ve had a chance to visit with Celeste. Would that be all right?”
Jackson thanked him profusely, and after they’d spent a few minutes exchanging details and agreeing to meet at Henry’s granddaughter’s apartment at 1 p.m.—he hung up, put his guitar to the side, and got up to take a quick shower before the car arrived to take him to sound check at the arena.
Henry hung up with the rock star, shaking his head to himself.
Something about Paris brought love to the surface, made people open their hearts in ways they never had before, made lovers out of strangers.
That such a thing was happening for the first time for a musician in his fifties who’d probably had every romantic opportunity in the world? Well, that was no small feat.
“Did you just invite Jackson Quick to my apartment?” Melanie asked as she came back into the kitchen. She had drifted away while he’d chatted on the phone to give him some privacy, but it was clear she’d heard at least part of his conversation.
“I’m sorry, is that not all right?” Henry asked, worried. “I should have asked you first. I can call him back.”
“No,” Melanie said, looking flustered. Some color had risen to her cheeks. “It’s just, well, I’ve never had a rock star in my apartment.”
Henry gave her a look. “He’s just a person, like you and me.”
“Easy for you to say. You didn’t have a crush on him in the nineties.”
Henry laughed. “You never told me that. I would have tried to use my connections to introduce you—though, admittedly, my connections never amounted to much.”
“I would have died of embarrassment, anyhow. In fact, I might just die of embarrassment today to have him here. If I lose the ability to string words together, just cover for me, okay?”
He laughed. “You’re going to be fine. You’re sure it’s all right, though? I could arrange to meet him at a restaurant, if you’d prefer.”