Chapter 39
thirty-nine
Josh
One hour.
That’s all I have left with Kate until we leave this room, she flies home to Nashville, I fly home to L.A., and we’re separated by two thousand and four miles (yes, I looked it up).
I catch a glimpse of her suitcases lined up neatly by the door and my chest tightens, and all I can think is—I don’t want this to end. There’s no way I’m going to be able to watch her get on a plane and leave without losing my goddamn mind.
She’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hair still damp from the shower we took earlier, scrolling through her phone, one leg tucked under her. She looks so calm. Like she’s totally fine. Like she isn’t about to rip my heart out of my chest and take it with her halfway across the country.
“You know, I’m really going to hate not seeing you every day,” I say, running a hand through my hair. She looks up at me, and I wonder if she feels it too. The heaviness. The…wrongness of it all.
“I know,” she says softly. “Me too.” She sets her phone on the bed beside her.
“We’ll see each other though, right?” The way her voice breaks slightly on the last word has me crossing the room to her before I even know I’m doing it.
I kneel in front of her and nod because it’s the only thing I can do without blurting, “Please don’t go” like a damn lunatic.
I can’t ask her to come with me. It’s been six months since we met, four since we slept together, and three since we agreed to something serious in St. Lucia.
I know what happens when you act on feelings and not rational thought and rush into something too quickly, and I will not watch it happen again.
Not with Kate and me. I want this—her—more than I’ve ever wanted anything, and I refuse to screw it up by acting like a stage five clinger.
“Yes,” I say, trying to sound casual. “I’ll come to Nashville. You’ll come to L.A. We’ll make it work.”
She smiles but her eyes line with tears and it guts me. I want to tell her I’ve already imagined waking up next to her in my bed, her toothbrush next to mine in the cup on the sink, her clothes hanging in my closet, and her laugh in my kitchen.
But I don’t. Because I’m a fucking coward.
Instead, I offer her a safer version of my desperation.
“How about,” I say, my voice too steady for how hard my heart is hammering. “We make a plan?” She tilts her head, curious. “We commit to one week every month, and we’ll trade off. I’ll come to you, then you come to me. And FaceTime every night. No excuses.”
She laughs softly, but I see it—the tiny crack in her calm. The flicker of fear that matches my own.
Because this isn’t what either of us wants.
We don’t want to say goodbye. We don’t want one week a month and grainy video calls and nights alone in cities that feel too big without each other in them.
But this is what we have to do.
So, I kiss her forehead and hold her hand and pretend like my chest isn’t splitting in two while we wait for the clock to run out.
The rising sun shifted the sky from black to indigo as we slipped out the back of the hotel and into the waiting car.
Kate might be done hiding, but I’m too desperate to make the most of every second we have left to share this moment with anyone else.
Right now, she’s still here—still mine—and I want this goodbye to belong to just us.
I held her hand the whole way to the car, fingers laced tight for fear that if I stopped touching her for even a second, she’d slip away.
In the car, my hand rested on her thigh and my thumb traced slow, lazy circles over the denim of her jeans. As we walked through the airport and to her terminal, my arm was draped over her shoulders, holding her as close to me as I could.
Too soon, we found ourselves at her gate where we’ve been standing for ten minutes, clinging to each other like maybe, if we just hold each other tight enough, we can stop time. Or reverse it. Or rewrite it so this moment doesn’t have to happen at all.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say into her hair, swallowing the words I’d rather say along with the lump in my throat. She nods once before pulling back and looking up at me with tears streaming down her face.
Fuck.
I cup her face in my hands and wipe the tears away with my thumbs.
“This isn’t goodbye,” I murmur, unsure who I’m trying harder to convince—her or me. I know it’s not goodbye, but it feels an awful lot like it is. Like something is being ripped out of me.
She gives me a weak smile, one that makes my chest cave in a little more. “I know,” she says. “But it doesn’t make it suck any less.”
I let out a short, humorless laugh as she leans her forehead against my shoulder. I wrap my arms around her and close my eyes, trying to memorize this—her scent, the warmth of her skin, the way her fingers are curled into the front of my shirt like letting go might break her.
“I’m going to miss you,” she whispers.
“I already do,” I admit, my voice cracking. The boarding call echoes through the terminal and we both flinch.
She steps back, but it’s reluctant, like every part of her is resisting. I take her hand and press a kiss to her knuckles, to her palm, then to the inside of her wrist. She watches me with an expression that splits me wide open. “I love you, Kate,” I say against her lips before kissing her again.
“I love you,” she says. She presses one last kiss to my lips before pulling herself fully away from me and grabbing her bag off the floor.
“Call me when you land,” I say. She nods, brushing a tear from her cheek and slinging her bag over her shoulder.
I force a smile, pretending we’re just negotiating work schedules and not carving our hearts into bite-sized pieces to leave at opposite ends of the country.
She turns to go, and it takes everything in me not to chase after her.
I want to.
But I don’t.
I stand there and watch the woman I love walk away. And when she disappears down the jetway, I remind myself that this is temporary.
It has to be.
Because I already know there’s no version of my future that doesn’t have her in it.