Page 47 of Exiled

The show is... unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. Bursting with energy, music that soars and sweeps and hints at the Middle Eastern origins of the story. The dancing! Thesinging! It’s all too much, and I want to sing and dance with them. The Genie, especially, is a delight, such wild, joyous, frenetic energy, presence that dominates the stage, the whole theater.

I am raving as we leave the theater, chattering more than I think I have since I woke up from the coma. Logan is listening, attentive, but seems content to let me talk, to merely enjoy this admittedly rare bout of effusiveness from me.

It is past ten o’clock now, but the city is still manic, bustling. Lights flash and blink, voices rise in a pleasing din. A policeman on a huge black horse trots past, watchful, alert. The crowd of people leaving the theaters takes over the streets, so the cars trying to ply their way from one avenue to another must inch slowly between the gaggles of theatergoers. I chatter about my favorite songs, about the Genie, about how fun the show was, how Logan has to take me to see as many shows as he can spare the time for.

All the while, Logan has my hand and is taking us somewhere specific.

To a place in the heart of the theater district called Junior’s. It is crammed with people, every table occupied, and the hostesses are telling people it’s a twenty- to thirty-minute wait minimum. Logan puts his name in and then finds me a seat, stands in front of me. I’ve run out of words by this time, though, and now we’re quiet.

But I like this, too, that we can sit together in silence, content to merelybe.

It seems Junior’s is famous for its cheesecake, and Logan doesn’t have to ask me twice to convince me to order a piece of chocolate cheesecake. Which, when it arrives with Logan’s coffee and my tea, is mammoth. More cheesecake than I think any one person should be able to eat all at once; that is my thought whenit arrives, at least. But yet by the time I’ve set down my fork, I’ve eaten very nearly the whole thing.

Cheesecake eaten, Logan pays the bill and yet again leaves a fabulously generous tip, and then leads me back to Times Square, which at night is a simple magical place. The lights, the way the TVs shine and flicker and shift, the advertisements for all the shows, the contagious air of vivacity that infuses the crowd... it is truly magical. We sit on the steps and watch people, and I take the time to process everything I’ve experienced today. The ferry, the memories I regained, the key necklace, which is now nestled between my breasts, exactly the way Mama wore hers.

I am sitting a step below Logan, between his knees. I lift up, twist, and kiss him until someone hoots at us, and someone else tells us to get a room. I smooth my palm over the stubble on his cheek. “Logan, I know I already said this, but thank you so much for today. It was... I think this was the best day of my life.”

Logan’s eyes go down to my cleavage, but the speculative gleam in his eyes tells me he’s looking more at the key, and I wonder what he’s thinking.

Marriage?

I’m having a baby, possibly his.

And possibly . . . not his.

So what do I want?

To belong to Logan forever, of course. To be utterly, irrevocably his. To know that no matter what else life throws at us, we will belong together, side by side, hand in hand, lives tangled and braided and inextricably woven together.

Yes, I want to marry Logan.

And I cannot wait to discover how he will ask me. Because he will.

I know he will.

It’s just a matter of when, and how.

I am not impatient, I realize. He will ask me in his way, in his time. And it will not disappoint, because Logan is incapable of disappointing me.

Love is patient, I remembering reading somewhere.

Chapter

Eight

Less than forty-eight hours later, early in the morning. Four thirteena.m., so says the digital clock on Logan’s bedside table. There’s a pounding on the door. A fist, hammering wildly. Cocoa goes nuts in her room, clawing at the door, barking like a demon. Snarling. Logan is out of bed, tugging on jeans, jogging to the door.

“Shit,” I hear him mutter under his breath.

I’m in one of his button-downs, the hem coming to midthigh. Behind him, peering past him, as if I could see through the door. But the sinking lead ball in my stomach tells me who’s on the other side.

Logan’s curse tells me.

He jerks open the door, puts his body into the crack. “The fuck you want, Caleb?”

“What ismine.” Your voice is mad, animal snarl.

“Dude. We’ve been over this. You let her go, remember? She’s withmenow. It’s what she wants. Just... let her go. Please. For her.”