Page 105 of Rockstar Baby

I couldn’t figure out how to end it. The last few lines had me stymied. Wondering why she’d called me and not having the stones to return her call didn’t help.

Carrying you in my pocket

When I’m so far away

Your scent in my mind, flavor on my tongue

Let’s live while we’re still young

Knowing it might end

Has to end

Won’t make me not stay

But I hadn’t stayed. I hadn’t gone back when every part of me felt called to her. It had to be the timeline. It had been more than a month.

And her voice was on my phone right now. All I had to do was press play.

I just couldn’t do it.

Not yet.

I got out of the shower and toweled down with one hand while I checked the rest of my voicemails. Work, work, and more work. I had a call from someone in Dublin, oddly enough, and I’d been wanting to get home to see my folks. If I could make the two coincide—

Or I could just hop on a fucking plane and make it happen. I didn’t have to make it a write-off worthy expense. Family was more important than profits and losses.

Running from Ivy, are you? Now even the opposite coast isn’t far enough away?

I wasn’t running from. I was running to.

Sure you are, buddy.

After I got some goddamn sleep.

Blearily, I rubbed my eyes and put in a quick call to my travel agent. I’d let her handle it. I needed ten hours down.

“When do you want to go?” my travel agent asked.

“What’s today?”

“Thursday, Rory.” She was used to me.

“Friday night.” It would require some shuffling—all right, a lot of it—but all of a sudden, I was certain I needed to be home.

Even if I’d never been certain of that before in my life.

“Can you make that happen?” I asked into the silence.

“Give me a couple hours. No guarantees on what class.”

“I don’t care. I’ll take coach if need be.”

Good thing I’d been so open-minded, because that was exactly what I got.

Once I finally arrived in Dublin what felt like a century later, I also took the most rubbish rental vehicle I’d ever encountered.

But less than seventy-two hours later, I was standing on the moss-covered stoop of the cottage where I’d grown up, drawing in great breaths of sea-tinged air. The scents of nature surrounded me. Flowers I’d been given names for since I was a child and had never bothered to commit to memory. And behind me, children shouted and laughed as they wheeled up the uneven street.