“I think I’d need to talk to Astrid about that first,” I tell her.
Stevie plants a hand on my shoulder and leans close. “She’d say yes if you asked her. I know she would.”
I laugh. “Let’s take this one step at a time.”
“Call her.”
I look to where my phone is sitting on the table. “Now?”
She nods. “Now, Dad. Do it now.”
Chapter Fifty-Five
Astrid
I look out into the crowd of unfamiliar faces as I sing and strum my guitar strings.
Eloise isn’t sitting at the bar urging me on with applause.
Berk isn’t standing to the side, waiting until I sing my last note before he appears.
I’m alone as I pour my heart out in a song I wrote a week ago.
Tears fall as I croon about the man who owns my heart. I cry through the last chorus, not caring if the crowd can hear the words or not.
It’s the first time I’ve performed since Berk broke up with me.
I wouldn’t be on this stage if I hadn’t committed to show up. I did that a few days ago during a moment when I thought that I was ready to move forward with my life.
I was wrong.
I finish the last lyrics of my newest song through a sorrowful wail. “My heart will be his forevermore.”
The crowd erupts as I drop my gaze to the floor of the stage.
Someone chants my name while another person calls out, “Forevermore will be a huge hit!”
Forevermore.
I’ll love Berk Morgan forever and always.
I’ll never get over him.
As the applause drones on, I glance up at the audience.
Everyone is on their feet. Some people still have their phones perched in the air recording the moments after the debut of my newest song.
Knowing that it will only cause me more pain, I glance around the room, searching for the face I’ve longed to see for the past twelve days.
I’ve looked over my shoulder for him hundreds of times. I’ve done more double takes than I can count when a dark-haired man in a suit has passed me on the sidewalk.
I’ve always come up empty, but…
My heart lurches inside my chest, and I let out an audible sob when I look to the left and see him.
Berk is standing in the same spot he was the last time I performed here.
Our eyes lock, and without a word, he rushes toward me. He jumps on the stage and takes me in his arms.
“I love you, Astrid.” He sobs into my neck. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I say as tears of joy trail over my cheeks. “I really love you.”
We step out of the bar into the warm evening air of Manhattan.
Berk is holding tightly to my hand. He hasn’t let me go since he told me he loved me.
I glance at my guitar case in his other hand. “How did you know where to find me, Berk?”
He looks at me as people shuffle by us, searching for a taxi. “My cousin told me.”
I laugh. “Your cousin?”
Smiling broadly, he nods. “Gaines. He stopped by here earlier and saw your name on the talent list for tonight, so he walked over to my place to see if I wanted to grab a beer with him while you performed.”
“Your cousin knew about me?”
“He was here the last time I was,” he admits. “He told me tonight that he could tell I’d fallen for you.”
I smile.
“When he got to my house tonight, he caught Stevie and me in the middle of packing.” He sighs. “The plan was to grab a flight to Los Angeles tomorrow. I tried calling you earlier. When you didn’t answer, I assumed you were busy getting ready for the big announcement on Monday morning. I wanted to be there with Stevie.”
I move to face him directly. “You were going to L.A. for me?”
His hand tugs on mine. “We were going to surprise you. We want to go on tour with you, Astrid if you’ll have us. Stevie can do her schoolwork remotely, and if I have a phone and a computer, I can work from anywhere. I’ll need to come back to New York a few times a month to handle in person stuff, but I don’t want to be away from you. Stevie doesn’t either.”
I reach up to grab the lapels of his suit jacket. “You were going to do all of that for me? Give up your lives here for me?”
“You are the most important person in our lives,” he stresses. “I fucked up when I broke up with you. Something from my past came back to the surface, and I panicked. I should have explained all of that to you.”
“Explained what?”
He inches us closer to the building, so we’re out of the way of all of the foot traffic. “It’s complicated.”
I don’t want to push the discussion aside until another time.