She supposed it didn’t matter. She and Tommie would be long gone before anything like that happened.
But she was running out of time. Tommie would be home soon, and she needed to get this done. She hurried back toward the house, only to freeze mid-stride. For a long moment, she couldn’t even breathe.
The pickup truck from the day before was in her driveway again.
That night I didn’t fall asleep for hours. I told myself that I couldn’t have fallen in love, that real love required time and a multitude of shared experiences. Yet my feelings for Morgan grew stronger by the minute, even as I struggled to understand how something like that could even be possible.
Paige, I thought, could probably help me make sense of it. Even though it was late, I called her cellphone, but again there was no answer. I suspected she would tell me that I was suffering from a wild infatuation, not love. Maybe there was some truth in that, but when I thought about my previous relationship with Michelle, I realized that I’d never experienced the overwhelming emotions I’d felt with Morgan, even at the beginning of our relationship. With Michelle, there’d never been a time when I felt the need to make sense of what was happening between us. Nor had the world ever faded away when we’d kissed.
Assuming what I was feeling was real, I also wondered where our relationship might lead and whether anything would come of it. My logical side reminded me that we’d be going our separate ways in just a few days, and what was going to happen after that? I didn’t know; all I knew for sure was that I wanted more than anything to spend as much time with her as possible.
After finally drifting off in the early hours of the morning, I slept in for the first time since I’d arrived in Florida, waking to a morning sky that seemed almost ominous. Already, the heat and humidity were oppressive—the kind that promised thunderstorms later—and sure enough, a check of the weather on my phone confirmed it, right when I was supposed to be performing. A quick text exchange with Ray let me know that I should plan to come in anyway. They’d be monitoring the weather, he assured me, and would call the show when they needed to.
I went through my normal morning routine, even though nothing else was normal at all. My thoughts were dominated by Morgan; when I ran past the Don, I couldn’t help but look for her; when I stopped to do pull-ups on some scaffolding near the beach, I conjured the smoothness of her skin. After my shower, I swung by the grocery store and pictured Morgan rehearsing in the conference room or screaming with delight as she rode the roller coasters at Busch Gardens. Putting some chicken breasts in my shopping basket, I wondered what she had told her friends about the day we’d spent together, or if she’d said anything about it at all. Mainly, though, I tried to figure out whether she felt the same about me as I did about her.
That’s the part I couldn’t work out. I knew there was mutual attraction, but did her feelings for me run as deep as mine for her? Or was I simply a way to pass the time, a fling to add spice to her vacation before her real life began? Morgan was, in many ways, still a mystery to me, and the more I tried to figure her out, the more elusive understanding seemed. Uncertain what the evening would bring, I bought two candles, matches, a bottle of wine, and chocolate-covered strawberries, even though I knew she might want to go out instead.
Back at the condo, I put everything away and took a few minutes to straighten up the rooms. With nothing left to do and Morgan on my mind, I reached for my guitar.
I plucked out the melody of the song that I’d played for Morgan on the beach the other night, still nagged by the knowledge that it wasn’t quite right. The lyrics needed more dimension, a specificity that I hadn’t quite nailed.
Crossing out bits and pieces of what I’d already written, I thought about the way Morgan made me feel—not only the emotions she inspired but also how differently I saw myself through her eyes. There had only been a handful of times in the past when a song almost seemed to write itself, but that’s what I started to experience. New lyrics felt effortlessly resonant, anchored now with details plucked from our day together. Meanwhile, I ramped up the driving energy of the chorus, already envisioning a multilayered recording that would give it the sound of a gospel choir.
A glance at the clock warned me that I was almost running late. I didn’t have time to scribble the new lyrics into my notebook, but I already knew it wasn’t necessary. I tossed on a clean T-shirt, hurriedly collected what I needed for Bobby T’s, and scrambled down the steps. Overhead, clouds were rolling and twisting as though gathering energy before exploding. I made it with only five minutes to spare, noting that the crowd was less than half the size of my previous show, though every seat was still taken. I didn’t expect to see Morgan in the crowd but nonetheless felt a jolt of disappointment at her absence.