A Different Kind of Forever(70)

“London?” Diane repeated. Michael did not look at her. She turned to Seth. His eyes were large and round, sober now.

Diane reached over and took Michael’s hand, pulling him out of the chair. She led him back to the house and to the end of the terrace, where the sliding doors to his bedroom were open. She pushed him into the room, and carefully shut the doors. She reached and pulled the pale gray drapes closed. His room was very quiet.

She took a deep breath and turned around. He was sitting on the edge of his bed, leaning forward, his head in his hands.

“How long, do you think?” Diane asked softly.

He shrugged. “Prescott is a ball-buster. You know what he’s been like.” He lifted his head and looked at her. “The print that he sent me, the one I’ve been working on for three f*cking weeks, he now says has to be re-cut. Again. That means new music to be written. David left this morning, right after Prescott called, to get everything set up that he’s going to need, lining up musicians, all the shit that I know nothing about. Toronto was going to suck, but at least it was close, at least the same f*cking continent. I could have come down for a night or a day. Not now.” He shook his head. “I hate this. I am going to miss you more than you can imagine.”

Diane was shaking her head. “I can’t believe this, I mean, Marianne and I were just talking about this, how things were going to be so different. Once the girls were back, and school started, it was going to be hard, you know, not being able to see you whenever I wanted. This makes it easier for me, really.” She was watching Michael’s face, seeing his expression soften and change.

“I wasn’t even sure how I was going to tell the girls about us, you know? I’ve been going crazy about this, how I was going to get up to Toronto, the whole thing was going to be such a mess. So I guess this kind of solves everything, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, very quietly. “I guess it does.”

He stood up and reached to hold her, but she stepped back from him. He watched her as she took a deep, ragged breath, dragging her hands through her hair, closing her eyes tightly. He covered his face with his hands, exhaled slowly, and when he pulled them away seconds later, she was calm, her breath slow, hands falling away. When she looked at him, her eyes were shiny with tears.

She did not want him to go. Suddenly faced with the long and dark days and nights that stretched out ahead of her, she wanted to ask him to stay with her. But she knew that this movie was more than just a new and different project for him. This was something that could help define him as a musician, as a composer. This was something that would take him from being a just another guy in a band and put him someplace else, not necessarily better, but someplace different. She knew he wanted it. She knew how badly he wanted more.

“I’m going to miss you, too,” she said simply. “Terribly.” She tried to smile. “Is this where we pledge undying loyalty and devotion?”

His eyes were very big. “Do you think we need to? You know I love you.”

“Yes. “

“Forever, Diane. I will love you forever.”

She looked at him. “Michael, think about what you’re saying. You and I will never grow old together. You know that. There is no forever with us.”

“Of course there is,” he said softly. “We aren’t like everybody else, you and I. You know that. We’ll have a different kind of forever.”

She moved then, and they fell back onto his bed, fierce, hungry, and she was aware of every hard line of muscle, each inch of familiar flesh. She tore at his clothes, her mouth closing on him, her hands stroking, coaxing, bringing him to the edge then pulling back, until he was gasping, breathless, and she straddled him and rode him, her hair falling around his face. His hands were on her breasts, then down around her waist, pulling her, arching deep inside her, and she wanted to brand him somehow, to make sure he would remember this day, above all the other days; because this was the day she did not try to stop him from leaving her. She climaxed, and he came an instant later, and she fell forward, panting, tears coming, and he held her until the sobbing had stopped and she lay quiet and still in his arms.

And then he was gone, and the girls came back, and the rhythm of her life began again, almost, but not quite, as it had been before she had met him.





CHAPTER TEN



EMILY WAS IN her senior year. She had worked during the summer as a waitress and she had saved some money. For her car, she announced. After all, she was getting her license in March, and she didn’t think she’d be happy sharing the Subaru, she wanted to use the money she made for her own car.