Side Trip by Kerry Lonsdale
Without music, life would be a mistake.
—Friedrich Nietzsche
CHAPTER 1
AFTER
Joy
Joy shouldn’t have agreed to Dylan’s deal. She should have let him say goodbye, because goodbye would have been much easier than the crushing despair she feels right now. She wouldn’t be left wondering what might happen between them, or what could happen down the road. What didn’t happen today. Things she shouldn’t be wondering about.
But that doesn’t stop her from looking toward the sliding glass doors to the British Airways check-in counter at JFK, the terminal Dylan just walked into. She presses a hand to the center of her chest and breathes through the gaping hole his departure has left. She aches.
Songwriter, music producer, and record label executive Dylan Westfield is a brilliant musician, and one of the most talented singers she’s had the privilege to hear. A temporary friend she met ten days ago. She’ll never again hear his voice, or touch his face, or see the smile that could melt hearts. This can’t be how it ends. What if she goes in after him? What if she tells him how she feels? What if—
A shrill whistle blows behind her. Numbly, Joy turns her head to the sound. A stout, red-faced airport security officer stands by her brand-new 2010 Volkswagen New Beetle. Both the passenger-and driver-side doors are open. They’d been so caught up in each other and their last moment together that neither had bothered to close their door.
“This your car, lady?” the officer demands.
Joy nods.
“You need to move it. Come on, get a move on.”
Move on.
Dylan’s moving on. She agreed to do the same.
Together their chemistry had been off the charts, something undefinable and more than anything she’s known before. But she can’t delude herself that anything good can come of starting something with a man she met only ten days previous. Dylan is set on living his best life. With plenty to look forward to, she’s determined to do the same. A new home, new city, new job as an entry-level cosmetic lab tech at Vintage Chic. She should be excited about working in a lab on their lipstick line, mixing oils and colorants. It’s an incredible opportunity. Her sister, Judy, would have been ecstatic to work there.
Joy swipes the moisture from under her eyes, and her engagement ring catches the waning New York sunlight. The ring Mark had placed on her finger just two short months ago, the day after she graduated from UCLA. The man faithfully waiting for her at his apartment in Manhattan.
Guilt takes a roll downhill in her stomach.
Joy closes the passenger door and walks around to the driver’s side. She sinks into the seat Dylan recently vacated and shuts the door. She takes a deep breath, and a wave of longing washes over her. Her car smells like him. It feels so empty without him.
She feels empty.
She plucks a soiled tissue from the cup holder and dabs her eyes, willing the tears to dry up. She needs to stop crying and she needs to put him out of her mind.
Leaning across the seat, she grabs her purse from the passenger-side footwell and roots through the bag. Her hand deliberately dives past Judy’s Route 66 Bucket List, the list Joy failed to complete.
That hadn’t been part of the plan, and she feels like she let Judy down. Her sister would have completed the list no matter what. She was efficient like that, with laser-sharp focus. It was one of the many traits Joy had admired in her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
She takes a deep, pained breath and grabs her phone. Two texts had arrived during the time Dylan parked her car curbside and left: one from Taryn, the other from Mark.
She reads Taryn’s text first and feels a hint of relief and a smidge less lonely. They’ve been inseparable since the day Taryn toddled three doors down wearing nothing but a saggy potty-training diaper and the sticky, Kermit-green stain of Popsicle drippings on her bare chest. Her BFF texted that she’s in line for a promotion at the social media agency where she works in LA. With luck, she’ll be able to transfer to New York within a few months.
Mark’s text is more sobering. He’s waiting for her. He can’t wait to see her. He can’t wait to make love with her.
Joy swallows her guilt and brings up Mark’s address. She launches the directions to his place—their place—and buckles her seat belt, giving the belt two sharp tugs to ensure it’s latched. She shifts the car into gear the same moment the officer loudly raps his knuckles on her window.
“Move on, lady!”
Joy does, merging into the airport traffic, resisting the urge to look back. Because what she might want, or who, doesn’t matter. It hasn’t mattered for years.
CHAPTER 2
BEFORE
Joy
Ludlow, California
A tall drink of water.
Joy never contemplated the meaning behind that idiom. She never considered using it to describe a guy. The expression was archaic. Something her grandmother would have said. Or Judy, given that it was dated slang and her older sister had loved everything retro, specifically anything circa 1950s. But then Joy saw him. Now she couldn’t think of a better way to describe the man she’d been watching through the window.
She felt parched, her mouth dry. It could very well be from ogling the gorgeous guy with the heather-gray, sweat-drenched T-shirt and stonewashed jeans that fit him way too well as he bent over the engine of his beat-up Pontiac Bonneville rather than the triple-digit dry heat baking the asphalt and everything alive outside Rob’s Diner, where Joy had stopped for a cheeseburger and fries. Food Judy would have ordered if she’d had the chance to take this trip.