Side Trip(96)
Dylan turns to Joy. “This feels right.”
“So right.” She rises to her toes and kisses him in complete agreement. For the first time in eight years, everything about her life, especially her future, feels like it’s moving in the right direction. Heading west, toward the sun, the surf, and home.
EPILOGUE
NOW
Dylan
Dylan weaves through the crowd of music lovers at the Boomtown Fair in Winchester, England. They sing along with and dance to the act onstage. The music is loud and the night is cool. The stench of weed permeates the air and beer turns the dirt to mud under his shoes. Temptation flows around him like a mythical creature luring him into a night of lust and a morning of regret.
He walks by a couple of women. They dance arm in arm and invite him into their fold. Their hands suggestively move up his arms, slide down his spine. Their mouths, sexy and full, a siren’s call.
He doesn’t answer.
He regretfully smiles and politely shrugs off their persistent advances. The women are gorgeous, and it feels good to be wanted. In another life, another possible future, he would have let them stroke his ego and other body parts. But neither woman is the one he wants.
He double-checks his phone to confirm where they’re meeting and looks up to find her there.
His Joy.
Sitting on a stool with her back leaning against the bar, her elbows on the bar top, she smiles over at him, alluring, easygoing, and sexy as hell, her foot swinging to the beat of the music. Definitely in her element. He grins back, hyperaware of how his body responds to her. His step becomes lighter, quicker. His heart hammers in his chest, urging him to be near her. He needs to be near her. He keeps his gaze hooked with hers as he makes his way over.
They’d parked her white New Beetle in long-term parking at the airport, and surprisingly made it back to the terminal with time to spare. He was even able to get her on his flight, though some fortunate bastard got his first-class seat. He gave it up so that he could sit in coach beside Joy, who got the last available seat on the plane.
Several days after they’d arrived in London, after they’d somewhat come down from the high of the knowledge that they’re exclusive to each other—because . . . hello! Sex is mind-blowing. But when the woman you’re with isn’t engaged to some other guy, that’s a whole other level of astounding—Joy asked the concierge at their hotel to ship two padded envelopes on her behalf. One contained Joy’s so-wrong-for-her engagement ring and a handwritten letter to Mark. She’d cried while writing the note, but she didn’t regret her decision. Terminating their engagement was the right thing to do.
On one hand, Dylan felt sorry for the guy. Dude got dumped via a phone call. Joy had called Mark before they boarded the plane. But on the other hand, Dylan felt like he was doing him a favor. The guy doesn’t see it yet, and probably won’t for a while, but one day he’ll realize that he and Joy weren’t right for each other. They want different things from life.
Joy sent the second envelope, which had her car keys and the parking lot ticket, to Taryn. At first, Taryn was reluctant to fly to New York and drive the car back to LA. She had a job. She didn’t have enough vacation time built up. But Dylan got on the phone and laid down an offer her BFF would have been insane to refuse. He’d fly her to JFK first-class and put her up in five-star hotels the entire way west. He’d even pay her expenses in entirety. Taryn snapped the expense-free vacation up in a heartbeat. Who knows? She might meet her own singer-songwriter on the way home.
After Taryn, Joy made a long overdue call to her parents. She confessed the secret she’d promised Judy that she’d keep: Joy had been driving. She drove them off the road. She killed her sister, which her parents admitted they’d always suspected. But they didn’t blame Joy, never had. Instead they forgave her, and apologized that they hadn’t expressed their forgiveness when she first needed to hear it from them.
The call lasted several hours. There were tears and laughter, but they agreed to family therapy when Joy returned home.
As for Jack’s will, Dylan finally got hold of Rick. Rick had flown to the Bahamas for a spur-of-the-moment vacation and forgotten to mention it. The dick. But Rick figured Dylan was more than halfway through his road trip and had a good handle on his gigging commitments, along with other things of the female sort. After all, Dylan kept calling from the same number, a number that happened to be registered to a Joy Evers. In the end, all’s good, and Dylan will receive his inheritance. Westfield Records will get its influx of cash.
“Hello, gorgeous,” Dylan says when he reaches Joy. He wraps his arms around her waist, drawing her flush against him, and kisses her.
Her arms twine around his neck and fingers weave into his hair. He feels like he’s wrapped up in heaven.
“How’d it go?” she asks when he breaks the kiss. She hands him the beer she had waiting for him.
“Great.” He takes a deep drink of ale, quenching a throat parched from wheeling and dealing.
“Think Skylar will sign with Westfield?”
“Know so. Chase is on the phone with Legal as we speak. They’re drawing up the offer.”
“That’s fantastic.” She lifts her red Solo Cup to his and Dylan feels himself smiling.
The trip overseas has been advantageous for Westfield Records, more so than he anticipated. It’s also been enlightening. He’s discovered a whole different side to himself, a side he’s more at ease and peace with. He stopped fighting what he thought he didn’t want or couldn’t have.