Jack leaned up and firmly gripped my ribcage. “There will be no other men seeing you naked.”

I leaned in and bit his ear gently before I whispered, “Because I belong to you.”

***

The following Monday was Jack’s birthday and I wanted to surprise him, but what do you get a man with unlimited re-sources and a personal shopper with exquis-ite taste? I struggled for almost a week and decided on a gift with meaning instead of something from a store that I couldn’t really afford and he didn’t really want. I was sure it was a great idea, until I was on my way to his office to surprise him with it, then I thought it was a stupid gift and I would embarrass myself.

The guard greeted me at the door and recognized me from my earlier visit with Jack. I told him I wanted to surprise Jack for his birthday. He was hesitant to let me in, but did it anyway when I reassured him that it was okay. I passed a few people on the way to Jack’s office door, all of them said hello and seemed to remember me.

I was feeling confident until I stood in front his closed office door. I suddenly felt like an in-truder and wasn’t sure if I should knock or walk in. I decided to knock.

Jack yelled to come in and I opened the door. He was leaning against the front of his desk with his arms folded and Jenna sat in front of him, too close for my liking. His face showed surprise at my visit, but he made no attempt to hide anything he was doing. Jenna turned and saw me, giving me a cunning smile. “Syd, is everything okay?”

I took a few steps inside, suddenly feeling sick to my stomach. “I….I….I just wanted to surprise you with a birthday present. But I see that you’re busy, I’m sorry I interrupted.” I put the wrapped package down on the couch in his office and turned for the door, desperately needing to get out of there. It was suddenly as if all the air in the building had been sucked out and I needed to make it outside for my next breath.

Jack caught me at the end of the hall, grabbing onto my arm. “Syd, what’s going on? Where are you going?” I couldn’t turn to look at him for fear I would lose it. All of the memories came flashing back from the day that I walked into Michael’s office and found him leaning against his desk, his secretary on her knees, her head bobbing as she took him in.

I struggled to free myself from Jack’s grip and ran as fast as I could to my car.

***

Jack stopped calling after the first day. I don’t know why I wouldn’t return his calls. I knew I was acting childish, but I wasn’t ready to speak to him. I couldn’t even bring myself to listen to his voicemails.

Three days later, I was still dragging myself around feeling sick and sorry for myself. I had dark circles under my eyes and my face was swollen from crying. My hair was matted from the tossing and turning the night before and I didn’t have the desire to brush it. I forced myself to undress and turned on the hot water to steam up my tiny bathroom.

The knock at the front door startled me, as I was about to step into the shower.

I threw on my robe and went to the door to find Jack on the other side.

“What do you want?” My voice was low and lackluster.

Jack stepped inside, closing the door behind him. “I don’t know what the f**k I did, but I’m going crazy Syd.” I looked up at him, seeing him for the first time in three days. He looked like I felt. The impeccably groomed man with the pale sparkling eyes was a disheveled mess. He had three days of scrub and his skin was sallow and eyes dim.

“I can’t do this Jack.” My voice was a whisper and the words began to break as I spoke. Jack took a step toward me and I put my hand up, keeping him at distance.

“What can’t you do Syd?” His tone was angry and he took another step closer.

I took another step back and spoke to his chest. “I can’t close my eyes and not see what is going on around me just because it makes life easier for me.” Jack took another step closer and lifted my chin, forcing me to look at him.

“Look at me. What do you think is going on?”

I looked away and didn’t respond.

I was fighting the tears back with all my might and I couldn’t look into his eyes.

He let go of my face and raked both his hands through his hair in frustration.

Then he took a deep breath and grabbed my face with both hands, bringing himself down to my eye level. I had nowhere to look but into his eyes. “Nothing is going on and you know it. You’re scared. And so the f**k am I.” He paused and searched my eyes. “Baby, I’m not him. I’m not the ass**le that made you afraid of giving yourself to me, but I wish like hell I could take away what he did to you. Because I’m in. I’m all in baby. I’m not perfect and I don’t know what the f**k I did to deserve someone as good as you, but you have me and I’m not settling for just a part of you. I want you. I want all of you baby.” The tears flooded my eyes and poured down my face. Jack pulled me close to him and held me until there were no more tears left.

I pulled my face out of his chest.

“There’s nothing going on between you and Jenna?” I looked up at him raw, vulnerabil-ity on the table bared to him.

“There’s only you baby.” Jack paused and reached down and lifted me up, cradling me into his arms. “I belong to you.”

Chapter 22

Weeks passed and my angst about Jack’s other life and the people he shared it with began to subside. We began to fall back into a routine and we even went out with Jack’s friend Tyler that I met in Hawaii and his new girlfriend a few times. We were beginning to settle in as a couple and, although it scared me, I was happier than I had ever been in my life.

Sunday morning we were reading the paper in bed when my cell phone rang and flashed a picture of Sienna. “Hey.” I didn’t even get to finish the word, Sienna was already talking over me. I had to ask her to slow down just to be able to make out the words that she was saying, her voice was screeching with excitement and she was going a mile a minute. I was only able to make out the last sentence. “The Smiths, Syd, can you believe it!”

I was confused and my conversation had gotten Jack’s attention too. He looked at me silently asking if everything was all right and I shrugged my shoulders in response. “What about the Smiths?” Sienna took a deep breath to calm her on the phone. “They want us to open for them Syd! They want us, me and you, us, to open for them!”

“What, when?” I loved the Smiths.

Years ago, when Sienna and I had a band back in Boston, we had made friends with a lot of other local bands, one of them was the Smiths. We had a mutual respect for each other’s music and we had always joked that some day we would alternate opening for each other’s bands when we went on tour.

Years later, the Smiths made it big and Sienna and I were happy that, if it couldn’t have been us, we were glad it was them. Sienna and I had been to a dozen concerts over the last few years together and I knew they were about to release another album.

“On their tour Syd.” Her voice was elevating back to screaming. “They want us to open for them for their whole tour!”

“I didn’t even know they had a tour set up here anytime soon.”

“They don’t, it’s a European tour Syd. Four months of singing and traveling through Europe with the Smiths! Can. You.

Fucking. Believe it!”

I held the phone away from my ear as she continued to scream. Oh. My. God. It was my dream come true. I had no idea how it happened, but it was every musicians dream. I turned and looked at Jack and suddenly my heart was in my throat. I saw in his face that he overheard the news that Syd had just shared. How could he not have, she was screaming every word.

Sienna blabbered on and on, as I struggled to keep my composure on the phone with her. I felt like I was just punched in the stomach and the wind was knocked out of me. I was thrilled and excited, but scared and sickened at the same time.

“When does it start?” I had to feign excitement, but it broke my heart as Jack rose from the bed and went into the living room.

“A week?” I was exasperated.

“When do they need an answer?”

“An answer?” Sienna laughed. “I already gave them one! Of course we are doing this Syd!”

A few minutes later I was able to get Sienna off the phone and found Jack standing against the window, looking out over the city. I wrapped my arms around his back and hugged him tightly, my front pressed into his back. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes.

“When do you leave?” Jack turned to face me, clasping his arms around my back.

“In a week. It’s a four month European tour.”

I caught Jack’s jaw tense, but he tried to hide it from me. He brushed my hair back from my face. “Congratulations Syd.

It’s your dream come true.” I thought about his words. He was right. It was my dream come true, but why did it feel like my worst nightmare? “Thank you. I think I need some time to process it all.”

***

A few days passed and Jack and I went about our lives as usual. We talked about the tour schedule, the travel plans and the venues we would play, but we steered clear of the thing we both needed to talk about most. Us. What would my leaving do to us? Would we be able to survive as a couple with months of not seeing other?

Would we even try a long distance relationship? I wasn’t sure why we hadn’t talked about it yet, but I was terrified of the answers that needed to be said.

Two days before I was to leave, I woke up to find Jack in his home office working. I couldn’t leave without having the conversation, no matter how much I dreaded having it. I sat on the other side of his desk, something I had never done before. The only place I ever sat in his office was on Jack’s lap. Jack looked up at me and waited for me to speak.

“What’s going to happen to us when I go Jack?” My voice was low.

Jack stopped what he was doing and his hands rubbed his forehead. “What do you want to happen Syd?”

“I don’t want to go Jack. I’m afraid to leave you, I don’t want to lose you.” A tear escaped before I could stop it.

“I don’t want you to go either Syd.

But you have to. When we first met in Hawaii you said yourself that you had forgotten who you were when you were with Michael. You need to do this for you. It’s your dream.” He came around the desk and lifted me, setting me down on top of his lap. “I’ll come to Europe to see you and you can come home when you have a few days between shows.” His face was serious and his tone was unwavering.

I knew he was right, but it didn’t make it hurt any less. I looked into his eyes and saw his sacrifice. “I love you Jack.” I hadn’t planned to say it, the words just came out on their own.

Jack lifted me up and carried me to the bedroom, setting me down on the bed gently. I watched as he unbuckled his pants and took off his boxers, never taking his eyes off of me. He sat me up and pulled the tank top I was wearing over my head. He climbed on top of me and gently kissed my lips. He pulled his head back just enough to look me in the eyes. “I love you too Syd.” Then he made love to me.

***

On the morning of my flight, I was surprised that Jack said he needed to stop at the office. “I just have to pick up something.

We can stop on the way to the airport, it will only take five minutes.” We were both quiet, but it didn’t have anything to do with the unplanned stop at Jack’s office. I wasn’t going to see Jack for three full weeks, until I had a break in my schedule. We planned for him to fly to Rome for four days then. He was going to come for the Rome concert and then we were going to stay three days together, before I had to fly out to Prague for the next show.

Mateo pulled up in front of Jack’s office and he opened the door and held out his hand. I was surprised that he wanted me to come inside, after the last time I had visited. I really didn’t want his last memory of me in his office to be my childish behavior from last time, so I sucked it up and got out with him without question.