Everything After - Jill Santopolo Page 0,80

I just not see?

Is there love in your heart

That is there for me?

“Hey,” Rob called from the other side of the door, “how are you going to wear your hair for the show?”

Emily hadn’t thought about that yet. “It’s a surprise,” she called back, as she buttoned her jeans. “I’ll show all y’all tonight.”

Rob’s laughter on the other side of the door made her smile. The yo-yo was still spinning, still flying up and down and up and down. She wondered if it would ever stop.

53

“You said it’s just two shows here?” Emily asked Rob as he unlocked the hotel’s private villa.

“That’s right,” he said, holding the door open for her. “Show tonight, show tomorrow night, then I’m off to Miami for three more shows after that. Then home for a couple of days to see my girls.”

Emily walked into the villa and looked around. “Wow,” she said, taking in the plush carpeting, the gauzy drapes, the view of the ocean, and the plunge pool just outside.

“Not bad for a kid who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks in Austin, huh?” Rob was looking around as if he still couldn’t quite believe it.

“Not bad for anyone,” Emily said seriously, pausing in front of the window leading out to the pool. “I hope you really understand what you made happen—with your music, with your talent.”

“With your inspiration,” Rob said, coming up behind her. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

Emily shook her head, embarrassed, and put her bag of new clothing down on the floor. “My inspiration was breaking your heart,” she said. “That doesn’t quite seem like something I deserve thanks for.”

Rob stepped closer, both of them looking out the window at the ocean, so close their cheeks were nearly touching. “You deserve thanks for loving me in the first place. For showing me what love was, for teaching me about desire and what it means to feel connected to someone else so profoundly. I mean it. Even if I never saw you again, even if you never wanted to speak to me again, I would be grateful that you made me feel that way.”

Emily turned toward him.

Then he turned, too, the air between them electric. But Emily remembered how she’d fallen apart last time their lips met. How guilty she’d felt. It seemed he remembered it, too.

“Want to go for a boat ride?” he asked, his breath warm on her cheek. “We have about an hour and a half to kill.”

“Sure,” she answered, fearing that if they spent more time together, alone in this villa, they would end up doing something she would regret. “Which room’s mine?”

Rob pointed across the living room. “I took the one upstairs, so the one down here’s yours. Just through that hallway.”

“I’ll be out in a minute,” Emily said, and went to change.

The room was beautiful—just as perfectly decorated as the room in the Gregory Hotel she and Ezra didn’t spend the night in together. The sheets felt like silk, and there was a towel in the shape of a bird sitting on the bed. Emily pulled out her phone and turned it on. She saw a new text from Ari. Did you make it to Mexico? Are you okay? And then saw that there were seventeen more. Instead of reading them or listening to Ari’s voice mail, she gave her sister a call.

“What’s going on?” Ari said the minute she picked up the phone. “Are you leaving Ezra?”

Emily took a breath. “No,” she said. “I’m not leaving Ezra.”

“So what are you doing in Mexico?” Ari asked. “Are you at a yoga retreat or something?”

“I’m with Rob,” Emily answered quietly, cringing, waiting for her sister’s disapproval.

“You’re what?!” Ari said. “So you’re not leaving Ezra, but you’re having an affair?”

“No!” Emily said. What could she say to make her sister understand? “I’m performing. When I saw Rob, when I played on stage, it was like I finally became my whole self again. And Ezra basically said he doesn’t want me to change. So when Rob invited me to play with him, I came to see if pursuing music was worth potentially giving up my husband. If it really would feel like I imagined.”

Ari was quiet for a while. “I want you to be happy, Em. But . . . are you sure this is the way to figure this out?”

Emily stared out the window at the ocean waves crashing against the sand. “I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “But I needed