to finish getting ready. “You talked to my sister?”
“She wants you back now. Even offered to pay for a flight.”
“What did you tell her?”
“Thanks, but no thanks. She’ll see you soon enough.”
“Good answer.”
I put on a little mascara and perfume and brushed my hair until it fell in soft waves over my shoulders. Jimmy was darkly handsome in black.
“I’m in white, you’re in black,” I said. “Like yin and yang.”
“The brightest light…” Jimmy murmured, almost to himself. He took my face in his hands and kissed me deeply. I felt the grief in it. The goodbye.
Not yet.
“Come on,” I said, forcing a smile. “We have more New York-ing to do.”
We took a cab to an Italian bistro on the Upper East Side that was dark and had little candles on every table. The hostess seated us, and we opened the menus silently.
What does one order for their last meal?
For Jimmy’s sake, I bit back the bad joke. The reality of my situation was sinking into him too. His expression was that of a man in chronic pain but putting on a brave face.
“Hey,” I said, reaching across the table to take his hand. “Stay with me.”
His brows furrowed. “How are you so okay right now?”
“I don’t know, honestly,” I said. “I freaked out this morning. And I probably have more freaking out to do, but right now is what we have. I have you and I’m happy.”
“You deserve more than a few days,” he said, his teeth gritted. “It’s fucking… cruel.”
“These last few days have been the best of my life. I would’ve learned about the Hazarin side effects whether I stayed at Blue Ridge or not. And if I’d stayed, I’d be going back to prison with zero memory of the outside world. But I left. And now I have this time in New York with you to carry me through. I have something to hold on to.”
He nodded and did his best to carry on through dinner as if a huge mountain weren’t about to drop on my head. I felt its shadow over me—it was coming, and it was going to hurt. But tonight, I wouldn’t let the fear touch me.
After dinner, we strolled down Second Avenue and came to a bar with live music pouring out its open windows. A flyer on the window said it was open mic night.
“Let’s get a drink here and listen to some music,” I said. “And no, this isn’t me passive-aggressively hinting you should sing in front of all these people, I swear. That’s later in the hotel.”
As he gazed over the bar, Jimmy’s expression was unreadable. “You made me the better, stronger version of myself.” He nodded his chin at the crowd. “They should know that. You deserve for them to know that.”
“Are you serious?” I asked. “You’re going to sing in front of all those people?”
“Don’t cry yet,” he said. “Wait until I make a complete ass of myself.”
I laughed and wiped my eyes. “That’s not going to happen.”
“We’ll see.”
Jimmy put his name on the list and asked the guy if they had a house guitar he could borrow; his instrument was back at the hotel. The guy said they did, and we took a table near the side of the small stage. He nursed a beer, and I had a glass of red wine. Men and women got up and sang to the bar’s sound system or used their own instruments.
“Jim Whelan,” the MC announced finally. “Come on up.”
Jimmy drained the last of his beer and got to his feet.
“I’m more nervous than you are,” I said.
“Must be, since I’m not nervous at all,” he said. “This is what’s supposed to happen. Isn’t it?”
“Yes, I think so. All of it.”
He nodded and kissed me, then took the stage to a smattering of applause. The MC handed him a scratched up acoustic guitar. Jimmy looped the strap over his shoulder and adjusted the mic as if he’d done this a hundred times.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m Jim. This song is for Thea Hughes—she’s sitting right over there. She’s the reason I’m sitting here. She’s the reason for everything good in my life.”
My tears came again, and I blinked them away quickly, not wanting to miss a single second of my Jimmy onstage in front of a crowd of people. Commanding their attention, gripping it in the palm of his hand with his simple dignity and honesty.
“We’ve been in the city the past five days,” Jimmy said, “because it’s where