“Working with Elliot has been a dream. He’s really pushed me to do a solo project with the songs I’ve written the last few years.” He does his anxious hair tug thing and looks at me, watching for a reaction.

I know what this means, but don’t acknowledge it. I’ve known it would come to this. The songs he wrote for me a couple years ago will be playing every time I go to the mall, every time I turn on the car radio and probably in a cute romantic comedy that I need to avoid. Ian Sterling has been successful for years, but with Elliot behind this project, he will explode. And I’ll be the roped up ball of sadness. That’s what my future holds right there. Little prickly threads of devastation hanging out of my gnarly, ransacked heart.

“You deserve all the royalties. Every single song is about you.” He leans over and rests his forehead on mine. “God, I want to kiss you.”

My eyes close and for a moment, I just inhale him. How many times have I dreamed of being this close to him? I feel the pull he’s always had on me and am tempted to give in one more time. Sanity fortunately returns. I shove him off and he holds up his hands as I stare him down. “Fine, fine! I’ll behave!”

Relentless. I’m torn between throwing up and making out with him in this tiny airplane.

“What are you doing in New Orleans? Besides being by my side day and night?” He smiles as my eyes narrow. “What?” He asks with a shrug. “It’s a reasonable question.”

“Tessa’s getting married on Saturday. I’m the maid of honor. There’s a lot to do in the next five days.”

“Ah, Tess. I’ve missed her.”

“Me too.”

I lean my head back on the seat again. Ian is staring me down and I’m exhausted.

“Sparrow, we don’t have much time left on this flight.” He presses his eyes with his fingers and takes a deep breath. “Give me your number. Please. I promise I won’t…well, I can’t really promise that. Just say you’ll see me again while you’re here.”

“It’s not a good idea.” I shake my head, as much to myself as to him.

“Well, my number is the same. I will never change it. You know, hoping one day you’ll call and say you’re taking me back,” he says earnestly.

“You’re impossible.”

“You’re delectable.”

“You’re incorrigible.”

“You’re edible.”

I sigh, frustrated and turned on.

“You know it’s true.” He inches closer.

“No, I can’t really say that I do.”

“Well, I can.”

“Ian!”

His eyes are distraught when he looks at me. “Sparrow, I know you’ve already heard me say I’m sorry, about a thousand times … but if you can’t hear anything else, hear this … you changed me. Please let me…”

I hold my hand up and look straight ahead. It helps to not see his face. “Don’t. Just … don’t.”

His face crumbles and I think I see his hand tremble as he runs his hands through his hair. His eyes fill and for a moment, he doesn’t look nineteen. He doesn’t look thirty. I see what he will look like at sixty and it makes me sad.

The plane is already beginning its descent. I look out and see the lights of the city and think about how I’d give anything to get lost in Ian’s words. It’s a powerful feeling, to know this magnetic, dangerous, quirky, beautiful, sexy … man wants me. Agony is almost worth it if I could just be with him.

It’s as if no time has passed at all. I see with sickened clarity that I will never be over Ian Sterling. Never.

He’s watching me, waiting for me to say something. Just one word to give him hope and we will be back in our own little world of love and lust and banter.

I turn to face him and he looks at me with expectancy, willing me to let him back in. Willing me to say yes…

I shake my head and the cobwebs clear. I remember. I remember it all. I want him to hurt.

“How’s Laila?”

True Love story

Coming February 2013