by Jo Watson
And for the first time ever, instead of brushing the idea off I said:
“How’s this Friday night?”
The sound of the cutlery being put down was audible. My sisters looked at me with shock and they both started nodding slowly.
“Are you sure, I mean, would that suit you?” Jenna said. “You can bring your friends if you want.”
“Even that Stormy-Rain,” Jenna quickly added. God, they really wanted me there. They hated Stormy—well, hate is a strong word. I think she frightened the living daylights out of them.
I shook my head and smiled at these strange blond creatures that were my sisters. “No. Just us would be nice.” The shock on their faces was palpable, but it was very quickly replaced by glee. I even noticed a smile from my dad, who had been very quiet throughout dinner except for right at the end when he hugged me and simply said,
“Welcome home, Janey. It’s good to have you back at work.”
I went home and lay awake that night with Phoebe’s words ringing in my head over and over again.
“Never, ever, give up on that kind of love. You will regret it every single day for the rest of your life.”
But what if that real love had hurt me? Even if his intentions had been good, and even if I had gotten exactly what I needed from him? He’d helped me meet my father. He’d helped me find what I was looking for.
It was late, and I had survived yet another emotional day—they were starting to become pretty common. I needed to get some sleep. I dug in my bag for my mobile phone, and just as I pulled it out, I noticed something shining in my bag. I reached in and grabbed the sweet from the wedding in Greece. I held it in my hands and gazed at it, almost as if I was trying to size it up.
Oh what the hell, what harm could it do? And I slipped it under my pillow once more.
The next morning I called an emergency conference. I had messaged all my friends and told them to come to my house for lunch. I needed their urgent advice. I needed something, anything. After last night’s strange dreams, I needed someone to slap me silly. To intervene and give me clarity, to tell me what to do so I would not have another mental breakdown.
It was noon and they diligently started arriving. Lilly, always on time, was first. Annie, who was living a fabulously glam life in LA, was Skyping in. Val arrived looking frazzled and beside herself—what else is new? She had probably been kept up again all night by the sounds of her neighbor having sex with his new fiancée. He had just proposed. (That would not be the worst thing, but add in the fact she was madly in love with her neighbor—and had been for the last two years—and listening to him in flagrante delicto was devastating.) She made a beeline for the wine and started commiserating with Annie.
We all sat patiently waiting for Stormy to arrive. No doubt she would come barreling through the door like a wild storm; as her name suggested, subtlety was not her strong point.
And as predicted, a loud knock on the door, followed by what sounded like bells jingling, rang out. I opened the door to find Stormy, wearing something that looked like it had been stolen from a dead hippie, complete with bells hanging from the sleeves and shells sewn into the hem. Her hair was bright purple and she wore earrings that looked like recycled bottle tops. She burst in carrying a massive book under her arm—I recognized the book immediately. If you knew Stormy, you knew the book. She launched herself at the carpet dramatically and started.
“So”—she flipped the tome open—“I consulted the numbers this morning.” She meant numerology. “And they said some interesting things.”
Despite myself, I found myself being drawn to this information. “What?”
“They said this is a favorable time to follow your dreams.”
“Really?” Despite myself, despite the fact I didn’t believe in this kind of stuff, I wondered if it referred to the dream I’d had last night. Dimitri, in his cardboard cutout form, had stood there and repeated over and over again, “I will wait for you, always. I will wait for you, always.” That was it. The dream had been on a loop the whole night and it had thrown me, hence the need for this emergency friend meeting.
“What else did they say?” I asked.
“Nothing else.” She shook her head. “Jane, is that organic cheese?” She got up and wandered over to the table, examining the food.
My heart pounded in my chest. I know this sounds totally stupid, but as my dream had progressed, I had started to forget why I was even angry with Dimitri. I had started to remember how much I loved him. I think the real reason I’d called my friends over was that I needed one of them to tell me it was okay to feel this way, and that I didn’t need to hate him anymore. I needed someone’s permission to climb back onto the next flight to Greece and go to him. Because right now, that was all my heart was telling me to do. My heart was screaming so loudly, it had completely silenced my head.
“I don’t know what to do, guys.” I sat down at the table and looked at my friends.
“What do you want to do?” Lilly asked.
“I still love him. Everything he did, even though he lied, it was meant to happen. If he hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have stayed in Greece and I never would’ve found my father. I think I want to go back to Greece. I think I want to be with him. I don’t know! I just wish someone would tell me what the hell to do. I wish there was some kind of sign or something.”
At that, there was a knock on the door. Everyone turned slowly toward it.
“It can’t be,” Val whispered.
“No. It can’t be,” Lilly echoed.
We all stared at the door in silent shock as there came another knock. We all glanced at one another with wide eyes.
“It’s impossible,” I said, my voice trembling.
“Everything is possible in this multiverse,” Stormy said with a massive smile as she rushed to the door. I followed behind her as she pulled the door open, revealing a pizza deliveryman. My heart sank, even though it was all totally crazy and illogical—of course Dimitri isn’t standing behind that door.
“Did you guys order pizza?” he said, looking at Stormy with a slightly confused expression on his face. A usual reaction to her.
“No,” I said. “You’re probably looking for number one. This is ten—the zero fell off and the landlord needs to put it back on.”
“Is your name Dimitri?” Stormy suddenly asked with a mysterious-sounding voice.
The guy looked confused. “No. It’s Brad. But I did go to school with a Dimitri once.”
“Aha!” Stormy exclaimed triumphantly and looked at me. She turned to the others. “You hear that?” She sounded excited.
“Oh come on, Stormy, this is a stretch, even for you,” Lilly said from behind us.
“Stormy. Really?” Val said as Annie laughed.
“I’ll prove it to you.” Stormy flashed us all a smile. “What’s on the pizza?” she asked.
The deliveryman looked even more confused now, and perhaps a little scared. “Um, pepperoni, mushrooms, and olives.”
“Olives! Olives!” Stormy exclaimed loudly. “Olives are practically the Greek national food.”
Annie squawked from the screen, “Stormy, you’re not being serious. Olives are a common topping.”
“Oh my Goddess!” Stormy screeched so loudly that the man stepped back. “And his pants are blue and his shirt is white. Blue and white, that’s the Greek flag!”
The man with the pizza started backing away as Stormy became more and more excited. She then closed the door and looked at me excitedly.
“How much more of a sign do you need?”
“You think?” I asked. Stormy nodded meaningfully, like she was in possession of the keys to unlocking the mysteries of the universe. I wanted this to be a sign so desperately that for the moment I was willing to abandon all logical thought and go with it. A bubble started rising in my stomach. Intellectually I knew this was the biggest load of bullshit ever, but I wanted to go so badly that I didn’t care.
“Okay!” I s
aid.
“Okay what?” Lilly asked.
“Okay, I’ll go.”
“What?” my three friends said at the same time.
“I’m going, guys. And it’s not about signs and shit like that, I’m going because I love him. Oh my God that feels good to say. I love him. I love Dimitri.” I jumped up and down crazily. “I’m going to go and pack a bag right now.”
“Wait!” Stormy yelled, bringing the whole room to a dead stop. “Don’t pack. Stay.”
“What?” I looked at her with total confusion just as there was another knock on the door.
“No, we did not order pizza or Chinese or Indian curry!” I shouted as I walked to the door and opened it. But it wasn’t the pizza delivery guy this time… It was Dimitri.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
A gasp rose out from the room behind me. My mouth fell open and I blinked a few times to make sure I wasn’t seeing things.
“You’re… you’re not bringing us curry,” I stumbled and just looked at him stupidly. God, I had forgotten how devastatingly, breath-stealingly, panty-looseningly hot he was.
He smiled at me. Fuck, I had missed that smile. That sweet sexy smile. “No,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied and stood there. I stood and I stared and I didn’t move. I think I was in total shock. I heard someone clear her throat from behind me.
“Aren’t you going to invite him in?” Stormy said. “He’s come all this way to see you.”
Suddenly a thought hit me. “But how did you know where I lived or when I would be…” I turned and looked at Stormy, who was smiling like a Cheshire cat. “You?” I looked over at her.
“My neighbor helped me send those i mails.”
Annie burst out laughing. “Emails.”
“I, e, a, b, c,” she said with a shrug. “Dimitri and I have been ‘chatting.’” She gestured some air quotes with her fingers.
“Really?” I smiled at her. She was so fucking weird, and I was totally grateful for her right then. My strange friend who had taken it upon herself to intervene behind my back.
“So…” she pressed. “Ask the guy in. Don’t make him lurk in the doorway like a dog burglar.”
“Yes. Yes. Of course.” I gestured formally with my hand and he walked in. Dimitri was in my apartment.
I followed him in. “Guys, um, this is Dimitri, and Dimitri, these are… uh, they are… um…” Mind blank. What the hell were my friends’ names again? Oh yes…
“You’ve met Stormy-Rain, obviously,” I said, gesturing toward her. He stuck a hand out for her to shake and she took it.
“Nice to meet you in person,” he said.
Stormy looked him up and down for a moment and then opened her mouth. “You know, you’re so not my type, at all, all macho model vibes with muscles and good hair and your jaw is very chiseled.”
I briefly looked over at Dimitri as his brow started to furrow in what I could only assume was absolute confusion.
She continued. “But you’re really hot. Jane told us how hot you were, but still you are hotter that I thought you would be, taking into account some of Jane’s previous choices in men.”
“Stormy!” Lilly chided loudly. I just shook my head. Dimitri looked at Stormy for a second or two and then smiled a friendly smile. He strode off and extended his hand again. “And you…”
“Me? I’m… I’m Lilly?” she said, looking a tad dazed and confused. Clearly he was having the same effect on my friends as he had on all women. She shook his hand and was bordering on gawking at him.
He waved into the computer. “Hi.”
Annie waved back. “Hi. I’m Annie. I’m not really here, as you can see.”
He turned and looked at Val. She was still tearstained and clutching the wine. “Val. Hi,” she said flatly. Dimitri gave her a cautious little wave. “Can I ask you something?” Val said.
I sighed. She basically asked everyone this. “Do you think guys and girls can just be friends? No romantic feelings. Just friends?”
“Um…” He looked stumped and then his face lit up. “That’s a really good question. But I think I once read a study that stated it has been scientifically proven that members of the opposite sex can in fact just be platonic friends. The study was conducted with eighty-eight undergraduate students and—”
Val wailed loudly and slumped into her chair, looking completely defeated. Dimitri looked up at me and I shook my head.
“It’s a very long story,” I whispered to him.
Stormy tisked loudly and dramatically. “How many times do I have to tell you that you are not meant to be with that stupid neighbor of yours?” Stormy was always telling us about our love lives—how she hated Annie’s ex, how I was meant to find Dimitri, how Val was not meant to be with Matt. So ironic, since she was the one who really, really couldn’t figure out her own love life.
“Okay!” Lilly suddenly exclaimed loudly. “I guess that’s our cue to leave.” She blew a kiss to Annie and closed the computer and then nudged Val, who was now drinking wine out of the bottle.
“Jane, do you mind if I take some food?” Stormy asked. “Is it vegan, though?” She reached for it.
“Vegan, free range, gluten-, wheat-, and sugar-free.” I smiled at her. It was a total lie. Stormy scooped up the food and rushed out with Lilly and Val. They closed the door behind them and suddenly Dimitri and I were alone.
We stood in awkward silence. In my fantasy this would have been playing out differently. Why weren’t we running into each other’s arms, crying, kissing, and declaring undying love?
“May I sit?” he asked, gesturing to my sofa. It sounded so formal.
“Sure.”
He sat down and looked so scared. I’d never seen him like this before. I sat opposite him and we both looked at each other. Silence. And then more silence. The silence stretched out before us and there seemed to be no end to it when he finally spoke.
“I had this whole thing worked out, this big, logical argument about why you need to forgive me and be with me. And then I planned on delivering this massive speech that was supposed to win you back. It’s romantic and emotive and I practiced it in my head the whole flight here, I even…” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled note. “I even wrote the main points down so I wouldn’t forget anything. But…” He crunched the piece of paper in his hands and dropped it to the floor. He got up, walked across the room, and sat next to me. My body responded to him instantly. He reached for my hand and when I let him take it, he smiled.
“I always imagined your father as a pirate searching the seas and the islands for this treasure chest. A chest that contained the most important, valuable thing in the world.”
I stared at him, bewildered, not sure where this was going.
“I was always desperate to know what was inside it and why it was so special.” Dimitri took my hand and placed it on his chest. I could feel his heart pounding beneath my palm.
“But I know what it is now. It’s you.” His heart pounded even harder and faster. “You’re the treasure. You are what I have been looking for this whole time.”
I inhaled sharply. “What?”
“I’ve always felt restless. I’ve always felt like I needed to keep moving, go places, see things, and now… all I want to do is stay in one place… with you. I’ve found the thing I have been looking for, and it’s you. And your father is the person who brought us together. That’s how I know we are meant to be.”
Tears immediately sprang to my eyes. My biological mother had told me to never let go of true love. To fight for it, no matter what. She hadn’t been there for me my entire life, but her words were with me now.
I’d gone on this journey and had seen firsthand the pain of regret. It can consume an entire life, and it affects everyone around you. My biological mother and father had been separated, and they had both regretted it for the rest of their lives. They had never been fully happy or fully alive without each other.
And I wanted to
be alive and happy. I wanted to die with no regrets, knowing that I had loved and been loved. I deserved that. I was worth it.
“Yes,” I said as the tears escaped my eyes.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I love you and I forgive you and I want to be with you. I love you.” Dimitri threw his arms around me and buried his face in my neck. I reciprocated and we held on to each other as tightly as we possibly could.
I’d gone searching for my father and instead, I had found the love of my life…
And I would never, ever let him go.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As an adoptee, this was a very hard book for me to write. And there were many, many, many times I didn’t think I could continue. I didn’t expect it to be so hard. I thought that after all these years it was a subject I could easily write about—I was wrong. I would never have gotten through it if it wasn’t for my amazing husband—as always—who supported me all the way to the very last word. Also my therapist (seriously)—who said in one of those therapeutic voices, all soft and hushed, that it was a good thing to write this book, no matter how it turned out. So I wrote it! And I finished it! I need to thank Jessica Smit, who has helped me with every book I have ever written. She’s been there right from the very beginning. She was there when I wrote the very first word of Burning Moon, and I really appreciate all her feedback, and she makes my books better. Amy, my editor, also makes them better—even though I hate editing.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jo Watson is an award-winning writer of romantic comedies. Burning Moon won a Watty Award in 2014. Jo is an Adidas addict and a Depeche Mode devotee.
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