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Whether it was a film set, a competition venue, or an art gallery, the Tangaroa manor was a gilded confection of a place, the stuff dreams were made of. Tiered like a cake, with little towers like dollops of cream, and a domed window ceiling that might as well have been spun out of sugar. But even if there weren’t police cars parked outside, Eddie could never have forgotten that the artful streams inside had carried blood. Nor could he forget that this was where he’d flapped around after Gregory like a little chickadee, absorbing everything the man did and said until it became an inextricable part of him.
Ah, life. Like the law, riddled with thorny little contradictions.
Today, Eddie sat outside in the garden, which was budding with what would soon be fresh roses. Nothing hid their thorns, but the sun welcomed Samson home, and despite everything, Eddie was all smiles for real for what felt like the first time in over seventeen years.
“I hope the tea is to your liking. I’m afraid I’ll never brew it quite like Judy,” Samson said.
“That’s like someone besides you apologizing for serving cake. Besides, these macaroons are ‘to die for.’”
Though Samson’s taste disorder was cured, prison hadn’t given him a chance to branch out culinarily; even his tea was sweet. Eddie would have to introduce him to all the restaurants that had popped up in the last eighteen years.
“I do hope nobody else dies over sweets around here,” Samson said.
Though the table was metal, not wood, Eddie knocked on it anyway.
While he made a show of rolling his eyes in delight and complimenting the raspberry filling, it was hard to focus on even the macaroon with Samson across from him. Free. Able to do a dance routine around this whole yard, the whole neighborhood and beyond. Everything Gregory would have spent the last seventeen years fighting for, if he could have.
“I can tell Judy never got a chance to remodel this garden. My cousins were the ones who were fond of birds,” Samson said, gesturing to a nearby fountain. Not a Paul Halique original, its design was fairly tame, its spouts shaped like songbirds coming to splash in a birdbath.
“Surprised they’re not Judes’ thing. They called her ‘the songbird of the set’ for a reason.” She’d been cast as more than one princess who attracted forest creatures as she sang and did her chores.
“I did call her my little hummingbird when she was young. Mostly for how she’d hum as she zoomed from one place to the next.” Samson’s smile dropped. “Some of my relatives liked to twist my names for her. It soured the whole thing a little, I’m afraid.”
Eddie didn’t take note of the next macaroon’s flavor as he watched a real bird light down on the fountain.
“For someone who makes such sweet chocolates, she sure has a lot of things soured for her,” he said.
“I’m afraid you’re not wrong. I can count on you to stay sweet for her, can’t I?”
“Heh. I’ll do my best.”
While he sipped his tea, Samson knocked his knuckles absently against the table and studied him. Those warm eyes felt especially perceptive now that there wasn’t a smudged window between them.
“You know, Eddie…the minute she comes home, I’ll have flowers and something delicious on the table.”
“I’m sure it’ll be just what the doctor ordered.” For so long, Judy had fought for the reverse of that scene. For so long, Eddie had failed to win it for them. “You two deserve to finally have that much.”
“She deserves more than that. She’ll always have a home with me, of course, but…”
“You’re afraid that after all this, she still isn’t gonna seek her own happiness?”
“Exactly. Of course, she still has a whole life ahead of her. Once she’s free, and settled back home, she’ll finally get a chance to explore other things.” He picked up a pistachio macaroon. “A home with someone besides me, for instance.”
He’d polished off the macaroon before his meaningful look set in, and Eddie all but choked on his tea.
“Well, you know, I’m all for breaking the ice with a snuggle, but a lawyer and their client need some boundaries,” he sputtered.
“Her case won’t take long, will it? I’ve heard they wrap up quickly these days.”
Far too quickly, considering it took over eighteen years for the truth of Samson’s own case to come to light, but changing the legal system wasn’t Eddie’s responsibility at the moment. Nor was picking out rings, sadly enough. As soon as he’d finished his tea, he would head inside to inspect those sprinklers that had gone off during the poison gas attack. Judy may have plead guilty, but he would try his damndest to prove she’d prepped it all to be non-lethal.
There weren’t any two ways around it: she’d get jail time. Their little trio would be meeting up in the visiting room for some time to come.
Sugar couldn’t remove the tea’s bitter edge. No matter how hard he wracked his brain, he couldn’t think of what in the last eighteen years had made her decide she couldn’t trust him, other than the simple fact that for eighteen years, he’d failed. That she was letting him defend her was all he could ask.
He made a show of draining the last of his tea.
“Well, since they barely give us lawyers time to sign the paperwork these days, I’ve gotta go see a man about some sprinklers,” he said. “You enjoy the sunshine.”
He strolled back through the garden and into that palace of hopes and nightmares.
Judy sat on the sofa in the courtroom lobby with the poise of one about to head into an audition, her gaze fixed out the window. The sliver of garden it showed was nothing compared to the one where Eddie had sat and sipped tea only days before. Samson had already snuck in a chocolate chip cookie for Judy and headed for the gallery, leaving Eddie to pace the lobby, flipping through his notes. He couldn’t afford to eat them like his younger self would have. He’d spent all night checking them over, but it never hurt to make sure he wasn’t missing something.
There’d been a bit of a fuss in the hall, as Delicia wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer, even as a guard tried to explain to her that witnesses couldn’t simply waltz in and visit the defendant. Eddie arranged to question her as an excuse to let her say ‘hi’ to Judy. Even good ol’ Delicia couldn’t crack the tension, considering Judy had almost framed her, but she’d given it the old college try. Since she’d left, the lobby had grown quiet.
He and Judy used to be able to chat all evening, whenever he’d pulled her away from work to see her outside of jail. They’d dined and danced, with her the apple of everyone’s eye, and him the lucky duck who forgot the rest of them while cheek-to-cheek with her. They’d tried out every new bakery, visited art galleries, watched musicals she wasn’t performing in. Once, they’d even driven out to see the stars away from the city’s lights, so he could show her all the constellations he and Paul Halique had shared a fondness for. He knew she didn’t care for the pedestal of her own stardom, only working to support herself and take back everything that had been Samson’s.
Long days of filming had plum tuckered her out, and they’d gotten halfway through the night sky before she’d fallen asleep on his shoulder.
And still, when she spoke now, it was a careful, “Mr. Fender.”
“Yeah, Judes?”
“Please, rest your feet. You’ll have to stand on them all day as it is.”
“Ah, I’ve always gotta get out the wiggles before a big day in court.”
“I insist. I’d hate for you to wear yourself out.”
With her hands cuffed, she couldn’t pat the cushion, but she had scooted to the far end of the couch. Her foot tapped as she glanced at the guard, then the free cushion, before returning to gazing out the window.
He let out a breath and sauntered over to join her. The old leather sunk beneath him. This close, he could see how tensely she held herself. For just a moment, he brushed his fingers against her elbow.
“You won’t be alone in there. Not for a second, okay?” he said softly.
She let her a breath of her own. Her hand lifted as if to catch his, but the chain stretched, and she returned to folding them in her lap.
“I shouldn’t ask for any more favors, but…”
“Ask away, Judes.”
“When you visit me, will you bring some photos from your trips?”
“I’ll do you one better. I’ll get your sentence slashed so fast, you’ll be on a cruise before you can blink.”
Hearing about his trips was one of the few things that put a genuine sparkle in her eye without anything to do with Samson. Her movie sets had placed her everywhere from Paris to Tokyo, but she’d always turned down opportunities that required her to travel for real, as she had to keep her promise to visit Samson every day.
“That would be…” The brief light on her face shut off. She shook her head. “Just the photos would be lovely.”
“I’ll bring’em,” he promised.
Eddie fought to the end to lighten Judy’s sentence. Whether it was thanks to his arguments about her motives and attempts to mitigate harm, or her charming the court by singing her whole confession, it went as well as it could for someone who confessed to stealing a highly controlled chemical and preparing poison gas. When the gavel fell, the tears she’d shed during the proceedings dried up, and a weight that had already dropped on Eddie’s heart sunk into place.
He and Samson kept their promises to visit every day. Eddie even remained stateside, though eventually, he ran out of photos of far-off places and started printing out pictures he found online, or taking selfies of him and Samson picnicking in the park. Anything to give her a glimpse of the world she’d be coming back to.
Despite Judy’s backup plan to throw Delicia under the bus, she still visited, quickly assigning nicknames to all the guards. Even Miles and Kay tagged along with Eddie. It was Judy’s turn, then, to share something besides an update on the prison menu, as she told Miles about the time she’d given Gregory an impromptu dance lesson, and Kay about her role as a thief in a noir film. Despite the setting, Miles left with an unusually soft expression, and Kay with starry eyes.
Other vaguely familiar faces showed up in the visitors’ room—that kid of Gavèlle’s, accompanied by a freckled brunette and a big hairy fellow. And then there were the fans who remained devoted after she fell from the public’s pedestal. Some had even grown up on Bake ’n’ Bop. All she’d had as a child was Samson, but to others, she’d been the friend who reached out from their screens.
There were the gossip columns, of course, and the angry rants online, all the fans who felt betrayed and the haters who felt vindicated. Eddie kept that kind of talk out of the visitors’ room. Sure, he was still hurt himself, and it was only expected for folks to judge a convicted criminal…but that didn’t stop him from crumpling up the tabloids. Because nobody writing them really knew her. Because her whole life, she’d done nothing but give, and give, and give, and fate had only taken.
Still, fan mail poured in, and Judy had plenty of time to reply to each one, apparently signing all her letters with a little drawing of a bird.
The jail had given her a parakeet that cooed along with her songs. If she wished she’d been assigned something else, she never mentioned it. She named it Pistachio and brought it to the visitors’ room, and in a rare request for more favors, she asked Eddie to bring in guides on parakeet care. The species probably didn’t matter, as long as she could devote her energy to taking care of something.
When he visited one day, the parakeet resting on her fingers was the only pop of her favorite color, its bright green feathers standing out against her prison clothes. The past few months had bleached her skin and shadowed her eyes, though this wasn’t the first time in her life that she’d had a less than healthy complexion—just the first time she hadn’t been able to hide it. He swept off his hat in greeting.
“Imagine seeing you here! Do you two lovely ladies come here often?”
“Hello, Mr. Fender,” she said, her smile indulgent. “You just missed Samson.”
“Samson!” Pistachio said. She hopped down onto the counter and began pecking at some corn.
“I’m guessing she thinks Samson has something to do with food?” he asked.
“She thinks everything has something to do with food. At least the corn is sweet.”
Eddie gestured to the papers stacked carefully away from the corn. “More of your faithful fans?”
“Yes, Samson was helping me respond. He always replied to every last letter, you know. It can be so hard to know what to say.”
“They just want to send you a friendly word. A lot of folks love you, you know.”
“Everyone’s been too kind.”
“Maybe you’re just easy to love.”
She lowered her eyes toward Pistachio, reaching out to stroke the parakeet’s head with a finger.
“Now you’re being too kind. I’m a thief and a schemer. My smiles and tears are both more real on-stage than off. I can’t imagine it’s easy.”
“Then I guess you’re just worth loving.”
Off-stage, he’d seen both those real smiles and those real tears, but even he had rarely seen her so genuinely surprised, her eyes and mouth propped open like a sculpture. He shrugged off his serious manner.
“Just stating the facts. Lawyerly habit. So, did Regina finally drag ol’ Simi-sin back into her act?”
Collecting herself, she updated him on that day’s show and her own plans to perform for the other prisoners—Samson’s idea, of course. Eddie showed off a travel brochure he’d picked up on the way there. As he flipped through the photos of waterfalls and a jazz museum, a sheen of longing overtook her that he’d only seen when it came to freeing Samson.
Considering he’d already gotten a little too real, he didn’t mention it. As visiting hours came to a close, he stood, only to be held in place with a quiet, “Eddie.”
“Yeah?”
“Back when we went stargazing…what you said, did you…”
Neither of them had mentioned it since. Just before dawn, she’d woken up curled against his side, and that far away from the city, dizzy from the altitude of the hills they’d driven up into, he’d forgotten all his reasons for not proposing to her. How her heart was in jail and his was in a grave, and he couldn’t fix any of it. How, if he asked her for anything, she would have to decide whether or not to offer it, when all he wanted was to hand her the world.
I wish I could bring these stars home with me, she’d said.
I’ll give’em to you. Catch’em in a net and wrap them up nice.
I didn’t think an attorney would steal from the sky.
Guess we’ll have to be partners in crime. Go on the run.
Oh, my. And how would our story end?
Who says it has to end? I’d spend my life with you, Judes. You know that.
The moment he’d made the mistake of being serious, and the whole thing had stopped being hypothetical, impossible, she’d frozen. After a long silence, she’d pulled away.
We should head back, or we’ll miss the start of visiting hours.
At the time, he couldn’t see her expression. Disgust, longing, indifference? There’d been no real point in speculating.
All these years later, the thing written all over her face was bafflement.
“I’ve never lied to you, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said.
“I…I see.” She bent over her clasped hands. “I’m flattered.”
As if she hadn’t had to fend off a million suitors with those words. As if he hadn’t preserved their friendship by avoiding adding himself to the pile of folks who put her in that position. He spread his arms in a shrug, a gesture that couldn’t be mistaken for an ill-timed hug with the glass between them. “Guess it’s nice to get an answer after all these years, but don’t sweat it.”
“I wasn’t—I only wondered if, that is…” She gathered herself, her mouth twisting in an almost wry expression. “How long of a window of opportunity I had.”
“There’s no statute of limitations on that particular offer.”
Her eyes widened again. “Edd—Mr. Fender, please, don’t tease me.”
“Who’s teasing?”
“But how can you say that, after all I’ve done?”
“Pretty sure it’s on the court record that I went to bat for you.”
“Yes, and I’m grateful, but…”
“It was no problemo. I’m just saying, I’d think you know by now I’m always in your corner.”
Even if she didn’t mean it, her continued befuddlement was starting to make him feel a little like a dart board, considering she’d gotten locked up for what she resorted to when she thought she couldn’t turn to him.
“But why?” she asked. He gave her his biggest, most hapless shrug.
“I told you. You’re worth it.”
Though their time was up, she didn’t gather her feathered friend, instead clasping her hands until the knuckles whitened.
“Eddie, I can’t ask you to wait for me.”
“I don’t remember you asking for anything?” He tipped his hat over his brow as he turned. “I’m glad you dropped the Mr.”
He left before she could reply.
Judy tested the melted chocolate with a candy thermometer and found it wasn’t quite ready. Years of trying hadn’t been enough for her to get the hang of tempering chocolate, but this was a good a time as any to practice. The jail still had Samson’s workstation set up—a kitchenette separate from the main kitchen, to keep the prisoners away from all the pointy objects and the like. Anything she made would pale in comparison, of course, but given that he still brought in his sweets, she hoped her creations would be a bonus.
Of course, it didn’t matter as long as she practiced making Samson’s favorite chocolates, lest she forget how before returning home. Perhaps she would surprise him with some that weren’t lumps.
And…she supposed Eddie would enjoy them, too.
Though the temperature wasn’t quite right, she slathered the chocolate on the board and spread it with the spatula. She looked around for Pistachio before remembering animals weren’t allowed in the kitchens. The separation made her antsy. This despite the fact that when the warden had assigned her a parakeet, she had swallowed bitter laughter, answering his expectant look with, oh, she suits me perfectly!
Once, she had played a princess locked in a tower, singing to the birds about how she longed to escape her cage. The director had scratched his head over her lackluster performance. She looked the part, she hit the high notes, she could even cry without using drops—what wasn’t clicking?
Truthfully, she simply hadn’t empathized with the character. Freedom meant a lack of purpose. It meant a million choices with no guide, and no warm hand to return to, again and again.
However, when she sat in her cell and watched Pistachio flit about, it stirred something in her. She was responsible for this creature, and that was the very reason it would never feel the breeze against its wings, never pick whichever tree it wished to fly to.
Eddie would appreciate the irony. He’d have just the right quote to summarize it.
She tried to shape the chocolate, but it had seized up.
With a sigh, she set aside the spatula. When she was informed Eddie was there, she’d insisted she was under the weather and needed rest. Luckily, the guards hadn’t mentioned it when it was time for her shift in the workroom, or maybe they just didn’t want to miss out on her chocolates.
Since he’d technically showed up for the day, she hoped this didn’t count as her making him go back on his promise. Not that he owed her even a scrap of his time.
(Yet, if he would keep offering—if he could keep giving it, bit by bit, surely she could keep accepting his generosity in the moment, without ever asking for the whole of it.)
Her fingers twitched in the absence of a feathered head to stroke. If a bird accepted her deep in its hollow bones, it was simply because it was a bird, and she was a gentle palm to feed it.
The only voice that could have lifted her spirits rumbled warmly from the doorway. “Judy. What fortunate timing.”
She whirled to find him carrying a chocolate cake with three thick layers. She rushed to take it from him.
“Samson! They let you bring it yourself today?”
“I’m not sure if it’s my past behavior or my sweets that speak for me,” he said. She set the cake on the counter before hurrying to scrape the mess of chocolate off the board.
“I’d have something to offer you, but I’m afraid I was overly ambitious.”
“And if it wouldn’t concern the guard who let me in, I’d have a hundred hugs to offer in return.”
She wrapped her arms around herself as if she could grasp the idea of that comfort. “Forgive me. Because of me, you have to keep returning to this horrid place.”
“I’ve made other friends here. Good friends. People aren’t defined by their past, after all.” He looked at her intently before the skin around his eyes crinkled. “You waited for me for eighteen years, Judy. Of course I’ll visit.”
As he couldn’t bring in a knife, he’d already cut the cake. She began peeling off the plastic wrap around it.
“I spoke to Eddie earlier,” he said.
She fumbled the plastic, making it cling together. “Is that so?”
“He said you were feeling unwell and could use a pick-me-up.”
She’d been banking on him not seeing Samson so that their visit could proceed as normal. Of course, since Eddie hadn’t advised Samson to stay away, he must have known she wasn’t sick. Her gut suddenly felt too heavy for the rich chocolate.
“How considerate of him. Thankfully, between a nap and your visit, I’m right as rain.”
If anything, he only looked more troubled at her assurance. “Sweetheart…what happened?”
“What do you mean?”
“I know how he feels about you.”
The plastic wrap fell to the floor in a wad. As she stooped to retrieve it, a wild hope gripped her. Perhaps nothing would make Samson happier than to walk her down the aisle. He’d always been fond of Eddie—could it be possible that…
“Do you approve?” she asked.
She looked up at him, the plastic tight in her hand, but he only turned to pull a stack of plates from the cupboard.
“If I say yes, will you choose him just to make me happy? If I say no, will you reject him just to avoid displeasing me?”
“That’s…”
“How do you feel about him, Judy?”
She threw away the plastic without rushing to take over the rest of the task for him. She chewed her lip, a habit she’d cured herself of during her career and regained in jail.
“He asks for too little, and expects too much. I’m not who he thinks I am,” she said.
“What do you think one as perceptive as him is missing, after everything?”
That was the issue. Of course, he wasn’t privy to her private thoughts, but he’d compiled a whole folder of paperwork on her crimes, and it had changed nothing.
A warm hand strangled her heart. “I don’t know if I can give him what he wants.”
“You don’t have to say yes to anything you don’t want to. He would understand, I’m sure.”
“It’s not that I don’t…”
The word want stuck in her chest, flapping its wings fruitlessly. Everything else trapped inside her spilled out.
“Neither of you understands. It’s my fault you were trapped in here. Eighteen years, Samson! You gave me a home, and that was how I repaid you. I was willing to do anything to make things right, anything. I don’t deserve to traipse right out of here and into my honeymoon.”
Nor did she want to. Even after all this time, she was still waiting to serve Samson a single cup of tea. To sit with him in the garden. To dance through the halls.
Tears stung her eyes. The fact that she hadn’t summoned them made them burn all the more. “Don’t you want me to come home?”
It was a squeaky voice, a voice eighteen years younger, not suited for the opera she’d once sung in. The voice of a girl who’d lost her only family and been thrown out into the cold he’d first rescued her from.
He put aside the cake and faced her, his hand over his heart. “Of course I do. I’m counting down the days. I’m tending your favorite perennials, so that they’ll bloom again when you’re finally there to see them.”
She clung to the warmth of the gesture. She still had a place. She still had him.
“But Judy, I hope you know that that manor isn’t what makes us a family. I know you worked hard to earn it back for me, but such painful things have happened there. Even Paul Halique wasn’t who we thought he was. Someday, I hope to donate the gallery so that you and I can start fresh.”
Static filled her brain. Everything she’d fought for wasn’t even what he wanted.
“If…if that’s what you’d like,” she said.
“All I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy, Judy. I consider it a blessing that there’s somebody out there who feels the same, no matter what you decide.”
Even if it went against his wishes, his blessing was the wrench that pried open the door—not to a decision, but to the right to peek out and imagine what she might find. The spray of the ocean, a charming little town on the distant coast, and a whale breaching the surface. Her, on the deck of a ship, twirling from bow to stern in Eddie’s arms as the whale sung, the stars serving as their chandelier. Him, laughing in earnest.
Leaving her cage and floundering because for once, she had to choose a direction in which to fly.
“I’ll consider it,” she said.
“You don’t need to figure it all out. For now, please have some cake. Once you come home, there will be a whole life ahead of you, I promise.”
Her only simple joy was in that moment of homecoming, and in this moment, where she got to help him serve the cake and watch his sweets soothe more than one wary heart. So for now, that was what she did.
There wasn’t much Judy could do to freshen up in jail, but she tried her best to look composed as she entered the visitor’s room, where Eddie was already seated. He stood and removed his hat in greeting. Part of her wanted to smooth over her nerves by bursting into song, or at least swaying to and fro, but she kept her hands clasped as she returned his bow and sat.
“I apologize for the other day,” she said.
“No probs. You feeling better?”
“Yes, thank you.”
He looked at her as intently as he would have a witness. “They treating you all right? Do I need to talk to someone?”
Not many could tell when she was affecting composure. Always, he was making things that extra bit more complicated for her, someone who always set out with a plan and a single goal. A vision that never allowed for another caring for her.
Or her caring for another.
“That won’t be necessary. Actually…I’d like to speak with you about something,” she said.
“Sure, shoot.”
Year after year, something had bloomed in her that she’d cut out at the stem. Because she couldn’t account for how it would be tended or what it would grow into. Because she couldn’t afford to lose herself or her purpose.
But Samson was…free. It was her holding him back, now, from visiting the French cafés and museums he dreamed of, from finally leaving behind that house with its bloodied stream.
The thought seized her chest, so she let herself return to a different haven, a hilltop under the stars where she’d had a shoulder to lean on.
“Your open offer…what exactly does it entail?” she asked.
“My—you mean…”
“I mean, considering my circumstances, I think you’ll agree I can’t simply waltz down the aisle.”
“No, but it’s always nice to have something to look forward to, isn’t it?”
She lowered her gaze to the bit of rust she’d memorized where the counter met the wall. “All I used to look forward to was welcoming Samson home, and I couldn’t even do that.”
“Judes…I’m sorry. I should’ve made it happen years ago.”
“No. You never gave up on him—or me. Words can’t express my gratitude.”
“Aw, shucks. But y’know, just in case this is where this is going…that offer of mine, that’s not something to accept just to say ‘thanks.’”
“Don’t worry. That isn’t it. I just think…it would be nice to have something new to look forward to.”
It felt like admitting to another theft, another poisoning. But even as her heart thumped, her mouth tried to twitch into a smile.
“Judes, does that mean—”
“You still haven’t answered my question.”
“Heh. You wanna read the fine print first?”
“Forgive my lack of romance. It’s not unreasonable to wonder what you expect of an inmate, is it?”
“‘Course not. Let’s see…for now, I’d keep visiting every day and bringing in pictures. Honeymoon locales, wedding venues, whatever you want. I’m pretty sure Samson would find a new lawyer if I brought in cake options.”
She lost her fight with her smile. “I’m sure he’d insist on being in charge of the entertainment, too.”
“No doubt. We’re gonna get stragglers from all over if word gets out. Not to mention your friends and fans wishing you well. You know…hypothetically.”
“Hypothetically…you’d commit to such a thing so soon?”
“‘Soon?’ Judes, I dunno if you noticed, but you’ve been the ‘apple of my eye’ for eighteen years. No, let me try to put this one in my own words.”
He removed his hat and clutched it against his chest.
“Not a lot of guys get to meet their celebrity crush, let alone become besties. You’ve always lit up the screen, but I know what you’ve been through and how hard you fought. Even when you were alone, you never gave up. If I can make you happy—now, tomorrow, in ten years—just say the word. I’ll come running.”
For the first time since months before, when he’d offered to defend her, warmth bubbled up in her and spilled from her eyes. “Oh! That’s—I…”
Without her fan, she could only cover her mouth with her palm. He gave her that goofy smile while she gathered herself.
“I may have felt alone, but I never really was. Not with you there,” she said.
“I’m glad to hear it.”
His sobriety recalled his heartache at what she’d done. Not because the darkness to do it lurked inside her, but because she hadn’t gone to him.
She could only be honest with him now. “I’m sorry if I seem fickle for needing more than eighteen years, but…”
“Hey, I know I’m a ‘handsome devil’ and all, but there’s no pressure to plan the rest of your life. If I were a real gentleman, I’d be asking you to dinner.”
“I realize that isn’t exactly possible.”
“Says who? I bet I can at least put in a few words to get a meal and some candlesticks in here. I’m sure Samson’d even slip me a slice of whatever he brings for you guys.”
Perking up slightly, she leaned forward. “That…does sound lovely. Will you bring in something to dance to, too?”
He leaned to rest his elbows over the counter. “Of course. The guards deserve a show now and then.”
“Then we’d better give them one.”
“So, it’s a date?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s a date.”
He jumped up and slapped his knee with a howl that made her jump.
“Hot dog! Yippee! A date with Judy Bound! I must be the luckiest guy in Los Angeles.”
Her laugh bubbled up as naturally as her tears had.
“Ooh, oh, I’ll have to dress to the nines,” he said.
“There’s no need for that. I’ll be stuck in these old clothes, anyway.”
“You’ll look like a million bucks. Wait’ll I tell Greg. Hey, you, Mr. Guard! You’ll never believe this.”
The guard looked on in bemusement at his antics, and Judy gave in to her laughter. Somehow, after time and tragedy had weathered them both, that excitable boy she met all those years ago had kept his heart. A song began to swell up in her, not a performance, but something that fluttered as it rose. She decided to cradle it just a bit longer before letting it fly free.