Follow Me Back (complete first draft of the published book)

Chapter 32: Cold Feet

Chapter 32: Cold Feet

Eric rubbed his palms together briskly. He could feel his fingers growing numb. He cupped his hands around his mouth and blew in a puff of air to warm them.

It must be one hell of a cold front blowing in, he thought. The temperature had plummeted by 20 degrees in the ten minutes since the sun had sunk below the horizon. A stiff wind blew steadily across the parking lot, whipping up the tumbleweed and forcing Eric to lean slightly to his left to keep his balance.

He longed to return inside the shelter of the club. Maybe someone in there had a warmer coat that he could borrow. Maybe Maury? Eric could hear the faint sound of his manager's voice from just on the other side of the door, yapping away on his cell phone.

But he couldn't quite bring himself to peel his eyes away from the abandoned two-lane highway that ran in front of him. Not even for a moment. He didn't want to miss her.

Eric blew into his hands again and stamped his feet against the cold.

"Feet," he muttered to himself. "Cold feet."

The words had just come to his mind, unbidden, and he winced as he stamped again. She should have been here by now. It must be after six. Was that what had happened to her? Cold feet?

"Come on, Tessa," he whispered. "Don't back out on me now."

He'd spent all day planning in his head exactly how this meet-and-greet would go, but he hadn't particularly worried that she wouldn't show up at all. Not after the talk they had last night.

He hadn't meant to tell her just how much he felt until today. He'd wanted to say it in person, standing face to face. But he couldn't hold back in the end. He simply hadn't had the strength to keep the words inside for a single second longer. It must have been the song request that finally did him in.

"I'll be happy just as long as he does Snowflake."

He couldn't even explain the burst of giddy happiness that had made him laugh out loud with joy when she said it. She had no idea what it meant to him, just to hear her say she liked the song.

And not just that she liked it. What else had she said?

"I wish someone would write a song like that about me."

A crooked grin sprang onto Eric's face again as he remembered. Oh, the irony. It was probably the most perfect thing she possibly could have said. So perfect, in fact, that it had nearly been his undoing.

"Tessa, I DID write that song about you."

He'd tapped those words into his message bar, and then he'd sat there staring at them for a long moment with his finger hovering over the Send button. So tempting, just to tell her. Just to come clean and get it off his chest. Put them both out of suspense once and for all.

She thought she knew what that song was about, but she still had no idea. Sure, it was a love song like she said, but it was more than that. In the end, that song had become a kind of chronicle of the whole journey he'd undergone these past six months, since that day at the end of August. That horrible day when he'd been at his absolute low, and he'd first written those lyrics filled with barely concealed bitterness and loathing.

I watch the snowflakes falling

Too many for me to see

But I know each one is beautiful

Special and unique.

He'd written it the very day when he first became aware of her existence.