I Wish That You Were Mine

Chapter Sixteen

“San Jose,” he blurted. “I’ve been renting a house up there. I thought it would be good for me, you know, to be back where it all started… where we started.”

Stevie blushed at his heartfelt words, more sincere than she had heard him in a long time. She slowly felt herself crumbling in front of him.

“I spent all day every day, writing and playing song after song, whatever came to me. At first I found it therapeutic, but as time went by, I began to realise that maybe it had been all been a huge mistake…”

“So why did you stay away for so long?” Stevie demanded in her exasperation.

Evidently nervous, Lindsey thumbed the hem of his shirt and it made Stevie uncomfortable.

“I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t come back until I had a reason to.”

Stevie searched his face for answers, but he was more difficult to read than she had ever known.

“What kind of reason were you waiting for?” she dared to ask, but Lindsey did not respond. “Lindsey, answer me.”

“I told Karen to only use the number if it was important,” he informed, dropping his gaze to his lap. “The longer I spent away, the more time I had to think, to clear my head and get some perspective. It didn’t take long for me to realise what it was I truly wanted, what I had… and what I’d lost.”

A thick silence hung in the air and Stevie shifted awkwardly in her seat.

“After a while, I’d convinced myself that the phone would ring. But it never did…” he said sadly. “I knew that if the call ever came, it would be something so important that you would have wanted me to be with you – for whatever it was – and that would have been enough of a reason for me.”

Stevie could not believe her ears. Was he really saying all of this? Did she actually understand what it was he was saying? Or was her mind playing a cruel trick on her? To Stevie, it almost sounded like she was the reason he had been waiting for.

She suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

“Karen called you, didn’t she?” Stevie croaked, unable to look him in the eyes.

“She did.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Only that it was important, and that I should come to the house at 2pm.”

Stevie glanced at her watch.

“It’s nine o’clock, Lindsey.”

“I know, but when I turned up, I didn’t expect to see crowds of people coming in and out of your house and a party going on inside!” he became loud again and she motioned for him to lower his voice.

“So you waited outside for seven hours?”

Lindsey nodded and reached out to take her hands in his.

“I came here for you, not for them.”

Her heart stilled in her chest and the whole room began to spin. The gentle hold of her hands in his instantly transported her back to a time when their love was pure and tender, and for a moment, she believed that she was looking at the same man that he had been all those years ago. The man she feared that she had lost forever.

And then she met his gaze. There, behind all of the feeling, was a question lingering in the depths of his eyes.

“So…” he began, squeezing her hands in his. “What is it that was so important, that Karen felt the need to call me?”

Stevie swallowed uncomfortably, racking her brain for something to say. She had been hoping and wishing that he would turn up, but she had not considered what would happen after that if he did.

“Stevie? Is everything alright?” he asked worriedly.

Was it? She did not know. Here he was, admitting that he had been waiting for a call that she never knew she could even make, and that she was the only reason he ever needed to return. It was all she had ever wanted to hear, but that was now just the problem.

It was her that he wanted… just her.

“Oh my gosh…” Lindsey whispered, his eyes growing wide. “Stevie, please, don’t tell me… There’s – there’s someone else, isn’t there?”

She nodded her head tearfully as he slowly withdrew his hands from hers and raised his eyes to the heavens with a deep, heaving breath.

Before she even had time to explain who that person was, the words were taken right out of her mouth as the sound of Lily’s cries rang loudly through the baby monitor that sat on the mantelpiece, tearing through the silence in the living room.

Lindsey jumped at the sound and his head snapped back to search Stevie’s face desperately.

“Stevie… what’s – what’s going on?”

“I’m sorry, I – I have to go to her… I’ll be back in a minute,” she stuttered, standing up from the couch and sweeping out of the room.

Alone in the living room, Lindsey ran a hand through his hair in exasperation.

What had he done?

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A/N: How will Lindsey react when he finds out? Next chapter is a continuation!