Page 74 of Lost Love on 6th Street

I push my tongue into my cheek and nod. Talking will be too painful until I know where she’s going with this.

Eleanor’s brow laces together. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“’S’okay,” I manage. “You were just . . . feeling how you felt.” I cross my arms over my chest to prevent my heart from falling to the fucking ground. “You should have warned me that you were coming, though.”

“I texted,” she says haplessly.

I remember there’s no service backstage, but I say nothing.

“The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Luke,” she says.

Here it comes. The letdown. I brace for it.

“I’m scared. We know this. Seems to be a baseline for me,” she says with a half-smile. “But that’s not a good excuse to not go for what I want.”

I ignore the flutter of hope in my belly. What’s she talking about?

She reaches into her bag of magic tricks and fishes out a set of keys, a set I know not to be hers.

“What are those?” I ask. I can’t get excited until I know. I won’t be let down again.

“Keys to my new place.”

My lips part. What do I say? What do I even do?

“I signed the lease after work.”

Say it. Please just say it.

Eleanor’s eyes twinkle in mine. “I’m staying.”

The dam holding back the possible joy breaks. I wrap my arms around her, lift her into the air, and spin her around.

Eleanor lets out a gleeful laugh, throwing her arms around my neck, holding on for dear life.

“Tell me you’re not kidding,” I say urgently. “Tell me this isn’t a fucking dream.”

Eleanor frames my face in her hands. The cool metal of the keys brushes my skin.

No dream could feel this real.

“I’m staying, Luke.”

I brush a hand through her hair. I don’t know what to say. I’m overwhelmed with a torrent of hopes and dreams, of memories, of fears. Every pent-up feeling I had when I considered her leaving Austin happens all at once. “Oh, Nor . . .” I don’t have anything good to say, so I kiss her. Deep and unfettered. The way I imagined I might earlier today when I thought I might be her hero. Better late than never.

Eleanor sighs into me, her beautiful body sinking into mine. Her lips split from mine. “I take it you’re happy?”

“Was that not obvious?” I ask.

We both laugh, unwilling to draw away even an inch.

“Are you happy?”

Eleanor is quiet for a few moments, then nods. “Yeah. I’m really, really happy.”

“Good. Good, that’s what matters.”

I finally set her back down on the ground, but I keep my arms around her. If I let her go, I’m afraid she might run back to whatever future she thought about in Chicago.

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