Page 113 of The Pucking Arrangement

Couple.

The word hit wrong. Tangled something in my chest.

A sharp crack of thunder rattled through the garden as the first real downpour hit, sending our videographer running inside.

But I barely felt the rain.

My mind was spinning too fast, trying to process the bomb Luka had just dropped in my lap.

Not just the summer festival.

Not just Dubrovnik.

Three months in the fall. Thirty cities. A dream tour across Europe’s most prestigious concert halls.

And three months away from Dmitri.

Away from Ris.

That’s a steep price to pay.

And now, wrapped in cool Egyptian cotton sheets, my brain is still buffering, stuck somewhere between panic and denial.

Dubrovnik. The jewel of the Adriatic. Sun-drenched stone walls, crystal blue waters, a stage that can turn promising musicians into stars.

The kind of opportunity I’ve spent my entire life working toward.

Past tense.

Tanglewood is peanuts in comparison.

I roll over in the too-empty guest room bed, staring at the ceiling.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Last semester, I wrote a whole sociology paper about women who got their fancy degrees only to throw it all away for a man. Look at Melissa, I continue my internal rant. Harvard MBA. Cutthroat instincts. Could probably run a Fortune 500 company in her sleep.

And now?

Bake sales. PTA meetings. Coordinating figure skating carpools like it’s her life’s calling.

“Some of us choose this,” she’d said last week when we met for the playdate, sipping her organic matcha while the girls played with their American Girl dolls. That knowing little smirk like she could already see my future.

Like she knew exactly where I was headed before I even did.

Well, I don’t think so, flashes through my mind defiantly.

But still, here I am.

Twenty-four years old.

Lying awake.

Contemplating passing up the opportunity of a lifetime because...

Because I like making pancakes with a six-year-old?

Because five days without Dmitri feels like withdrawal?

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