Page 103 of Side Trip

He blew out a breath. “Other than Jack was a dick and sending me on this trip was a dick move? No, nothing.” His father was the only guy Dylan knew who was as selfish in death as he was in life. He still refused to acknowledge Dylan’s stage anxiety.

“All right, try this: What did you learn on this trip?”

“I still have no desire to be a rock star, but ...”—he added with a self-deprecating grin—“I did gain an appreciation for sharing my voice with an audience, even if it’s an audience of one.” He squeezed her hand and she gave him a winning smile.

“Maybe that’s what your dad wanted you to learn all along. I wonder if it’s that simple.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you miss him at all?”

Dylan thought of his childhood. Jack didn’t read him bedtime stories or make Sunday morning pancakes. But they had music. Their offstage and in-studio jam sessions were epic. Dylan missed those days.

“Yeah. I do.”

“What’s your uncle going to do now that your dad’s gone?”

“Last I talked to him, he wasn’t sure. He’ll probably launch a solo career. He’d be damn good at it, too. Between us? He’s more talented than Jack.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Joy mimed locking her lips and tossing the key, exactly what Dylan had done the day they’d met when he’d promised not to ask questions about Judy. A lot of good that had done. If he’d learned anything, it was that Joy was far better at keeping promises than him.

“Ready to go?”

Joy took one last look at the Route 66 sign and blew a kiss to the pink rose bouquet. He dropped an arm around her shoulders, and she drew hers around his waist. “Let’s go.”

They spent the next forty-eight hours in Chicago, and they were more mind-blowing than the past twenty-seven. Dylan booked a suite at the Hilton and they only left the room twice, once each night for his gig in a shady bar in a sketchy part of the city. If his time with Joy hadn’t been limited, he would have insisted she wait for him at the hotel. The crowd even made him uncomfortable. But Joy wanted to hear him sing and watch him give his guitar a workout. Fine by him, but he insisted that she sit as close to him as possible while he was onstage, like within arm’s reach. He could yank her out of harm’s way should a fight break out.

When they returned to the hotel after his first Chicago gig, Joy didn’t silence her phone. After a final call to her parents, then to her best friend Taryn, and finally to Mark to report where she was staying (not at the Hilton) and when she expected to arrive in New York (she wanted to stay an extra day in Chicago since she’d lost a day because of the storm), she turned off the device and buried it in her luggage.

“Mark isn’t going to freak when you don’t call him tomorrow?” Dylan asked.

“Of course he will. I’ll say I lost my charger and didn’t have enough money to buy a new one.” She ran her hands up his chest and locked her fingers behind his neck. “Forty-eight hours, Dylan. I’m all yours.”

“Forty-eight hours,” he echoed with a kiss that lit him up like wildfire. For forty-eight hours, aside from one more gig, there wouldn’t be any interruptions. For forty-eight hours, Joy would be 100 percent his, and he would be hers. The suite would be their world. He wouldn’t think about the past or worry about the future.

At one point, midway through the next day, Dylan unboxed the Polaroid camera Jack’s attorney had given him and loaded the film.

Joy, lying on her back, looking sated and beautiful in a bed of white cotton sheets, lifted to her elbows. “You’ve had a Polaroid this whole time?”

He smirked. “Rick’s idea of a lame joke.”

“I think it’s cool. So retro. I can’t believe you haven’t used it.”

It was a stupid gimmick, until now. He finally had a picture worth taking.

He looked through the lens. “Smile, gorgeous.” She did and he pressed the button. The camera spat out a photo. He shook the paper, climbing back into bed. He lay down beside her, his head touching hers, and held up the photo. They waited quietly as it processed and, slowly, Joy’s image appeared. She gasped. He grinned.

“That’s a good picture of you.” With her blonde hair over her shoulders and bedsheet around her waist.

She plucked the photo from him.

“Hey.”

“I’m naked. No way can you keep that.”

“That was the idea,” he grumbled. He made a pouty face and she laughed. He was going to miss that laugh. Bright and full of fun.

“Take another.” She pulled the sheet over her breasts. They smiled up at the camera, her hair a golden halo spilling across the pillow, and he took the picture. He turned his head and pressed his lips to her cheek and took another. That photo would have been his favorite, the way she was looking into the camera so that he could look back into her soul, but she took the photo, and the others, stashing them somewhere with her belongings, when he’d taken a shower before that night’s gig.

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