Dylan slides his phone from his front pocket and settles into the back seat of the hired Land Rover with the blacked-out windows his cousin Chase booked to pick him up from Heathrow and transport him to the heart of London. Dylan has just enough time to check into the hotel, shower, and meet up with Chase at the Old Blue Last. The Broke Millennials are playing tonight and Chase has had his eye on them. He wants Dylan’s sign-off before he sits down with the band’s manager to discuss signing them to the label they launched a few years back, Westfield Records. It’s the reason he’s flown to London and why he and Chase will be following the music festival circuit. To study trends and scout talent. The Broke Millennials are one of many acts on their radar.
Before he registers what he’s doing, Dylan opens the App Store and downloads Facebook. He stares at the screen, finger hovering over the blue square icon, and watches the loading spinner circle until it disappears, alerting him that the app has fully loaded.
He’s never created a social media profile. Until this second, he’s avoided social media altogether. Because of who he is and what he does, the less about him on the internet, the better. He doesn’t want psychos stalking his profiles. He doesn’t want to give Jack’s followers, a fan base in mourning, access to any part of his personal life, and that includes messaging him through some random app. But Facebook may be the only way he can see her.
Dylan taps the icon and creates a profile under the name D. West. He doesn’t add any personal information when prompted other than the basic requirements, and he doesn’t friend anyone. But he does search for her. Joy Evers. From San Bernardino, California. Lives in New York, New York. Relationship status: engaged.
He clenches his teeth.
It’s not like he didn’t know she’s engaged. But it’s a bitter rub to see it right there on his phone. A middle finger to his achy-breaky heart.
Wonder when she’ll update her status.
Dylan’s got no clue. She didn’t tell him her wedding date, and he didn’t ask.
He enlarges her profile picture and his head hurts. She’s beautiful, he thinks. It’s an older photo. She looks younger than the one he has of her, the one he stole from her phone. He texted it to his cell when she wasn’t looking, then deleted the message on her phone. Unless she looks at her phone bill—like anyone does that—she’ll never know. But Joy looks happier in the photo he has, and he’d like to think that she is happier because she’s with him. It’s also the only photo he has of her because she kept the Polaroids.
He opens her album of profile photos and flips through them until he lands on one with her and Mark. She’s showing off her engagement ring. We’re engaged! the caption reads.
The real world slaps him on the cheek.
Wake up, man.
He closes the app and hot potato drops his phone into the armrest cup holder.
He wasn’t supposed to have searched for her. He isn’t even supposed to be thinking about her. They have an agreement. He didn’t realize it would be such a bitch to honor it.
Get over her, Westfield.
She isn’t part of his future, and he isn’t part of hers.
Mark is.
CHAPTER 5
AFTER
Joy
“Wife.” Mark whispers the word to her with emotion. A term of endearment.
He leads Joy around the dance floor at the Starling Chateau, their wedding venue in upstate New York. The garden ceremony was perfect, exactly how she imagined. A grand vintage fifties affair her sister, Judy, had once dreamed about. Joy did everything she could to replicate the wedding plans she’d found in Judy’s hatbox of bucket and goal lists.
Joy laughs when Mark unexpectedly dips her. Their reception is in full swing. Vows have been exchanged, glasses raised, and toasts made. Cake eaten and champagne consumed. Quite a bit of champagne, given her husband’s hooded gaze.
He leans his forehead against hers. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to call you my wife?”
“How long?” Joy plays along. Their how-we-met story is Mark’s favorite to tell. She fits a hand to his neck, keeping him close.
“Since the day your backpack fell at my feet.” He grins goofily and kisses her soundly on the mouth. He pulls away with a trace of June bug–pink on his lips.
Joy laughs lightly and glides her thumb across his full bottom lip, wiping off the lipstick. She’s surprised there’s still tint on her lips given the amount of champagne she’s consumed. A circle of lipstick dirties the rim of her champagne flute. It’s an irritating side effect, and the main reason she forgoes wearing any brand of lipstick aside from on special occasions. It leaves its mark everywhere. She’ll have to address that with Vintage Chic’s long-lasting lipstick line’s product manager. Their eighteen-hour wearable shades wear off in less than seven. It’s one of their customers’ chief complaints. The line needs to be rebranded or the formula reworked. Unless Joy comes up with a new formula first. Hmmm, she thinks. She can present the solution to the department head. The promotion from lab technician to junior cosmetic chemist she’s had her sights on would be hers.
Mark twirls her and draws her into his chest. “What do you think would have happened if your backpack didn’t leap from the chair, hmm?” Mark rubs his nose against hers, pins her with his gaze.
Joy gasps in mock horror. “Backpacks don’t leap. Someone . . .”—she taps his chest—“tipped the chair.”
“You have no proof.”
Joy pinches his ribs and he laughs.
“Cheater. I was pushed,” he adds.
“Keep telling yourself that,” Joy teases.
But he’s right. Mark had been pushed, and Joy assumed he tipped the chair and her backpack slid off the seat. Though she didn’t see it happen. Her attention had been on Mark’s impressive coffee-balancing skill.
She’d met him midway through her sophomore year at UCLA. He was in the master’s program studying business analytics. Joy was majoring in chemical engineering and had just nabbed the last table at an off-campus coffee shop to study for her physics final. The café-style tabletops barely had space for her coffee cup and textbook, let alone room for someone else’s mug and their study material.
Joy settled into a chair and dropped her backpack on the empty seat beside her so that she could easily access her notes and pencils. She launched her laptop, textbook open in her lap, and started working through a practice exam when a shadow fell over her table.
“Is this seat taken?”
Joy looked up into a pair of warm brown eyes. It was the guy who’d been behind her in line. Cute and of average height, just shy of six feet. His broad shoulders tapered to a lean waist and muscled thighs. He wore a Bruins rugby sweatshirt.
Joy glanced at the chair with her backpack. “It’s occupied.” She didn’t want company. Company was inclined to talk. She didn’t have time for chitchat. She had to focus on her studies. The answers didn’t come easy for her, not like they had for Judy. Joy had to work ten times harder in high school to earn her 4.2 GPA to get into UCLA, and she had to work even harder to pass her college courses. Chemical engineering wasn’t a turtle, a surfing technique she perfected early on where she’d roll her board in front of an oncoming wave to get under it. But she was determined to play by the rules and make up for the years she hadn’t.