▪️Saturday, January 3rd, 2018▪️

▪️Seattle, WA▪️

The ocean smell intensifies as we walk up to the fish tossing stand at the Pike Market.

"Sorry, folks, too late." The guy in a white apron that covers him almost to his ankles packs the last of the fish away.

The stalls around are emptying out. Even though the weekend was so full of sunshine, it's not a high tourist season. I suspect we used up all the non-cloudy days Seattle produces in January that drew the locals out to the coast in droves. We are two of a handful of people still around. Checking out the market was on Mike's agenda and taking a picture of the employees tossing fish would've been exciting, but anything with Mike around is exciting.

"What's next?" I re-capture Mike's hand.

He lets the disappointed expression go, and a corner of his lips curls up. "Back to the hotel to warm up?"

"And by warm up you mean?" I cock an eyebrow at him.

"What would you like for it to mean?" He swings our hands.

"Maybe we try the bathtub and see if it's big enough for two?" I say. His eyes light up. "Then order room service and spend the rest of the time pretending we can repeat it tomorrow?"

The sparks in him dim. "I'm game for the first two, but you know I suck at pretending."

"I'll pretend for both of us." I swing our hands even harder, attempting to shake off his sadness.

Swinging hands has become our signature move. Mike not caring that we seem like two goofballs while doing it is hotter to me than the ridges of his muscles I've gotten on the first name basis with or the sharp haircut that makes him ready for a cover shoot. His mom is good at her job as a hair stylist. I'm sure she's excellent at her job as a mom because Mike is not just a masterpiece of physical beauty. The way he talks about his mom both infuriates me and melts my heart. He cares so much about the people he loves. And he loves his mother and brother. And Ben. And-

"Want to see the pig?" Mike quickens his stride only to halt by the plaque at the statue's feet. "She's been here since 1986."

"Is there a martial arts story related to the pig statue as well?" I tap my foot on the cement and do the head-tilt Mike seems to adore.

Mike's smile lights up the darkening sky. "Not that I'm aware of." He takes a twenty out of his wallet, gives it to me, and points at the slot in the pig.

"It's a piggy bank?" I jump up and down. "A giant piggy bank. Ingenious." I drop the bill into the pig. "I feel like we need to wish for something."

He examines the pig while I retrieve my phone and take another photo of him to join the hundreds I already captured this weekend. I can't ever get enough.

"Maybe next time." He rises and tucks a stray hair under my hat. "Today I have everything I could wish for." His airy kiss warms my cold nose. The conviction on his face chills me. "We could make New Year's in Seattle our thing."

What do I say? I freeze to the imprints of metal hooves around the pig as my body drinks in his words and the meaning behind them. Next time. The waves we watched at the pier are in my chest, my stomach, my head. Topsy-turvy. Exhilarating and scary.

"I didn't know to wish for you, but you've been the best thing to happen to me last year. Spending Thanksgiving with Ben's family, because Mom and Louka went to LA, was supposed to be an evening to suffer through without my family." He straightens my beanie. "Can't wait for you to be back to Chicago. So, I can show you off to them."

"No." I shake my head. "We talked about it. I'm not meeting your parents, and you're not meeting mine."

"Doesn't have to be right now, but in the future." Mike waves his hand in the air. "After your tour? Where will you be staying then?"

"That's months away." Do I plan where I'll be this time next year? Nope. A concept Mike and I can't agree on. "I'll find something."

"You could stay with me." Mike locates my hip under my jacket and slides me over to his side. "Crashing at my house will tie you over if you still prefer to search for a place."

He's assuming I'll be looking for a place in Chicago. Will I? Most likely. . .not. My breaths quicken as my lungs run out of air. The beating of my heart ramps up, and panic sits low in my abdomen, readying for a pounce. There's nothing for me in Chicago. My childhood home? Sold. My parents traveling across the US. My best friend lives in France. And then there's LA, Nashville, New York: the places where music opportunities are a reality. The warmth Mike generates in me flares up, reminding me of one reason for me to live in Chicago. Chicago has Mike. "You might be jumping the gun."

"We are getting along great." Mike rubs his face. "We would've been at each other's throats if he had problems. Imagine the space you'll have. We can convert Louka's room into a studio for you once he's off to college in summer. Mom is at work ten to eight usually. You'll have plenty of peace and quiet." Mike glows with the visions of me living in his house. With his mom. And his teenage brother.

Goosebumps race along my arms. The panic's now in my throat. It's the first week of January. Summer is further away than the end of the tour. Summer is a thing I have not given the slightest thought to. If he were talking about renting a house in Aruba for a summer vacation, I might flirt with sparing my brain cells to mull over his proposal. No season in Chicago is worth it.

We're young. We can travel the world. Be free. Settling into sharing a house with Mike's mom at twenty-four resembles a punishment more than a dream. "We sound like an old married couple in your version of the future."

Mike looks up. "My version? What's your version?"

I thread my fingers through his hair, run them over his sharp sideburns, and put a stop to the scratches of his five o'clock shadow against my oversensitive skin. My hand serves as a barrier between us. A physical reminder that we are not one whole. We are two almost strangers who are enjoying each other's company. I'm not lying to spare Mike's feelings. That shit never ends well. Today works. Tomorrow? Who knows? "I don't have one."

"Hold on there." Mike catches my hand. "You haven't thought of what we'll be doing when you are back? Or a year from now?" Now he sounds stunned.

"No." Maybe he is getting it. Carpe diem. Seize the day, not sit and think about the future that may never come.

"Why not?" Mike rumbles the question more than says it, as if the thought hurts him. As if he expected me to whip out a binder with the swatches of curtains for our future bedroom.

"I don't do things like that." I free my palm, grab my hair, and twist it into a loose bun on the nape of my neck.

"Things like what? Plan for the future?"

He is getting it. Small mercies. "Sort of."

"I don't believe it. You plan for your career. What's after the tour?"

"I don't." I was hoping to avoid the career conversation as well, but Mike's set on covering every heavy topic: parents, living arrangements, and now my lifestyle choices. Deep breaths. Here we go. "Every plan I've ever had backfired. So, I don't. I live. In this moment. In every moment. I make decisions when it's time, but not in advance. I'm not a future person. I'm as spontaneous as possible."

Mike's doing deep breaths of his own. His eyes run across the hoof prints around us, as if there's a secret message encoded in their positions. His eyes move side-to-side. Fingers crossed, this'll be the end of Mike's inquiry. He runs the hand that's not pressing me into his side over his eyes. "And the gigs you had before joining the tour?"

No. Not over. But at least I get an easy question. One not requiring me to bare my soul. If there should be any baring, better be of the parts of me located on the outside of my body, not deep in a vault inside my heart. "My manager deals with those. He tells me where to be the next day, and I get there."

"It must be hard not to know what's next." The cello inside Mike I grew to love creaks in dissonance and tortures my hearing with a pitiful approximation of what Mike sounds like.

"It's the same level of hardness as for you." I try to sound lighter than the weight of past experiences in my head. "You don't know what's next either."

"I do. I'm going to finish the renovation of the Academy, hire extra staff, study for my next engineering exam, organize a grand reopening with music, prizes, and news coverage, pass my exam, and enjoy the dual income. Oh, and in the middle of it, I'll come out and see you in Minneapolis. I've asked for time off already."

"Do you actually know what will happen?" I raise my eyebrows. "It's nothing more than a hope, a dream. You might be on another continent in February and unable to fly to see me. Or I won't be on tour anymore."

"Plans change. But not all of them. Most happen as planned."

"Nothing happens as I plan." The old bitterness rises in my chest. "It happens as it happens. And that's why I enjoy every day of my life. Because when something happens it doesn't happen despite my best efforts and planning, it happens because it's the path I'm on."

Mike touches his finger to the intersection of my nose and my eyebrows urging my wrinkles to relax. His expression is full of care and so much more. I don't allow myself to say what I see in them even inside my mind, because there'll be no return from it. The black holes of Mike's eyes are destroying me. He's giving me something I can't reciprocate. I'm not the kind of a woman who could guarantee him a next time.

I don't come with guarantees. I'm a gamble, and Mike is not a gambling man. He won't be happy worrying about not having the ability to plan. All I have is the present. My fingers find their way across the short spikes of his hair above his neck, and I drown in the now of his lips. He's mine in this stolen weekend where his reality and mine can cross paths.

The ever-lingering pain in my wrist and pinkie is no competition to the punches in my ribcage. I choke down the protests my heart is throwing at me because it wants to be happy. Without singing the shows and with the distractions Mike's been providing me with, I didn't need my pills. But even with them to dull the ache of the carnage that removing Mike from my life will cause, it'll take a lot longer than the five weeks we've known each other for me to return to happiness.

After the accident, happiness was not on my agenda. Therapy, meds, and Paolo's help changed that bit by bit. One day I woke up and for the first time in over a year I wanted to have a happy day, then a happy week, then a happy month. What I told Mike about quitting college to do music was the result of that slow progression. I've been broken before, and I know how to piece myself back together.

I'll trade my happiness for his. I want Mike to be happy, even if it crushes me. He deserves a happy future, and for that to occur, I need to let him go. But not just yet. I draw Mike into me and will myself not to do what I forbade him to talk about earlier today. I'm not going to miss him while he's still with me, because now is all I have. My hands mess up his perfect hair, his open parka drapes around me, as he tips me back to sweep me off my feet.

"Mommy, mommy, they're stuck." A girl's voice too near us forces Mike to straighten, grab my hand, and tug me behind him.

"Wait." I dig my heels into the cement walkway. "My wish."

Mike lets go of me. I bend down and rub the pig's snout, polished to a lighter color by many hands before me. I make the wish for Mike. I wish for him to be happy, to get what he wants, and to live the life he's longing for.

"What did you wish for?" Mike slings his arm around my shoulder and draws me into him as we head back to the hotel.

"I can't tell you or it won't come true." I slide my hand into the back pocket of his jeans.

"For you"-he stops-"I can make any wish come-"

I get on the tiptoes and silence him with my mouth. I don't care if this is the most obscene kiss of my life or that we are about to cross an intersection. I want to experience that sense of oneness, to engulf him, to merge. I bite his lip a smidgen too hard and even though I know I don't have a forever with him, I wish I can steal a bit of him to keep with me. A tiny shard of Mike. A little piece of his heart.

He laughs into my lips and squeezes me so tight, I'm breathless. When the light changes, we stagger across the street drunk on the anticipation of one more night of being tangled in each other.