Haze (44 page)

"Oh, God, honey, we're so glad you're okay." My mother looked better than ever, but a bit frail given the macabre circumstances that had brought her to New York.

"You gave us quite the scare," my dad said softly, his excitement mild and subdued. "We're just glad you're all right." My dad's hair was freshly trimmed short, his usual, familiar clean-cut look intact even after my months away from home. Everything was exactly how I had left it—and still no mustache!

"I'm okay," I mumbled. "I'm just fine. Just fine." I fought and swallowed the urge to cry about the hundredth time, and then I realized that Jack had stepped out of the vehicle behind me and was approaching our group.

"Is that
him
?" My mother whispered it in my ear, her voice shaky and surprised. I pulled away from them and proudly joined Jack's side.

"Mom and dad, this is my boyfriend and
boss
, Jack. Jack, this is my mom and dad, Joy and Dean."

"It's such a pleasure to meet you both," Jack said, hitting them with one of those borderline
deadly
smiles of his. I had never been prouder of anything in my life. A beautiful collision of worlds was taking place in front of me.

"Likewise," my mom said, stepping toward Jack and meeting him with a hug. My dad caught him with a firm handshake as soon as he stepped away, their hands rising and falling as they both chuckled and grinned.

"You've got quite the thing going for you, Mr. Jack," my dad said, pointing at the limo, an obvious indicator of his success.

Jack wrapped his arm around my back and paused. "I do, Dean." He glanced down at me, and then back at them."She's beautiful and I'm the luckiest man in the world to have her."

If I had died right then and there, it would have been fine. Hell, it would have been perfect.

But life was even better than that.

Epilogue

Life has a way of becoming fascinating and exciting, but only if you let it happen. They said that meditation is just
allowing what is
, and that was incredibly true for life as well. Things arise, and you acknowledge them, greet them in a friendly tone and accept the possibility.

Not everything requires action or intense consideration. Sometimes you just have to
feel it
and not get worked up or obsessed about things that didn't really matter.

Every morning waking up next to Jack has been every bit as good as the very first time. Two years have already passed since I first met him in New York at MCI, the start of a whirlwind romance that had diligently followed us through more incredible experiences than I could count.

As predicted by Jack, Lexy took off in a huge way. Today, you can't go anywhere without running into her music, whether it be in a commercial, a movie, or on Spotify. The next concert in NYC after the CD release party took place at Madison Square Garden, something unprecedented for an artist as new as Lexy Brown.

It was huge, a moment I'll never forget. It was the first time I got to see Jack projected on giant video screens that surrounded the stage. I mean, the whole band was up there too, but obviously, I was most focused on the man I loved.

There had been almost a full year of non-stop, national and international touring. We went all across Europe, Asia, and even had stops in Japan and Australia. Everywhere we went, the shows were sold out and the crowds were insane. People loved Lexy. And due to Jack's involvement in the creative process, they loved him too. People recognized him in the street in Japan and begged for photos!

The road was luxurious, nothing like the amateur tours I heard about from friends of friends during college. As crazy as it was, on the United States tour we even had our own private, portable gym, a trailer that followed our caravan across the country and made physical fitness on the go a real thing. I got to experience so much of the world, every moment shared gloriously with Jack.

No matter where we were on the globe, he always knew great places to eat, sites to see, and anything else relevant to those particular GPS coordinates.

The thing was, as much as I loved that lifestyle—it often felt like an incredible, extended vacation—it sometimes felt like too much. Jack appeared to love it, so I usually kept quiet. Honestly, it
was
a lot of fun, but I was growing more and more worried that I would burn out and become lethargic and difficult to deal with.

And hell, I was lucky to have experiences like that. Most people never knew what life as a rock 'n' roll star was really like.

On another positive note, Jack was becoming more in demand as a producer than ever before. When I say that you couldn't escape Lexy's brilliant music, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Jack was the
hit maker of the decade
, as Rolling Stone so eloquently put it. It was unclear where that growing demand would take him, but I knew it would be big.

Sam had been sentenced to thirty-one years behind bars with no chance of parole for attempted rape and murder. I had testified at the trial, along with a number of other girls he had harassed over the years. It had been one of the most difficult things I'd ever done in my life. But I had to do it, and as Jack predicted, it brought me some genuine closure.

Facing the things that horrified me only made me stronger. Going through with something so heart-wrenching made everything else in my life that much easier. It was the truth.

Oddly enough, MCI was still around, but less powerful than ever. They had tried to buy Jack's label out on multiple occasions, and he politely told them to
get lost
. It only made me love him even more. He had lived his whole life wanting to really give the middle finger to a big corporation—and starting his own label had finally given him the opportunity to do so.

I had very seriously taken up writing in my spare time—Jack's suggestion that I find a creative outlet was a
very good one indeed
—hoping to eventually publish a book or maybe even a movie script. It had come pretty naturally, Jack's encouragement guaranteeing that I made forward progress. I loved putting words down on page, creating characters and stories like the ones I had spent so many years watching and digesting.

He had, unbeknownst to me, shown one of my works to Stacy, who sent me an email telling me how she liked it. That was a hell of a surprise. Hearing that your hero liked your work was a damn good motivator. I haven’t stopped writing ever since.

I was also still doing some of the accounting at the label, so I kept happily busy much of the time. Life felt meaningful and fulfilling, just the way Jack had promised it would be.

Jack and my parents got along great. They loved him from the very beginning, and we often flew to Michigan to spend the weekend at Lake Michigan, not too far from my old house. My dad liked to pick Jack’s brain about investments, and Jack was always eager to tell him what he knew. He even helped my mom in the kitchen, something that she couldn't say enough good things about.

The process of mending things with his parents was slower, however. But that didn't mean it didn't happen. Jack and I talked about it so much that I felt like
I
had had those negative experiences with his family. I urged him forward, just like he had with me in the Sam situation, encouraging him to face that which troubled him.

So finally, out of the blue one day, we flew to Minneapolis and he told them how he felt. It was a really emotional time, but the formerly tenuous bonds started to strengthen immediately. They weren't defensive at all as he poured out his heart, just accepting of his frustration and bottled up feelings toward them.

And when they apologized, he accepted it this time and wiped the slate clean. Unconditional love had won out in the end. So both of our families would be at our upcoming wedding—and that was perfect.

Timothy eventually apologized to me, shame overwhelming him and putting him into a nasty state of depression. As I predicted, he had realized how out-of-character all of his behavior had been—both before and after my move—and wanted to make amends for it.

I met him one last time—with Jack at my side, of course—prior to him leaving New York City. He was going to return home to work near his family and start over there. I let him gush and apologize for anything he needed to apologize for, knowing damn well that Jack would be ready for the worst if the situation took a nasty one-eighty. Nothing happened, however, and actually, I was glad to get it out of the way.

He was never a bad guy, just one unsuited to me. I didn't like that I had to remember him as the crazy, controlling, vicious, insane ex who had attacked me in a coffee shop. Now, the memories were a bit more subdued. We had closure.

So we were in Los Angeles for the weekend, poolside, sipping wine in the middle of the day. Jack had just gotten back from a brief meeting and told me that he had big news to share with me. Most of the time these days, I went with him to meetings. But this one he had asked to do alone, and I respected his wishes.

He sat down next to me at the hotel pool, clad only in his bathing suit. Our legs dipped in the water as the sun lightly cooked us from above.

"Well, I've decided to retire from touring. I'm just not going to do it anymore."

"Really?" I asked. "I thought you liked it." Inside, I quietly celebrated, my cravings for a more normal life about to come to fruition. We'd get married and settle down, the perfect progression of things.

"It's been burning me out," he said. "I love performing, but I'd rather do it at a local level, if at all. I mostly want to produce. I never wanted to complain in front of the other guys or Lexy because they were always having a blast."

I laughed, realizing he had apparently been thinking the same thing as me all along—but we never spoke of it for fear of offending someone else. "I was actually hoping you'd say something like that.
But I was worried that I'd offend
you
."

Jack kissed my forehead and put his hand around my back. "I don't think you could offend me if you tried."

"I'm pretty good when I'm mad," I said confidently.

"We'll have to test that out sometime." He took a sip of his wine and delicately rested his glass on the cement.

"So does this mean you're going to still fly around all the time to work with people?"

He smiled. "They'll come to me. I don't have to chase them around anymore. I graduated. I'm a pro now."

Holy shit.
Once again, the
best
was getting better. "W-where are you going to work from?"

"Where do
you
want to live?" he asked curiously.

"Wherever you are." I smiled, realizing it sounded tacky. "Here, maybe."

"Okay. We'll just wait and see then."

"Yeah." I nodded and stared at my reflection in the pool.

"There's one more thing," he said.

"Oh?" I asked.

"I was meeting with a film company today. They bought one of your stories and they want it developed into a script."

"What the fu—"

"I'm not kidding. I should have told you, but I snatched the draft of
The Colored Room
off the table when you left it there. Stacy said it was damn good, so I read it and then shopped it around after I realized she wasn't just saying that to be nice."

"Holy shit, Jack. I don't even know what to say." I seriously had run out of words entirely.

"Don't
say
anything. Write it. Make me proud." He pulled me closer and kissed my cheek this time.

"God, I love you, Jack. Maybe too much."

"I know what it's like to suffer from that problem. I'm
terminally ill
."

We both laughed and spent the rest of the day doing nothing, even though I really wanted to run to my laptop and start the script. This was surreal news, and it was great—but this was also vacation.

As Jack had shown me, sometimes when you stop trying so hard to see through the haze, it finally clears. And then you're left with the most beautiful things your eyes will ever see.

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