LISA

"Oh, shit. Run!" The spark on the fuse jumped an inch. I shoved my hand in Jennie's stomach and pushed her away before the thing exploded.

She bolted for the lawn, tripping over her own feet and tumbling on the grass as she laughed hysterically.

"Take cover!" I tackled Louis—carefully—whose laughter was drowned out by the boom of the firework cannon.

He scrambled to his feet, jumping and shouting as the flare shot into the night sky. It burst with a loud pop into sparks of golden light, crackling as they streamed above us.

Collective oohs and aahs sounded from the audience seated in camping chairs in the driveway.

Like we'd done for as long as I could remember, we were celebrating Independence Day at my parents' house. We'd spent the evening grilling burgers and hot dogs, eating and visiting in the backyard, while we'd waited for nighttime to fall.

Then as twilight approached, Hanbin, along with Bradley, Dad and me, came outside to prepare for the show.

We'd let the kids throw snap pops and twirl sparklers. Then we'd set up a row of chairs, brought out blankets to ward off the chill and moved on to the pyrotechnics.

Hanbin and I had worked for a couple of hours this morning at the Bridger project before calling it a day. Then we'd headed to a local firework stand. The two of us had been stockpiling fireworks for weeks, but that hadn't stopped us from dropping another three hundred dollars, each.

No way we weren't kicking Judd Franklin's ass this year in the street's unofficial contest.

My mom and Ruby were snuggled in chairs. Brooklyn cuddled her son beside Pete while Mindy held Maya, who'd miraculously fallen asleep. And the rest of us took turns lighting fuses and goofing around.

"Can I light the next one?" Louis asked, bouncing around me and tugging on my jeans.

"It's my turn." Jennie swiped the lighter from my grip and smiled at my son. "But you can help."

I stayed seated on the lawn, close to Hanbin, who had Evan on his lap, and watched as they approached the row of cannons. Hanbin and I had set it up strategically so the big bang was at the end.

Jennie took Louis's hand, shielding him with her shoulder, before she clicked the lighter on and touched it to the fuse.

"Go! Go! Go!" She made a show of diving for the lawn, our safety zone, and held Louis tight as the spark inched close to the base of the cannon.

Boom.

"Bees! Yes." Jennie threw her arms in the air. "My favorite."

They buzzed around above us, zipping through the air, until they burned out. "What do you normally do for the Fourth?" I asked Jennie when she sat down beside me. Hanbin and Evan were up next.

She leaned back on her elbows, black shiny hair dangling to the grass, and smiled up at the sky. "If we're not on the road, I usually stay home and do nothing. You can't see the fireworks from my apartment. Though, normally, we're traveling. There's always a gig for the holiday weekend."

"Anything memorable?"

"A couple of years ago, we had a performance at this amphitheater outside of Boise on the Fourth. They did fireworks during the last song of our final set. It was really amazing. Jimin told me that they spent fifty grand on fireworks. But this is better. I missed this."

"It's hard to beat."

The street wasn't officially blocked off, but everyone knew not to drive this way until the noise had stopped. No traffic meant we could set up in the road and have lots of space to play.

The tradition was, we'd do our own show of fireworks, competing with the neighbors, until it was time for the city's show. Then we'd burrow into our chairs and watch. From Mom and Dad's driveway, we had a great view of the fireworks set off at the fairgrounds.

Our row in the street was dwindling and I checked the time. There was only fifteen minutes before the big show.

"Should we do the finale?" Hanbin asked as Dad tossed me his lighter.

"Can I help?" the boys asked in unison.

"Not this time, guys." I stood beside Hanbin. "This is for the adult."

Louis plopped down on the grass beside Jennie as Evan raced over to sit in his red mini chair beside Mom.

"Ready?" Hanbin asked.

I grinned. "How much money do you think Judd Franklin spent this year?" Hanbin wagged his eyebrows and clicked his lighter.

"Not enough."

We loved the Franklins. They'd been our neighbors for decades. But once a year, we went to war. Last year, Judd had gone to the reservation to buy his fireworks, and though we didn't have an official judging system, we'd all known he'd won. But Judd had gotten reprimanded when word of his illegal fireworks had spread and this year he'd bought local too.

"Three and three?" Hanbin asked, pointing to the six large canisters we'd staged away from the others.

"Sounds good. Let's go for seven seconds apart."

Hanbin shot an arrogant smirk across the street. My wave was equally as cocky. Then we lined up by our fireworks and began touching flame to fuse. By the time they were lit, the first was nearly ready to explode. We jogged to the lawn and I collapsed beside Louis and Jennie.

"Here we go." I looked at her profile. "Don't blink."

She smiled, and the light in her eyes danced as a pink starburst filled the sky.

And that was how I watched the finale. Not with my eyes aimed above, but at her face. I watched as the blue and green and red lights bounced against her skin. I watched the sparkles from the glitter in her eyes.

Two more days.

She'd been coming over each night after dinner. She'd play drums with Louis for a while, then hang out until he was asleep in bed. Then she'd come to mine. Each morning, she'd leave around five, and though we'd had the night together, it wasn't enough.

Two more days. Then she'd be gone.

"We definitely won this year, huh, Dada?" Louis asked, forcing my eyes away from Jennie's face.

I held up my hand for a high-five. "Totally."

"Nice show, neighbors." Judd waved from across the street.

"Same to you, Judd," Bradley called back with a smugness to his voice. Jennie giggled.

"Dad is rarely competitive, except when it comes to this."

Bradley had chipped in a hundred fifty bucks to our fireworks budget. Dad had matched it too.

"I'm going to get a snack." Louis popped up and ran to his chair beside Evan's, digging into the cooler that Mom had packed for the grandkids. He pulled out a juice box and a bag of Cheetos Puffs. We didn't do healthy food with fireworks.

I stood from the lawn and held out a hand to help Jennie up. "Want to stick around for the main show? Or do you want to sneak out?"

"Sneak out," she answered, no hesitation. "Like old times. What about Louis?"

"He's spending the night with Mom and Dad."

"Where's your truck?"

"In the alley."

"All planned out."

I winked. "Like old times."

No one asked where we were going or what we were doing when we said our early goodbyes—a welcome change to the interrogation we'd gotten in high school whenever we'd left alone. I hugged Louis, who was so distracted with his snack that he barely noticed my good night.

"Don't worry." Mom kissed my cheek. "We've got him."

"Thanks, Mom. See you in the morning."

When I glanced around, Jennie had already disappeared. I gave the group one last wave, ready to go find her, but Ruby's stare gave me pause.

There was worry on her face. The expression familiar to a lot I'd seen in high school.

But Jennie and I weren't too young now. We'd had our fair share of experiences, the ones she'd wanted us to have. Apart.

So why the concern?

Ruby blinked and the look was gone. She gave me a smile before I turned and jogged around the side of the house, crossing through the yard to the alley.

Jennie was shrugging on a jacket as she stood by my truck. "So where are we going?"

I hit the locks and opened her door. "You'll see."

Fifteen minutes later, after I'd driven through town, I pulled off the highway and onto a gravel road that led toward the mountain foothills.

Jennie smiled. "Story Hills."

I nodded. "It's changed some over the years."

"Hasn't everything?"

"True."

Jennie and I had spent a lot of weekends finding places to disappear, and Story Hills had been a favorite. It was no more than a parking lot and trailhead to the mountains, but at night it was usually empty, and the cops hadn't once chased us away.

I steered us through twists and turns, bouncing along the bumpy road until we reached the parking lot. It was empty, as expected, because from here, you couldn't see the fireworks in town. But we'd come here for a different set of lights.

Without needing to explain, I parked and reached into the backseat to get the blankets I'd stashed earlier. Jennie was already out her door and climbing into the truck bed.

"Here." I handed her the blankets to spread out, then hopped up to join her.

She laid down on her back, her legs crossed at her ankles and her hands folded on her stomach as she looked up to the stars.

I eased down beside her, our arms brushing. "One."

"Two."

The stars were bright this far from town and there was the faint glow of the Milky Way's creamy haze. "Three."

She relaxed on a sigh, leaning closer so her cheek touched my shoulder. "Four."

"Five."

"Six," she whispered.

"Seven." My hand stretched to take hers.

"What are we doing?"

"Counting stars."

She squeezed my hand. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah," I muttered. I knew and didn't want to have this conversation. She'd been right earlier in the week, to go without a goodbye. I didn't want one.

Jennie shifted so our eyes met. "Do you hate me for leaving?"

"No. I hate that I knew you had to go and that I handled it so badly. But that's on me. Not you."

"I didn't handle it well either."

"Doesn't matter now." With my free hand, I cupped her cheek. "I'm glad we had this time. To put it behind us."

"Me too. What happens after I leave Saturday?"

You come back. "You tell me?"

Instead of an answer, she turned her head to the stars again. "Eight." "Nine."

We counted until we reached fifty-six. "What's it like being on tour?"

"Stressful," she said. "Tiring. At least, it has been lately. We're under a lot of pressure to write our next album and it's sucking the joy out of the travel."

"Can you take a break?"

"We're on one now. It's been good. That song I'm working on from Nan's letters has been . . . it's been the most fun creating I've had in a while. It was overdue. We've been so caught up in the touring these past few years, I think we forgot why we started this in the first place. But the shows. They're addictive."

"How so?"

"The lights. The crowds. The intensity." Her free hand floated into the air, dancing above us as she spoke. "It's a rush. It's a high. You go up there, and no matter how tired you are from taking a red-eye across the country or not sleeping because you're stuck on a tour bus, you get this energy. It feeds you and makes you forget about everything else. For one magical hour, it all makes sense again. So you put up with the in-between."

"And you live hour to hour."

"Exactly."

In my own way, I could relate. Playing at the bar was a blast. Amp that up to a larger scale, I could totally see how it would become a drug of its own.

And she'd leave here to keep living those hours. "Fifty-seven," I said.

"Fifty-eight."

We reached one hundred eleven before she stopped counting again. "You asked me last week if we were real. As kids."

"Yeah," I drawled, having no clue where she was going with this.

"We were real, Lisa. We are real."

I shifted, rolling up on my side to look down at her face. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I never stopped loving you. I doubt I ever will."

The sadness in her eyes broke my heart as I spoke her next word. "But . . ."

"But it's not you," she said. "You said it yourself that night after the Eagles. My lifestyle would make you crazy. The schedule is grueling and there's no such thing as routine. If we tried to make it work, you'd end up resenting me. I'd end up hating the music. And Louis would suffer the most."

I loved her for considering my son in the equation.

"I don't want to give it up," she whispered. "The magic hours. I don't want to quit."

"And I wouldn't ask you to." I closed my eyes, taking a moment for the pain to fade.

Louis and I couldn't follow her around the world. We couldn't hop on and off buses and airplanes for months in the year. I wouldn't subject myself to that kind of chaos, let alone my son. He needed to be here, in Bozeman with our family. In school. In our home.

There was no practical way to merge our lives together. The give and take, the sacrifices, would end up destroying us both.

"Where does that leave us?" I asked. "Do we end this now? Tonight?"

Her chin quivered as she nodded. "If I wake up in your bed one more time, I won't want to leave."

And I wouldn't let her go.

"I loved you too. It's taken me this week to see it, but you were right. It was real. Every minute."

"Maybe it was destiny. We were always meant to walk different paths. Before, we were too young to understand it. But now . . ."

Now we could walk away without anger or frustration or words left unsaid. Her hand came to my cheek. "Lisa, I wish—"

I cut her off with a kiss, stealing whatever words she was about to say that would only make it harder for me to let her go.

And I would. I'd let her go.

She belonged on that stage. She'd earned those magic hours.

Jennie hadn't said she wouldn't give it up. She'd said she didn't want to quit. There'd been a hesitancy in her voice, in her words, like if I'd asked, she'd cave.

So I kissed her before my resolve weakened. Before I broke my promise and begged.

My tongue darted into her mouth, my hands roamed her gentle curves. And when she came apart in my arms later, both of us panting and sweaty, I memorized the warmth from her lips in the cool night air and the way the moonlight turned her hair silver.

The drive home was silent, every mile toward her house agonizing.

When I pulled onto the block, I noticed that most of the firework debris had been cleaned away. The Franklins had already pulled their trash can to the curb for tomorrow's pickup.

I parked in front of her house and moved to shut off the truck, but her hand shot out, stopping me before I could shift into park.

"No, don't," she pleaded. "Don't get out."

"Why?"

"Because I can't do it." A tear dripped down her cheek. "I can't say goodbye. So just let me walk away."

Like she'd done at the airport nine years ago. That was why she'd walked away.

"Will you tell Louis goodbye for me?"

I nodded, unable to speak.

Then she leaned across the console and pressed her lips to mine, the taste of her salty tears falling onto my lips.

I held her to me, savoring one last kiss before she ripped herself away and yanked at the door handle.

She flew up the sidewalk and vanished behind the door.

My throat burned as I stared up at her bedroom window, waiting to see if she'd appear in the glass and wave. The room stayed dark. So I pulled my foot off the brake and drove home. When I walked inside my dark house, the sense of loneliness nearly brought me to my knees.

Was this how it would be? Was this my life? Living for my son. Using his activities to keep me busy. Using work to distract me from the fact that there was a hole in my chest.

I'd been doing it for years, so why not a few decades more.

My body flew into action and I began ripping open the kitchen cabinet doors. I emptied the upper cupboards first, hauling plates and bowls and glasses to the dining room table. Then I cleared out the lower. Things I used regularly were stacked beside my dishes. The other items that my mother had given me over the years—two slow cookers and a bread machine—went downstairs for storage.

The first swing of my sledgehammer was around two in the morning. By four, I'd filled the bed of my truck with cabinets to donate to Habitat for Humanity. By five, I'd made an impressive pile of junk in my driveway.

As dawn approached, I stood in the kitchen, staring at the demolition.

Fuck.

Why hadn't I begged Jennie to stay?