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.”