Somewhere Else

Chapter 1

I slid open the glass door and wrapped my arms and the blanket around him from behind. I felt him sigh before turning to me, an unlit cigarette held between his fingers.

I raised one eyebrow to him. "Oh, has Rob popped in?"

He gave me the tiniest of eye rolls before speaking. "I've had a pack in my rubbage drawer for years."

"I see. Run out of matches?"

He smiled down at me. "Well, love, I went to light it, but there was this little voice in my head that kept saying something like 'you know, that thing is literally killing you every time you bring it to your lips.'" His American accent was pretty convincing.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Elle." He grabbed my hand and led me to the bench in his yard.

"What's got you so worked up?" I turned to look into his eyes, but his were directed at my hand. He was holding it in both of his, running his fingers over my skin, and still managing to send an electric shock of heat through my body.

"You've never been in a long distance relationship before." The dejection in his voice made me uneasy. I wanted to fix whatever was bothering him, but I could only do so if he would let me in, and he so rarely let me feel his pain.

"So?"

"So it'll be hard, love. I'm leaving in two days, and I'll be gone for two months. We'll be lucky if we get to see each other once in that time. And..." His voice trailed off.

"And what?"

I watched him close his eyes, as if he were bracing himself for something. "I love you so much, Elle. But I'm not going to be able to just hop on a flight back here in a moment's notice. I'm going to be too far away, not to mention that I'll be working. I wish you could come with me."

We'd had this conversation before, and I knew where it was headed. "I love you too, Jude, but I can't leave my job for two months. You know that."

"I could take care of you." His voice came out barely above a whisper.

"I won't quit my job, Jude. I'm not that kind of girl."

"I know. I'm sorry, Elle. It's just that...well, being away from each other is going to be hard. I'm fearful that the distance between us will put a strain on our relationship. I don't want you to feel like I'm not there, or like I'm not going to come home to you. You know that, right? You know that I'm always going to come home to you?"

"Of course I do, Jude. Where is this coming from? Is this because of what happened outside the theater?"

He didn't say anything.

I moved closer to him and rested my head on his shoulder. "They were just trying to get a sound bite from one of us."

"I know, but sometimes," he paused and turned to look at me with his eyebrows furrowed, "promise you won't get mad when I say this?"

I cocked my head to the side and stared back at him.

"I've seen them get in your head before." He shrunk back slightly as if worried he'd awoken the beast, but I just sat there and let him continue. "I know that in the past, you've had a tendency to fear the worst, but you need to trust that I'm never going to do something to deliberately hurt you. If you see a photo of me that upsets you, or if you read something online or hear something that makes you doubt our relationship, I want you to promise me that you'll call me and ask me about it before you jump to any kind of conclusion."

"Is this why you needed a cigarette?"

"I don't want to lose you."

I crawled into his lap and brought my lips to his. "I may be staying in London, but you're taking my heart with you for the next two months. Remember my Christmas present? The e.e. cummings poem? 'I carry your heart with me.' Then it goes, 'I carry it in my heart. I am never without it. Anywhere I go, you go, my dear.' I may not be there with you physically, but I am there with you in every other way."

He brought his lips down onto the top of my head, but I wasn't done.

"In the first few months of our relationship, I was so worried that you would find something wrong with me. I was worried that I was just some plain, ordinary girl who could never actually be with someone like Jude Anderson. And because of that, whenever I thought something was going wrong between us, I figured it was the end. I also read stories for a living, so my imagination can sometimes get away from me." I watched as he cracked a fraction of a smile. "But I've realized that was all in my head. Besides, don't you remember what I saw last week at the grocery store? I get it, Jude. You're in the public eye. People are going to make things up about you. Hell, they've even started making up things about me, and I'm practically a nobody. I know that 99% of what they say isn't true. The only thing they get right every single time is your name."

"I wish I could stay with you." His voice was low, and his chest vibrated against my body.

"Please believe me when I say I want the same. But it's only two months. That's like a millisecond compared to how many days and weeks and months we'll be spending together in the grand scheme of things. We'll be okay. I promise."

I felt him place a kiss in my hair. "For the record, love, you're as far from a nobody as someone could possibly be."