I more than missed him. You miss a television show when it’s between seasons or you miss baseball in December. I ached for him. I longed for him. And it wasn’t just his strong arms protecting me from whatever threat was lurking in the shadows. It was everything about him—the way he talked to me, the way he understood me, the way he loved me. I already knew that what we had together was unconditional. It had changed once we’d been forced together for a month during the tour. At first, the idea of being forced together with him made me miserable. But once I got past the betrayal and the lies and realized that he had his reasons for what he did, I had a hard time functioning without him. I was working, this time on registers. The store was fairly busy since we had a local singer coming in for a signing later that evening, but I’d requested the early shift because I knew Parker was coming home that night. I wondered why Barry had never thought to set up a stage for short performances.
