TOMORROW

~AVA’S POV~

The night wasn’t supposed to mean anything. It was supposed to be a distraction. Something Cassie would call “social exposure therapy” and Gigi would call “getting you back in the game, babe.”

The whole thing started in my kitchen, with cold pizza and an intervention. Cassie had her “serious businesswoman” face on, the one she usually reserves for work. She placed both hands on the table and leaned toward me.

“Ava, please go out,” she said. “I’m sure this guy is perfect for you.”

Gigi nodded enthusiastically, curls bouncing, eyes wide like I was a rehab project she’d emotionally invested in.

“His name is Tom,” Gigi said enthusiastically. “He’s cute, smart, not emotionally constipated, has a job and doesn’t have criminal record like your dear Julian” she rolled her eyes.” This is a win.”

“You haven’t been on a real date since… well. Since him.” Cassie said quietly.

I picked at the edge of the pizza box.

“I’m fine,” I lied. “I’m just… busy.”

“You’re not busy,” Gigi said. “You’re hiding.”

“And rewatching the same three movies on rotation,” Cassie added.

“That’s called comfort,” I muttered.

“That’s called emotional hibernation,” Cassie shot back. “Which is fine for bears, less fine for women almost in their thirties.”

“And Tom is truly nice,” Gigi insisted. “I met him at that work thing. He’s normal. Like… real normal. He even does yoga. On purpose.”

“Terrifying,” I said.

They ignored me.

By the end of the ambush, a date was set. Friday. Café. Early evening.

“That way,” Cassie had said, “you can bail and still be home by ten if it’s awful.”

That should’ve been my first omen. Because after meeting him I knew they weren’t lying Tom was nice. He was painfully nice. He was tall, in that clean-cut, gym-once-a-week way. Blond hair styled. I guess he wanted to appear like the “approachable finance guy”. He smelled like good cologne and money.

He shook my hand when we met. My actual hand.

“Hi, I’m Tom,” he said. “It’s really nice to meet you.”

His smile was bright. Uncomplicated. He radiated stability so hard I could almost hear my mother’s faraway approval. We sat at the café. He talked. I listened. I spoke. He listened. Everything was polite.

“So I work in corporate finance,” he said, as we sipped coffee I didn’t really taste. “It sounds soul-sucking, I know.”

“It does,” I said.

He laughed. “Wow, no mercy. I like it though. I like… structure. Numbers, patterns. They make sense. People don’t, markets don’t, the world doesn’t. But some parts still do.”

For once I agree with you Tom…

“And you?” he asked. “Cassie said you’re a writer?”

“Yes I am,” I nodded.

He leaned in. “That’s… actually really cool.”

His eyes were genuinely interested but I felt nothing, no attraction not even disgust. Just a vague echo of “this should be working” and disappointment that it wasn’t. I’d been hoping for some small sign of life. A spark. A flicker. A flutter in my stomach. Anything. Instead, my brain wandered. My eyes kept drifting away. Tom got closer to me his fingers lingered for half a second, then wrapped around my hand. It should’ve been sweet and romantic, even. I mean New York at night the beautiful light flickering around us but instead my brain calmly reported: touch detected. No emotional response. Please try again. So I did what every civilized person does, I smiled even if I was secretly crafting my escape in the back of my mind.

“Sick and indisposed” always works.

It wasn’t his fault but it wasn’t mine either my heart was dormant and I knew why even if I wasn’t ready to acknowledge the culprit. We were halfway through a conversation where I put up a fake laugh about one his joke when I turned my head…

That’s when I saw him.

He’s here… my Julian

I’d seen him on TV a month ago reporting he was out of prison. But nothing absolutely nothing prepared me for the impact of seeing him again in real life with those fluorescent café lighting making him even more attractive than I thought was humanly possible. His hair was gone; buzzed short. But his eyes. His eyes were the same. Dark. Deep. Beautiful. Those eyes found mine like they’d been looking for me from the moment he stepped in.

The entire world narrowed. The chatter, the clink of cups, the hum of the city was all gone.

“Julian…?” I whispered.

He stared at me, stunned.

“Ava,” he breathed.

Just that. Just my name but he said it like he’d been starving for it. He took a half-step toward me, hesitation in his eyes, but the space between us felt alive; like there was a string tied from his chest to mine, and no matter how careful we tried to be, we were always going to be pulled back into each other’s orbit.

“You’re here…” I said, voice a little hoarse. “In New York.”

Before I could answer, Tom shifted. 

“Oh,” he said clearing his throat. “Hey! You two know each other?. I’m Tom by the way.”

Julian’s gaze snapped to him, then down to his hand still resting vaguely near my elbow, then back to my face.

“Hey…umm we” he started. His throat struggling to work. “Yeah. We know each other…”

“Friends… We were friends” I said quickly almost cutting Julian.

Friends…What a small word for what we’d been to each other.

Tom glanced at Julian again and again his eyes narrowing as his brain started connecting the dots.

“Your face is… familiar” Tom said slowly. “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Julian stiffened he nodded once, barely.

“Julian.”

And the moment the name left his mouth, Tom’s expression shifted.

“Julian… Vale?” he said, voice suddenly thin.

Julian didn’t answer.

Tom blinked hard, his eyes dancing between us like he’d stumbled into the wrong conversation and only realized now.

“Oh” he said softly. “You’re wow. I mean” He swallowed loudly. “Sorry, it’s just… I remember the news. All of it. Your brother uh Levi…”

The name hung between us like a knife. Julian’s jaw clenched so tight I saw the muscle jump. His eyes flicked downward, away from Tom, away from Levi’s ghost. I stepped slightly in front of Tom without meaning to instinctively, protectively because Julian looked like someone trying not to break.

Tom kept talking because he didn’t know better.

“And… wow Ava” he added looking at me with a slow realization.

“You worked with him right? You were his ghostwriter. They talked about that too.”

My heart missed a beat.

Tom blinked again and the final detail landed the one that made his voice wobble.

“And they said you two were… close.”

Julian’s eyes snapped up to mine. Tom took a tiny step back, like the intensity between us physically pushed him. He suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable, unsure if he should stay, leave, call the police, or pretend he didn’t just connect me to the most infamous celebrity case of the decade.

“I uh sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean.. It’s just… a lot. You know? Hearing the name. Seeing you two together. I didn’t expect…”

“It’s alright.” Julian swallowed hard, voice low. But the look in his eyes said the opposite.

“We worked together” I said coldly without emotion. All I wanted was that conversation to be over.

Julian looked down at the careful half-truth.

Tom’s gaze darted between us again and he saw it. The unspoken connection, the way our eyes kept clinging even when we weren’t looking.

“Right,” he said softly. “I… get it.” Tom tried to smile he failed miserably.

“Do you… live here now?” I managed, turning back to Julian.

“Yeah in the Bronx’s” he said quietly, eyes softening as he looked at me. “There’s a jazz bar,” he said, eyes mostly on me but speaking outward. “Romano’s. Small place, couple blocks from here. Real music. If you… want good live jazz, you should go. Tomorrow. I’ll be there.”

Tom straightened. “Why not, right Ava ?”

“Yeah. That could be fun..”

Lie number… I’d lost count. Me, Tom and Julian perfect recipe for disaster.

“I’ll… see you, then,” he murmured.

He gave a tiny nod half-greeting, half-goodbye and walked out. Except he disturbed everything. Because the second he left, nothing felt the same. Tom was still talking and I still nodded. We finished the night like nothing earth-shattering had just happened. But when I lay in bed later, staring at my ceiling, the only thing echoing in my mind was:

Tomorrow.

Romano’s didn’t look like much from outside. A narrow door tucked between a laundromat and a deli, with a flickering purple neon sign above it that read: ROMANO’S JAZZ BAR in letters that had probably seen better decades. But the moment I stepped inside, I understood why Julian had chosen this place. The bar glowed warm from old lamps and low-hanging bulbs. Purple neon painted soft halos on the walls. A long, dark-wood counter stretched along one side, crowded with bottles that caught the light. Round tables were scattered close together, creating an intimate chaos where everyone seemed part of the same quiet hum. Framed photos lined the walls: faces I recognized vaguely from music documentaries. Miles Davis. Nina Simone. Ella and Chet.

Tom stood just inside the door, looking as out of place as a banker in a poetry class.

“It’s very…” He paused, searching. “Atmospheric.”

“That’s one word,” I said.

“Is it supposed to be this loud?” he added, wincing slightly as the sax hit a rich, brassy note.

“It’s a jazz bar,” I reminded him.

He gave a tight smile. “Right. Of course.”

My eyes went straight to the bar.

Julian was there.

Wiping a glass with a towel. It was such a mundane, ordinary gesture, and yet the sight of him doing it looked… unbelievable. Like watching a famous painting wash dishes. He wore a dark henley shirt, sleeves pushed to his forearms, veins visible in the low light. The buzzcut still threw me off; it changed his whole energy. 

He looked up as we came in.

And just like last night, he froze. Only for a second but I caught it. Then his expression shifted into something soft, almost shy. He handed the glass off, muttered something to the other bartender, and made his way toward us. My pulse matched the tempo of the song, slow but intense.

“Ava,” he said when he reached us.

“Hey,” I said, trying not to stare at his lips. Failing ridiculously.

He turned to Tom. “You made it.”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” Tom lied politely.

“I mean… I’ve never really ‘done’ jazz before.”

“Most people haven’t,” Julian said. “They just think they have.”

I watched him. The way his shoulders were still a little tense, like he was braced for rejection. The way his eyes kept flicking back to me.

“You can grab that booth,” Julian said, nodding toward a small table tucked near the back, half-shadowed. “I’ll bring you something.”

Tom argued. “Oh you don’t have to.”

“I work here,” Julian said simply. “It’s literally my job.”

He walked away before Tom could finish protesting. We sat. Tom slid into the booth first; I took the seat across from him. From the angle, I could still see the bar, see Julian move behind it like he belonged there. 

“He seems… intense,” Tom commented.

You have no idea.

“Yeah,” I said. “He is.”

We’d been sitting in the booth for maybe twenty minutes when Tom’s posture shifted. At first, it was subtle the way he kept adjusting his collar, running a hand through his hair, shoulders growing tighter with every passing second. Then his fingers began drumming on the table, uneven and restless. Then he started rubbing his chest frantically.

“You okay?” I asked, frowning.

“Yeah,” he said quickly

“Just… warm.”

“It’s not that warm,” I said.

He laughed, but it was hollow. His eyes flicked toward Julian behind the bar, who was definitely not pretending not to look at us. I watched Tom’s gaze track Julian’s movements, then drift back to me, linger on my face a moment too long like he was puzzling something out.

Then his expression changed.

“I think the, uh music is getting to me,” he said, trying to keep his voice casual. “It’s… a lot.”

Julian turned toward us then only a few steps away. “Getting to you how?” he asked, brows pulling together.

Tom swallowed. “It’s just… loud. I’m not used to it.”

I caught the smallest flicker of something in Tom’s eyes not toward the saxophone, but toward Julian.

Toward me.

And suddenly, I saw it crystal clear: Tom realized he had walked into an old story. One with pages already written.

His smile wobbled.

“I think I need to head home,” he said softly.

“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked automatically.

He hesitated  just long enough for the truth to show.

“No,” he said, gentler this time.

“You stay. I think… you should.”

My heart stung a little at how quietly honest he sounded.

He stood slowly, smoothing his shirt, avoiding Julian’s eyes until the last moment.

“Thanks for the drink,” he said to him.,“You’re… uh… different from how the news made you seem.”

Julian blinked, caught off guard.

“Thanks,” he said quietly.

Tom nodded but his gaze slid to me one last time.

“Ava,” he said under his breath, “text me when you get home, okay?”

“I will,” I whispered.

He gave a faint smile the kind you give when you know a truth no one said aloud and walked toward the exit.

He didn’t look back.

As soon as the door swung shut behind Tom, I felt Julian’s presence shift beside me. When I turned, Julian was already looking at me.

Slowly, he slid into Tom’s empty seat across from me.

“You didn’t have to do that” I said quietly.

“Do what?”  He said innocently 

“Invite us.”

Invite me.

He shrugged weakly. “I didn’t know how else to make sure I saw you again without… forcing you.”

I stared at him. “So you chose the most complicated option possible.”

He gave a breath of a laugh. “Yeah. Sounds like me.” He gave me his typical irresistible smile.

The saxophone switched to a softer song, melancholy winding through each note. Julian watched me for a moment, then leaned his forearms on the table.

“Do you… want to go?” he asked quietly. “We could walk. If you want.”

My chest tightened.

Don’t say yes Ava…

“Yes,” I said. “I want.”

His eyes closed just briefly, like that one word slipped past all his defenses. He stood, offering me a hand without thinking. I took it without thinking. His palm was rougher than I remembered. The moment our fingers touched, a dizzy, electric thrill raced up my arm.

Yeah… My heart wasn’t dead It had just been asleep and now with one simple touch, it was very much awake.

Outside, New York glowed around us. Streetlights poured soft yellow over the sidewalk. Cars passed with their windows down, fragments of music drifting, conversation spilling out then cutting off as they drove away. A warm breeze tugged at my dress, lifted loose strands of my hair. Behind us, Romano’s continued to pulse with brass and warmth. The sound faded as we walked, but the feeling stayed. Julian walked next to me with his hands stuffed deep into his jacket pockets, shoulders a little hunched. He’d always carried himself like he was still on stage, even when it was just us. Tonight, he didn’t. Tonight, he walked like a man. Just a man. No persona. No legend.

“You’re really here…” I said softly, mostly to myself.

He glanced sideways at me. “So are you.”

“It still feels unreal.”

“Tell me about it,” he muttered. “I spent an entire month rehearsing what I’d say if I ever saw you again. Then I saw you at that café and all I managed to do was disrupting your date”

“I’m glad you did really” I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him and I knew that my face couldn’t stop smiling.

“Yeah? I felt like poor Tom’s brain crashed.” He huffed a quiet laugh

We walked in silence for a bit, passing a corner store, an old woman pulling a grocery cart, two kids arguing over a basketball.

Normal life happening around us while my insides were torn apart by Julian’s presence.

“You look…” I started, then stopped.

“What?” Julian glanced at me, eyebrows raised

“Different,” I said. “But in a good way. You look… softer. Less… haunted.”

His jaw worked slightly. “I guess prison wasn’t all bad.”

I looked at his buzzcut again. “I see that.”

He grinned, reaching up to run a hand over his head. “You hate it?”

“No,” I said, too fast. Heat crept up my neck. “It suits you. It… shows more of your face.” I said trying desperately to hide a laugh.

“Ah. Tragic,” he said. “My face is the least forgiving part of me.”

“That’s objectively untrue you didn’t write to me when you got out of prison” I said then immediately regretted being so sincere.

He looked over at me slowly, eyes tracing my expression.

“I’m sorry… I needed to grow but not writing to you made me sick” he said softly. He fell quiet, but I could feel the way the air changed around us. We passed a bakery that had closed hours ago, but the smell of sugar still clung to its windows. A cat sat in the doorway of a building, staring at us like we were intruding on its territory.

Julian cleared his throat.

“So… Tom,” he said carefully. “Is he… your boyfriend?”

“No.”

He exhaled. Visibly. “Right.”

“He’s nice,” I said. “Kind. Stable.”

“I hate him already,” Julian said.

I snorted. “You’ve barely met him.”

“I know. I’m being mature about it,” he said. “Let me have this.”

I smiled, shaking my head.

“He’s… everything your mother would want for you,” Julian said quietly. “Isn’t he?”

Ouch.

“Probably,” I admitted.

“And yet,” he said, “he left the bar to leave you alone with me that’s not really smart of him”

We shared a look. It broke into unexpected, shared laughter. The sound of his laugh God. I hadn’t realized how much I missed it. When it faded, the silence that followed felt… close. Intimate.

“You know….,” I said finally. “I really wanted you to come to me after your release… but you just vanished.”

He nodded, swallowing. “I know I’m sorry...”

“I kept wondering if you blamed me,” I admitted. “For everything, for pushing for digging.”

“I don’t,” he said immediately. “I never did.”

“Then why?” 

“I was ashamed,” he said quietly. “Of what I still was.”

I slowed my pace. “Julian…”

“I couldn’t stand the idea of you seeing me like that again,” he said. “Half-sober, half-broken, not really here. I needed to get my shit together before I came anywhere near your orbit again.”

“You didn’t owe me that,” I said.

He looked at me, really looked.

“I did,” he said. “You deserved better than the version of me you got.”

Emotion stung at the back of my eyes.

“I didn’t need you perfect,” I said. “I just needed you… there.”

He flinched, then nodded, guilty.

“What happened?” I asked gently. “After… prison.”

“I got out,” he said. “The world shouted for a bit. I needed somewhere quiet to fall apart without witnesses. The outreach program found me. Sal grabbed me like I was a stray cat and shoved me into Romano’s. The rest is… mop floors, pour drinks, go to therapy once a week, try not to drown.”

“You’re in therapy?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“That’s… good,” I said.

“It’s weird,” he replied. “Talking about myself without being interviewed.”

“I guess we’re free now.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

“You know I still have all your letters. They kept me alive. You kept me alive.”

“You kept me alive too…” I said softly not trying to hide the tears running down my cheeks

We reached my block without realizing how far we’d walked. Time had folded in on itself. My building stood at the corner, washed in soft yellow from a half-broken streetlamp. The night seemed to quiet around us.

We stopped.

Suddenly, I became hyper-aware of how close he was. Of the way his breathing had subtly changed. Of the way his eyes kept dropping from my eyes to my mouth and back again.

“Ava,” he said quietly.

My name in that voice I could live and die on that.

“I don’t want to mess this up,” he continued. “Whatever… this is. Whatever it could be.”

“You’re not messing it up,” I said. 

He exhaled shakily. His hand lifted slightly, hovering near my cheek before he pulled it back, the hesitation almost painful to watch.

“Can I…?” he asked, leaving the question unfinished.

My heart stopped pretending it knew how to behave.

“You can,” I whispered.

That was all he needed. His fingers brushed my cheek. I leaned into the touch before I could stop myself. The warmth of his palm seeped into my skin, down my neck, through my entire nervous system. He leaned in slowly, watching me the whole way like he needed to check a thousand times that this was okay.

And then he kissed me.

His lips were warm and a little shaky. He kissed me like he was memorizing it. Like he didn’t know if he’d ever be allowed to do it again. My hand moved up without permission, fingers curling into the fabric of his jacket. I kissed him back, equally soft at first, then with more certainty. He let out a quiet, broken sound against my mouth like he’d been holding it in for months. When we finally parted, he didn’t move far. His forehead dipped against mine, our breaths mingling in the inches between us.

“I missed you,” he whispered, voice cracked open.

“I missed you too.” A tear slipped free before I could stop it. His thumb brushed away the tear, gentle and devastating. We stayed there beneath the streetlamp as if the city paused just long enough to let us breathe each other in. Cars passed, strangers walked by, wind curled around us  but we were in our own suspended moment.

“Tomorrow,” he said softly. “Just us. No jazz. No Tom. Just… you and me. If you want.”

“Yes” I whispered. “Tomorrow.”

He smiled small, disbelieving, like he didn’t trust happiness in his hands yet. He stepped back slowly, deliberately, like he was trying to teach himself restraint in real time.

“Goodnight, Ava.”

“Goodnight, Julian.”

He turned as if to leave, took two steps backward, keeping his eyes on me the whole time and something inside me pulled tight. A low, warm ache. A knowing. A want. He finally pivoted, about to walk down the street, when the words slipped out of me before I could think about the consequences.

“Julian wait!”

He stopped instantly. Turned slowly. His eyes were wide, stuck on me.

I took one small step toward him, heart hammering.

“You don’t… have to go right now.”

An audible breath came out of him I knew him he was surprised.

I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, trying to pretend my pulse wasn’t sprinting.

“I mean. It’s late. It’s a long walk. And I just… I don’t feel like being alone yet.”

His jaw tightened the way he always did when he was trying to hold himself together.

“Ava,” he whispered, like my name alone did something dangerous to him.

“I live right upstairs,” I said softly. “You can… come up. If you want.”

He didn’t move at first. He just stared at me like he was making sure this wasn’t another hallucination of mine or an hallucination of his.

“Are you sure?” His voice dropped, low and rough.

I nodded once then twice.

“I’m sure.”

Something in him broke or healed, I couldn’t tell but his shoulders lowered, his eyes softened, and he took a slow step toward me. Then another. Then another, until he was standing right in front of me again, close enough that I could feel the warmth of him in the cool night air.

I reached for his hand first.

He let out the smallest sound of relief and gratitude. He pressed my hand with force like it was survival. 

“Okay,” he murmured. “Take me upstairs.”

My heart stumbled, then soared. I could feel his breath hitch behind me, feeling the space between our hands becoming tighter.

The city hummed around us. Something electric followed us inside. And as the door closed behind us with a soft click, the air felt different.

And just like that, the night changed tempo again.