Page 10 of It's Always Sonny

Look.

Awful.

My hair has a funky dent in it from the table headrest and the fact that it was still damp when I laid down. I have lines all over my cheeks and forehead, also from the table headrest. My eyes are puffy enough to look like I’ve been crying.

More good news! Smacking into Sonny and falling made my shirt bunch up and stick to the massage oil! So I even have a lovely gap between the buttons on my shirt that reveals MY BRA.

My freaking bra.

To recap, I’ve been talking to Sonny for five minutes with wrinkles, funky hair, puffy eyes, and a wide-open shirt-bra-gap.

If I wanted to remind the only guy I ever loved just how desirable I am, boy have I nailed it.

Sonny must notice me staring in shock at my reflection, because I see him working his way toward me in the glass. I want to rush out, but that may be the only thing I could do to make myself look even worse. Like a Mortification Fun Run!

“So this is what you meant when you said something was different about me?” I ask when he stops next to me. Somehow, it’s easier talking to him in the reflection than face to face.

He shrugs. “No, not really. I like your post-massage face as much as I ever did, though the heels are new. And the war paint,” he says.

War paint? Is he talking about my makeup?

“I look like a clown.”

“Clowns are funny.”

“Clowns are the stuff of nightmares.”

“Not mine,” he says.

“How do you always manage to be so nice when I’m such a—”

“Stop.”

He uses a tone I’ve never heard before. It’s firm, but not mean or aggressive. At six-foot-two and two-hundred-plus pounds of solid muscle, he’s a specimen. A gorgeous specimen. It aches looking at him like this. At us. Standing side by side and knowing that I’ve never felt anything for anyone that compares to what we had? It’s murder.

“You don’t have to make excuses for who you are. But neither do I.” He turns so that he’s facing me, not the glass.

I should turn toward him. It would be the polite thing to do. Instead, I fix my eyes on his reflection, not on the living, breathing, suddenly intimidating man beside me.

“You’re right.” While I scramble for anything else to say, Sonny takes the next steps for me.

“Come with me. Let’s go grab breakfast and catch up,” he says, his index finger grazing my hand from my wrist down to my pinky finger.

And my heart stops.

And I die standing up.

…

Still dead.

Then my heart races back to life. YES YES YES! It cries.

RUN RUN RUN! My head screams.

I stand there, staring at my reflection like I’m a ghost looking at my own body.

He’s going to talk me into it. Getting lost in Sonny would be the easiest, most natural instinct I could succumb to. The light in him shines so bright, I can’t help but fly toward it. I’m no better than Ash’s stupid ex or stupid dad. I’m a bug.

---