Page 124 of Full Tilt
I wanted their moments.
CHAPTER
FORTY-ONE
Two days later, Theo came by my place in the late afternoon.
“Where’s Kacey?” he asked.
I handed him a beer from the fridge and took a green tea for myself. “She’s grocery shopping.”
Theo nodded, dropping onto the couch. “You’re not working tonight?”
“I quit today,” I said, sitting at the other end. “Harry asked if I’d been poached by a different limo company.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That his was the only limo service I’d ever work for in my entire life.”
“Shit, Jonah…”
“What?” I said, grinning. “Come on, it was a little funny.”
Theo snorted, turned his beer around in his hand. “Morrison said your kidneys are shot.”
“Apparently so,” I said.
He glanced at me. “And that’s what’s keeping you from being higher up on the donor list.”
“I know where this is going.”
“I’m just saying I could give you a kidney,” Theo said. “Itwould match. Your body won’t reject it because we’re blood. We’re brothers. You’re my brother…” His voice cracked open. He sat hunched over, his elbows resting on his knees. I waited until he’d pulled himself together and put my hand on his arm.
“The medication would eventually wreck it, while my body wrecks the second heart thanks to my craptastically rare tissue-type.” I chucked him on the shoulder. “So keep your damn internal organs to yourself.”
He laughed then. A small laugh, but real. “Fine. But say the word and it’s yours. Whatever you want or need…if I can give it to you, it’s yours. Okay?”
“I might have a favor to ask you.”
His head shot up. “Anything. Name it, give mesomething…”
But the doorknob rattled then. I glanced at it, holding up a finger. “Not now…”
Kacey came in the door, her arms laden with grocery bags. “Hey, my two favorite men in the world in one place. Must be my lucky day.”
Theo got up to take the bags. She smiled and ruffled his hair. Then they were putting the groceries away, bickering lightly the entire time, while I sat on the couch, my smile turned away where they couldn’t see.
We ate dinner at my parents’ house that night, as we did nearly every other night now. Oscar and Dena and Tania were always invited. I wanted my people around me as often as possible.
Early on, Kacey was chatting with Tania, and Dena was helping my parents plating the dinner. Oscar glanced surreptitiously toward the kitchen and pulled his chair closer to mine. He rubbed his hands up and down on his jeans as if his palms were sweaty.
“What’s up, man?” I asked. “You in the doghouse with Dena?”
A smile flickered over his lips, then was gone again. “No, but I could be if I don’t get this right.” He puffed his cheeks with air and said, “I’m going to ask her to marry me.”
I sat back in my chair, my chest flooding with happiness. But Oscar was nervous enough without me getting emotional on him. I feigned total shock. “But Oscar, it’s only beensix years. Are you sure? You don’t want to rush into this…”
“I know, I know.” He laughed shortly and ran his hand over his short-cropped hair. “I never want to be with anyone else, but I didn’t think I needed—or wanted—some ceremony or piece of paper to make it official. But seeing you with Kacey these last weeks…” Oscar’s smile froze on his face, his eyes unblinking as if he could lock his emotion down before it could be revealed. “If you love someone as much as I love Dena, then you hold on to her, right? As long as you can, as hard as you can.”
