Page 129 of Full Tilt
The next morning, I checked my bank balance on my laptop with one eye squinched shut, mentally preparing to see a bunch of zeroes, or red digits with a big fat negative sign in front of them. Instead, my balance read an almost even $5000. A deposit had been made from a Wynn Galleria holding account.
I found Jonah resting on the couch, watchingWhen Harry Met Sally—I’d fully converted him to the Church of Eighties Cinema. I stood in front of him, planted my hands on my hips and tried my best to raise one eyebrow without help from my finger.
He squinted at my feeble attempt. “You either have a really bad headache…or you’re trying to read something printed a mile away.”
“Five thousand dollars mysteriously appeared in my checking account.”
Jonah’s smile fell. “I’m sorry it’s not more.”
“More?” I sank down on the couch beside him. “What is it? Where’d it come from?”
“It’s what’s left from the gallery sale after I paid off my parents’ mortgage and gave Theo enough for a down payment on his own tattoo shop.”
“His own shop. Holy shit, you’re a rainmaker.”
“I believe in him,” Jonah said simply. “I believe in you. The five grand isn’t much, but it’s so you can keep living here, get a new job, and keep working on your album. Or whatever it is you want to do.”
“I don’t need it,” I said, my throat filling with tears. “I can figure something out…”
“I know you can,” he said. “You can stand on your own, but if I can make it easier for you, I’m going to do that.”
I shook my head, blinking back the tears. I couldn’t cry too much these days. Once I started, I feared I might never stop.
Jonah drew me down and I lay curled up with him, my back against his chest. On the TV, the ball had dropped on New Year’s and Harry rushed to the party, to Sally, to declare his love for her. Because he wanted the rest of his life to start as soon as possible.
“My life started on this couch,” I whispered. “The moment I woke up that morning.”
He nodded against my head. “Mine too, Kace. Mine too.”
That night, we lay in bed together, kissing softly. My hands roamed his skin, trying to memorize his every line and contour. Hoping, wanting the low flame of desire to spark and catch fire.
“Honey, I’m so tired,” he said.
“That’s no trouble,” I said, smiling wide, endeavoring to make my shaky voice seductive and playful. I ran my hands down his chest, toward the waistband of his sleep pants. “Perhaps, a little oral stimulation?”
Jonah shook his head against the pillow. “Not tonight, Kace.”
It was the tenth ‘not tonight’ in a row, and the smile slipped off my face like the flimsy mask it was.
Not tonight.But behind Jonah’s eyes, behind the warmth and sadness and the infinities of thoughts behind them, I read what he was really saying.
Not this night.
Not any night.
Not ever again.
“Okay,” I said, my breath tight in my chest that suddenly weighed a thousand pounds. Tears burned my eyes, and I was too slow to turn away and too weak to keep them from spilling over.
“I hate this part the most,” he said.
“Shh.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.Donotbe sorry, Jonah. Being sorry means you wish we hadn’t happened, and I’m not sorry for that. Are you?”
He shook his head, his own eyes full. “These last months have been everything.”
