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It could also be that double shot of rum pulling the strings right now.
I did feel pretty drunk, don’t get me wrong, but…
No. No there’s nothing else going on. It’s the rum. That’s it.
“And are you and your dad close?”
It was like a gong sounded through the room. A warning bell. I shut down, giving him a half nod, half head shake and staying quiet, understanding damn well that I hadn’t answered his question. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to open up wounds right now. The night was going fine. Great. I didn’t want to bring it all down.
I got up from the couch, not knowing what to do next. The air felt heavy, and the silence was thick.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean… I shouldn’t have asked…”
“No, no.” I made myself busy with cleaning up, as if I had gotten up for that purpose to begin with. “It’s fine. Just kind of a touchy topic.” And I am an emotionally stunted potato cosplaying as a functioning person. I’m sure I would have felt a whole fucking lot better if I opened the floodgates and told Jonah about all the bullshit that still followed me around on the daily. It would have made me feel like a million bucks, I was sure of it.
So why didn’t I do it? Why didn’t I hand Jonah the key and let him in?
“Totally get it, man. Totally get it.”
I continued to clean. Jonah offered to help, but I made sure he stayed sitting, with a glass of ice-cold water in his hand. We chatted some more, time seemingly nonexistent. I knew that wouldn’t be the case tomorr—nope, today, in a couple of hours when my alarm went off for work. I didn’t think Jonah realized we had partied straight through a weeknight, but that was okay, I was already counting him out for the day. I’d let him sleep it off and come in fresh and ready when the hangover had weaned away.
When the living room was relatively cleaned up and our conversation was dwindling, I excused myself to the bathroom. Inside, I took a moment to reflect, to breathe.
What the hell was going on with me? With this?
With Jonah?
He was an enigma. I didn’t know him, even though my soul was shouting out that I did.
I did know one thing for sure: the smile that was being reflected in that mirror was wide and genuine. Jonah made me feel good. He made me feel.
This new Stonewall gig is going to be very fucking interesting.
I finished up in the bathroom and went into the living room, expecting Jonah to be sitting up and ready to ask me some more deep-dive questions. Instead, he was slumped over on the couch’s armrest, a gentle snore coming from the cave he had created for himself. His feet were up and curled under him, and I just knew that he was not going to be comfortable if I left him like that.
I was quickly coming to learn that all I wanted was to see Jonah comfortable, see him happy, thriving. He was a soul that absolutely deserved to shine, and I was determined not to let anything dim that light.
15 Jonah Brightly
What woke me up first was the sound of a closet door sliding shut. The next thing that assisted was a pounding headache that made itself known the second I opened my eyes, causing me to immediately close my eyes and roll over on the bed with a groan.
“There’s a glass of ice water next to the bed. I’d chug it if I were you.”
“Please,” I said in a cracked voice, “don’t ever say the word ‘chug’ around me again.” Even thinking it made my stomach do a backflip. “Ever.”
I leaned up on the bed and reached over, grabbing the icy cold glass off the nightstand. “Thank you for this.” I chug—nope, no. I downed the glass, the water feeling like it had been pulled straight out of the fountain of life.
And then realization pushed through the am-I-still-drunk fog.
“Wait, how’d I get into your bed?” I looked to Fox, who was standing by the door to his bedroom, already fully dressed for the day in an olive-green button-up shirt that made his hazel eyes pop like they were being lit with a spotlight. The khaki shorts he was wearing were short enough to show off those thick thighs of his. “The last thing I remember is…” And then I remembered and…. Holy fucking mother of pearl shit.
Fox jerked me off. He had stroked me until I came.
And it was—and this isn’t an exaggeration—one of the hottest things I had ever done in my entire existence on this planet.
“I can’t remember much,” I quickly said, hoping the burn in my cheeks wouldn’t give it away.
“Well—” Fox’s fiery smile told me his memory was sharp and my cheeks were giving me away. “—you crashed on the couch, and I told you I was dead set on sleeping on the pullout. So I carried you here and took the bed out there.”
