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When it becomes clear I'm not getting anything more, I let go of his shoulders. “You need to take Megan and get away for the weekend, like you planned. There’s nothing you can do but take care of yourself and your daughter. That’s what—” I hesitate. “That’s what Jackson would want, right?”
He freezes up for a minute, then nods slowly.
After I walk him to his car, I go back inside and find a table in the back corner of the gloomy, echoing atrium. Part of me wants to call off Ethan and Victor’s visit, but there’s nothing I can do this weekend to change the results of the motion; I’ll only sit around going out of my mind. The promise I made Jonah sits fragile on the edge of my thoughts—we’ll try this on, see how it feels. It barely took an hour for things to start falling apart. Sometimes I feel like we were beaten long before we even started. He never stops fighting, but I don’t have that kind of courage.
My phone rings, Jonah’s name on the screen.
“Is it alright to call you like this?” he asks uncertainly. “I don’t want to be annoying. I wouldn’t want to talk to me all the time either.” His voice steals into my chest and curls up there, radiating warmth.
“Take a breath, Jonah.” I mean it figuratively, but he stops talking and inhales obediently and I feel a smile pulling at my stiff face. “I always want to talk to you.”
“That can’t possibly be true.”
“Let me worry about that.” I sit back against a pillar and watch a man with a leaf blower send up tornados of brown and orange foliage all over the courthouse lawn. Just as I open my mouth to ask Jonah if we’re doing the right thing, he launches into his story.
“I finished my interviews. The owner of the first garage kinda yelled at me for showing up without a hand—which is funny, like he thought I forgot it in my car cup holder or my underwear drawer or something.”
“What’s the name of his shop?”
Jonah snorts. “Nice try. You’re not going all John Wick on him.” He takes a deep breath. “But the guy at the second shop quizzed me a little and said I could come in for a week to see if I’d be a good fit.” He’s bursting with pride, like no one ever called him stupid or told him he wasn’t good enough.
“God, that’s amazing. How do you want to celebrate tonight?”
He’s silent for so long I wonder if he disconnected. “What do people do to celebrate themselves? All I’ve ever had are birthday parties. I guess I made myself a high school graduation cake, but that’s not the same.”
“Pick anything you like, sweetheart.” Colson wasn’t a pet name kind of person; I don’t know where the word comes from, how it spills off my tongue so easily like it’s always been there, waiting.
“Can we go to the mall and get sushi? I was supposed to go there for my date with Mason, and I really wanted to try it. Do you know about sushi? Can you make sure I don’t eat something weird?”
I’m afraid of so many things, but not this. It’s just you and me and each minute I get to spend with you.
“Of course we can.”
Jonah
I’m going out of my mind waiting for these fancy-ass guys to show up, all rich and suave, and wonder why I don’t have any manners and how I thought I was good enough to date their friend. Gray tells me to clean something to burn off energy, but his damn house is already perfect. It’s not very much fun scrubbing imaginary mold off of toilets that are probably more sanitary than Elliott’s countertops.
Eventually I go into Gray’s room and crawl headfirst into the bed that smells like him. I can’t believe I get to do this any time I want now, like it belongs to me. Like he belongs to me. I could even jerk off in his sheets, a temptation that definitely didn’t haunt me every single day while I was living downstairs.
Pulling out my phone, I send a text to my mom.
Me: Can we talk soon? I have some news.
I miss them so much. They’re overbearing and a little ignorant, but what the fuck rural Iowa family isn’t? They were hard on me, but in a sea of alcoholic fathers and angry mothers and lonely, emotionally-repressed people, my house was full of love, even if it didn’t always look the way you’d expect. They did their very best with the shit their parents passed down to them. I want to hear my mom sayJonah, you sound happy, and for me to sayI found someone special; it’s really serious this time. Even if it means spilling out all my secrets on the way.
Then I fall asleep with my face buried in Gray’s pillow. When I wake up, the sun’s in a totally different place in the sky.
I pad out of the bedroom in my sweats, rubbing my eyes, then stop. There’s a strange man lying on his back on the rug in front of the fireplace. He has on very short shorts and a tie-dye shirt that saysWelcome to New Mexico, his hair cut short on the sides with a mess of blond curls on top.
He rolls over and stares at me with the strangest eyes I’ve ever seen, so pale I can’t find any color in them at all. Pushing himself up into a sitting position, he crosses his long, powerful legs and props his chin on his hand, taking me apart with that stare. “Wow, okay.” He tips his head curiously. “Very interesting.”
I recognize that voice, lazy and refined, from the phone. “You’re Victor. The famous guy.” I hop over the back of the couch and slide down onto the cushions as we stare at each other. “Hi.”
“They’re like a couple of cats sniffing each other,” another voice says, and I glance over to see a brawny man with dark hair and a comfy flannel standing next to Gray.
Gray huffs, sipping his coffee. “It didn’t occur to me until now that putting those two together might be a terrible mistake.”
I don’t have any idea what he means, but Victor raises his eyebrows at me, his face nothing but trouble. These people aren’t suave at all. I stick out my hand toward Victor. “I’m Jonah. The kept boy.”
