I look into those cerulean eyes of his and know that sometimes sacrifices must be made. “Alright,” I tell him. “Vegas it is.”
He blinks, as if he hadn’t actually expected me to agree. “Really?”
“Yes.” I move into his arms. “I love you. Why would you think I’d say no?”
Both of us know there’s one huge reason to, but no one voices it in this moment.
A smile slides across his face, the first genuine one I’ve seen in several days. “I love you, you know.”
“I know.” The shield falls away so he can feel this very real, very valid emotion in me. “It’s quite mutual.”
He studies my face for a moment. “You’re tired.”
I nearly laugh at this non sequitur. “It’s nothing.”
He strokes my cheek softly, his thumb dragging across my bottom lip. “Let’s go first thing in the morning instead. Get some sleep first.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he says, and I can feel all the stress rush out of his body.
We pack light. Jonah reasons that we’ll be there for one night, so it’s not like we need to bring the entire house with us. When I stuff a change of clothes in my bag, I have to tell myself to keep myself in the present. To not think about someone else and what this will do to him.
Jonah is almost like an entirely different person this morning. It’s as if a weight lifted from his shoulders. He’s all about the things we need to do as soon as we get back to Annar: apartment hunting, furniture buying, even reception planning (which, admittedly, is at the bottom of his to-do list). Hearing him like this is a good thing. His good mood is a weight off of my shoulders.
Before we leave, Jonah says to leave our cell phones behind. When I ask why, he adds, “I want today to be about us. Think about the last time we went anywhere and one of our phones didn’t ring with some sort of crisis.”
Rome flashes bitterly through my mind. I’m still annoyed with Giuliana over that. I concede and set my phone down on the counter. His joins mine. “What if there’s an emergency?”
A note joins our phones: Will be back tomorrow by noon.
We’re just about to enter the portal to Las Vegas when a loud voice hollers, “WAIT!”
“Oh, fuck me,” Jonah mutters. I follow his gaze and spot Cora, with Raul on her heels, running through the throng of travelers toward us.
“How does she know we’re here?”
Jonah shrugs and his bad mood that was so prevalent over the last few days creeps right back before my eyes.
“Maybe we should make a run for it,” I joke, but he mutters something about it not mattering.
Cora skids to a halt in front of us and doubles over, out of breath. Raul, on the other hand, barely looks winded. No pun intended.
Jonah’s all business. “What’s so important you had to chase us down, Cora?”
She holds out a hand, still gasping.
“More importantly,” I ask suspiciously, “how did you know where to find us?”
“I tell her she needs to exercise more.” Raul’s smile is one of embarrassment, though.
Cora shoots him the evil eye and he quickly shuts up. She waves her hand around. “I need to talk to you. It’s an emergency and you weren’t answering your cell.”
Jonah gives me a pointed look that basically says, see what I mean?
“Can’t this wait until tomorrow?” I ask, but she reaches out and grabs my arm.
“I need to talk to you. Now.”
“Cora—”
“Now, dammit!”
“You might as well go,” Jonah says, clearly annoyed.
Cora shrinks under his glare, but drags me out of earshot anyway.
I cross my arms, matching Jonah’s annoyance. “Not cool, Cora.”
“Where are you going?” she asks, assuming the same stance.
I stare at her for a long, hard moment. “Las Vegas. But you already knew that, since you managed to find us at exactly the right portal.”
“Why are you going to Las Vegas, Chloe?”
Old habits die hard. “Why is this your business?”
“Stop it,” she snaps. “Just answer the damn question!”
“Fine. We’re eloping.”
Her surprise is riddled with curse words.
“If that’s all, then I—”
“No.” She clamps down on my arm again. “You need to stop and listen to me.”
“Whatever you have to say can wait—”
“You told me some things recently about you, and Jonah, and Kellan. And I told you that I have your back. This is me having your back, Chloe.”
Okay. She’s got my attention.
“I got a call this morning,” she continues. “Crack of dawn early. From Kellan.”
Yeah, right. There’s no way in hell that Kellan would call Cora unless it was an absolute emergency. He hates her.
“To make a long story short, he knew what you guys were going to do and was, well, I’d say upset, but he sounded more pissed than brokenhearted.”
I manage to croak, “How . . .?”
“I guess he and Jonah have this weird thing that happens sometimes, where they inadvertently release information to one another. I think in dreams—I . . . well, he was saying all this so fast I didn’t catch all the details. But somehow, he got the information from an unaware Jonah early this morning.”