Jonah had said I could help myself, but now my appetite was gone completely. He wasn’t just a total stranger; he was a total stranger who had a serious medical condition. It felt really intrusive to know all this so soon. I was getting a crash course on his extremely personal shit, and he knew next to nothing about me. I wish I’d been brave enough to just let him take me back to the Summerlin house.
I wandered back into the living area, not entirely sure what to do. The TV might have a news report about what happened at the Pony Club last night so I left it off, and tried to let the quiet of Jonah’s place settle me.
I couldn’t sit still. As a kid, my mother had been quick to diagnose me as ADHD, using it to excuse my exuberant behavior to my dad, who got irritated at the slightest noise or sign of rambunctiousness. I was always restless in my own skin. As I got older, I felt like two people trapped in the same body, an introvert who shied away at her dad’s angry lectures, and an extrovert who practiced her electric guitar in the garage as loudly as possible to piss him off. A constant war with myself.
Right now, the introvert in me whispered to enjoy the quiet.
The extrovert wanted a drink.
Bookshelves lined one wall of Jonah’s living room: industrial arts, art history, biographies of artists—some I’d heard of, most I hadn’t. I liked romances, horror, and a fun mystery now and then. Jonah was all non-fiction. Boring.
I kept moving.
On the opposite wall hung a bunch of framed pictures. Most showed Jonah smiling with what looked like his mom and dad, and a good-looking, broody guy. A brother, maybe? The guy had the same basic facial structure as Jonah, the same dark hair, but he was shorter and bulkier. His features were more chiseled. His eyes were a lighter brown and harder. Dark tattoos snaked around his well-built arms.
He looked exactly like the kind of guy I loved to take home for the night, losing myself in everything that was masculine and strong and powerful about him. A guy who would bail at the first rays of sunlight the next morning, no strings attached, just how I liked it.
Jonah looked like the kind of guy you wanted to meet on the side of the road at night if your car had a flat.
Or if you got blacked out drunk and wrecked a Vegas club.
“That too,” I muttered absently, and kept perusing.
The same hot brother and two other friends—an African-American guy and a pretty girl with long hair—showed up in a lot of pictures: at a club, at a party, surrounded by tall green trees on a camping trip, or on a desert plain with the sun rising or setting behind them.
In almost every picture, Jonah wore a bright, open smile that made his whole face light up. Such a contrast to the stiff, serious expression he wore around me. I couldn’t help but smile back at him.
I noticed that one girl—a beautiful brunette with delicate features—was beside Jonah in a lot of pics. Jonah usually had his arm slung around her, that same happy smile on his face, while the woman looked pinched and posed, as if she had turned her ‘best side’ to the camera.
Above the photos were the two framed degrees I’d noticed this morning. One was a diploma from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and the other from Carnegie Mellon.
Carnegie Mellon… That was a big time university. Maybe even Ivy League. Jonah was talented and smart. He looked young, only a few years older than me. Shouldn’t he still be at Carnegie Mellon? Or did whatever medical condition he had force him to quit?
I touched a photo of a laughing, smiling Jonah. “What happened to you?”
He’s fine. He’s making glass stuff at a hot shop, whatever that is. You, on the other hand, started a riot and then blacked out. The better question is, what happened to you?
“I’m fine,” I told no one, even though I’d have given anything for a Bloody Mary just then.
All at once, that damn bustier felt like it was ten sizes too small instead of only two. I couldn’t breathe and started to sweat all over again. The AC unit was churning quietly at the window overlooking the busy street. Rather than give the neighbors a thrill, I went back into the kitchen, pulling at the laces that held the bustier together on the sides. I peeled it off and let it hit the floor, leaving me in a black, strapless bra as I threw open the freezer.
I was too short. The icy air hit my face but not where I needed it. I spied a stepstool near the cabinets, dragged it in front of the freezer and climbed up. I lifted my hair off my neck and held it bunched to my head, letting the air hit me under the arms and chest, cooling my burning skin and dampening my urge for a stiff drink.
“Um…hello?”
Jonah. I hadn’t heard him come in over the whir of the freezer. I nearly toppled off the stool.
“Oh my God, seriously?” I snatched my bustier off the ground and held it over my chest like a shield. “Scare a gal to death, why don’t you?”
He looked like he was biting back a smile. “Sorry. I was just trying to figure out what you were doing.”
“Fishing out one of your Lean Cuisines with my boobs,” I retorted. “What do you think I was doing? I’m cooling off.”
“I’m pretty sure that’s what the air conditioner is for,” he said, jerking his thumb behind him.