She used her index finger to lift one of her dark brows in an arch. “Really.”
I leaned back, laughing harder than I had in months. Rusty gears inside me creaked from lack of use, and my embarrassment faded to nothing.
“I’ve been dying to see how you make that beautiful glass,” Kacey said. “I was beginning to think it was for show, Fletcher. You ordered them from Etsy and passed them off as yours to impress the chicks.”
“I’m legit, I swear.”
Her laugh echoed across the pond and within it, I heard traces of a beautiful singing voice. She started to say something else when music filled the plaza in front of the Bellagio: the haunting flute introduction of “My Heart Will Go On.”
Kacey grabbed my arm. “Is that the Titanic song? Oh my God, it is. Why are they…?” Her words trailed away as Celine Dion’s voice rose up and the Bellagio fountains began their show.
Jets of water arced up from the pond, swaying in time. They moved gently at first, almost shyly, like couples on a first date, touching and then collapsing over the expanse of water. Blue light illuminated them from below. As the song gathered momentum, more jets rose higher and crashed harder, creating clouds of mist. The colors changed to red, to pale purple, and then silvery white. The song hit its crescendo and Kacey’s grip on my arm tightened. Her eyes grew soft and she watched the water dance, but I could look nowhere but at her. The show was at my periphery, a backdrop to her.
The song mellowed to its final notes, and the tall jets of water were graceful arcs again, crossing each other in pairs, like dancers or lovers, then slipping beneath the surface as the song ended.
Kacey sniffed and wiped her eyes. “I wasn’t expecting that.” She looked up at me. “It was beautiful.”
“Yes,” I said softly. “Beautiful.”
At my apartment, I unlocked the door and held it open for Kacey. She smiled almost shyly at me as she went in.
Holy shit, this is a date, I thought, locking up. I just took Kacey out on a date and now… This is the end of the date.
“Thanks for the cupcake,” she said from the living room. “And the water show. Did you plan that?”
“I know this city. Aside from my time at grad school, I’ve lived here all my life. And it’s part of my job to know where all the best shows are.”
“You’re good at your job,” Kacey said. “You go above and beyond, actually.” She moved close to me, rested her hands on my forearms and craned up to kiss my cheek. “Goodnight.”
I waited until she stepped back to speak, not trusting myself to open my mouth while hers was so close to mine.
“Goodnight,” I said. I stared as she went into my bedroom. In a few minutes, she’d be in my bed, her hair spilling across my pillow…
This is bad. Very, very bad.
I changed to the sleep pants and t-shirt I’d stashed in the hall closet, and leaned back in the recliner. I laid my hand over my ailing heart that ached for reasons that had nothing to do with my chart or diagnosis, or any terrible biopsy. It ached because I could still feel Kacey’s soft lips on my cheek, and I missed her.
She was fifteen feet away, and hadn’t yet left Vegas with her band, but I missed her just the same.
Jonah worked all the next morning at the hot shop. He came back for me around noon and we grabbed some lunch at a Chinese place, talking and laughing about everything and nothing. After two lunches and a cupcake, I felt a little bit like I’d become part of Jonah’s routine. It wasn’t true, but it made me happy to think so.
He drove us out to an industrial part of town on the outskirts of Vegas. The scenery outside my window was filled with more desert than civilization. Lots of warehouses and ramshackle buildings with aluminum siding. He parked the truck in front of what looked like a small airline hangar with three chimneys. The heavy metal door creaked as he slid it open sideways, and he ushered me inside the space.
Jonah laughed to see my expression. “I know it’s not much to look at.”
I couldn’t argue with him there. The hot shop was about a thousand square feet of cement and steel, hotter than the midsummer Nevada heat outside and smelling of burnt wood. An air conditioning unit was waging a losing battle against two furnaces—one large and one small—that lined a single wall. In front of one raging furnace was a bench that had rails on either side, like high armrests made out of stainless steel. Next to the bench was a table upon which sat a thick, charred dictionary, and tools soaking in a bucket of water: tongs and cups and strange-looking ladles.
“You leave the furnaces on?” I asked, fanning myself as the heat wrapped around me and squeezed.