CHAPTER SEVEN: in which they meet in the present part 5- VEGAS

VEGAS (continued)

He looked up. A red spot had formed on his olive skin where his forehead had rested on his knees. I want to smooth it away and the worry in his furrowed brow.

“I don’t want to scare you off, Vegas. Why don’t you ask me that question another time?”

I made an exaggerated pout with my lips. Jae fixed his gaze on them as he spoke. “I hope you’ll allow me to show you how much I like you. I hope that in time, I’ll be able to say what I want. Deal?” He met my eyes. The worry (of rejection?) still lingered in them.

I wasn’t quiet ready to make that deal, but I trusted Jae enough to continue with my story... after taking another sip of wine.

“My aunt handed me over to my Chicagoan father and his adoring wife.” I let out a mirthless laugh, then drained my glass dry. The sweet wine mixed with my bitterness, making the retelling of my story almost palatable. “You should have seen their faces when I showed up. They never even knew I existed.” The chilled wine bottle almost slipped from my grasp when I grabbed it from the nightstand. In my rush to drown out the terrible memory, I nearly overfilled my goblet with the contents, stopping just short of the rim.

Even at eight years old, I recognized what my arrival meant, and it was nothing good. My dad’s face had been a mask of shock. The blood had pooled in his forehead and his cheeks, turning his caramel skin the color of weathered bronze. As my aunt provided proof — letters and my birth certificate. Tina, my dad’s wife, had narrowed her eyes into slits and her mouth thinned into nothingness. Over the years, I would become very familiar with that look.

Jae curled his fingers briefly over mine before he removed the empty wine bottle from my clenched hands. He set it on the floor. “I take it your home life wasn’t great,” he said, his voice full of compassion.

“Nope. Not by a long shot,” I whispered, rapidly blinking back the excess moisture that had formed in my eyes. Jae lifted the wineglass from my hands, took a sip, then set it down next to his on the nightstand. He stretched out his long legs, draped his arm around my shoulders, and curled a hand around my arm. I leaned into him, placing my palm on his chest. He was so warm and comfortable…

“Was it your stepmom that gave you trouble or your dad?”

“That woman was never a mother to me.” The facts behind the words weighed me down like an anchor, sinking me into the ocean of my past. “My dad, when he was around, was great. He was a pilot for an airline and he flew a lot. Every time he came back, he would bring me a souvenir, usually a magnet or a t-shirt from the cities he overnighted in. Every thing was fine when he was there.”

“What happened when he wasn’t, Vegas?”

I moved from him and yawned, feigning disinterest. “Typical wicked stepmother, the same story heard a thousand times over. Enough about me,” I said, closing the subject by changing it. “What about you? What do you do?”

“My parents are alive and well. Like you, I have no siblings. As far as work goes, I do nothing. I don’t have to.”

I turned my head to see him fully. “Okaaaay, so what does that mean?”

The force of his sigh caused his chest to heave under his t-shirt, and I ached to hear his heart. One day, I wanted it to beat just for me.

Crazy, Vegas. That’s just crazy.

“A few companies bought my patents, and now, I don’t have to work.”

My mouth gaped in surprise. “So you’re pretty smart, huh?”

Jae rolled his eyes to the heavens before returning his gaze to mine. His lips lifted into a wry grin. “Says the girl who graduated medical school at twenty-one.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, well. Things just worked out for me.”

We lapsed into silence. Time passed. Eventually, we laid down, shoulder to shoulder. My head migrated to his chest. The quietness between us, comfortable as it was, had brought more memories of the past to the forefront. They coated me in melancholy like a shriveled newborn’s caul.

This will end just like your last relationship. You know that, right?

Those were my thoughts as Jae brushed my curls with his hand. That, coupled with the wine, lowered my eyes to half mast. Dipping my head down further, I listened to the steady beat of his heart.

Mesmerizing. He had an excellent heart rate for a twenty-six-year-old. Fifty-nine beats per minute.

And it will never beat for you.

I was about to rise, to call this whole thing off when Jae tilted my head up with his finger. Our lips met. Soft and urgent and needy.

And until the morning, I forgot all about the bad because he was just that damn good.