Chapter 28 I can salvage this with humor. #2
My heart settles. God love Snack and his eternal desire to be useful. “I need a favor. A big one.” I explain the situation, and Jason’s on it.
I hang up, pressing the cool phone screen against my forehead. “That was not in the cards,” I tell Josie, resting my head against hers.
She nips my bare shoulder with her teeth. “Well, you can still do the push-ups.”
“Or bicep curls,” I joke, scooping her into my arms.
She squeals as I curl her body up and down twice in my arms and then let her weight collapse us both down to the love seat cushions where we lay entangled, face-to-face.
I study the long, smooth line of her neck, the sinewy muscle there.
I nuzzle it, but by this point, it’s pretty clear I’m not getting my mojo back anytime soon.
“I’m gonna have to take a raincheck on rocking your world. This whole Seamus thing is killing the vibe.”
I plant a single kiss on her neck before I raise myself up and grab my shirt, shrugging it on unbuttoned.
She folds herself cross-legged on the love seat, so beautiful with her mussed hair and smeared mascara. “It’s okay.” She grabs her water bottle and guzzles it. “How long are you going to let him stay with you?”
I shrug. “I dunno. I can’t just kick him out. Seamus was a good brother to me. He’s not the monster everyone makes him out to be.”
Josie offers her water bottle to me. “We’re all just one wrong decision away from becoming the worst version of ourselves.”
I take a drink. “Please tell me you’re not talking about Senor Burney McBurnsalot.” I mime the puppet’s skyward grimace on the burning altar.
She swipes the bottle out of my hand. “That’s not funny. If I’d burned up the Mona Lisa, you wouldn’t think it was funny.”
“If you burned up the Mona Lisa, I’d still think you were magnificent.”
She opens her mouth but nothing comes out. She kind of pulls back.
Shit. I came on too strong again. “I mean, I don’t think that in a weird, obsessive way or anything. Just in a normal, admiring sort of way.”
“Wait a minute.” She finishes the water and chucks the empty bottle across the cabin where it lands squarely in the garbage can. Impressive. “Are you afraid of being like your brother?”
Oh shit. “What? No! I’m nothing like him. He’s a total weirdo. I’m super balanced.” Stop talking, Sean. “Always have been.” Like, now. Stop talking now. “Always will be.” Dammit! Why can’t I stop talking?
Her brow crinkles. “Yeah, you don’t come across as obsessive. You’re the opposite—like you don’t care about anything. Like you’re too big for your britches.”
Okay, whew. I can salvage this with humor. “In my defense, my britches are pretty big. They have to house, you know, a space shuttle.”
She ignores my lame joke. “I think it’s really cool that you’ve been able to forgive Seamus even after everything he put your family through.” She smiles—a wee, intimate thing.
“I’m the fixer, or so my sister claims.”
“I wish my family had a fixer.”
“It’s a thankless job.”
“I would thank them.”
I brush a lock of purple hair away so I can see her face, so beautiful and haunted.
It’s not fair that she should have to feel this way, live this way, over something that wasn’t entirely her fault.
“You need to talk to your family about what happened. If you want to have meaningful relationships with people, you have to be honest with them about how you feel, even if it’s hard. ”
She inhales a deep breath. “It’s been so long. Too long.”
“It’s never too late for an apology.”
“I can’t risk it, Sean. If I come out of the woodwork now, and it goes badly, it could screw things up for Castillo Studios. And it would suck you in, too. And Emmy and Jason. With the baby coming, they don’t need that kind of stress.”
I frown. “Then it’s up to you to find the right moment. In the meantime, don’t let it ruin the one you’re in.”
Jeff’s voice comes over the intercom, announcing that we’re about to make our descent and to fasten our seat belts. We buckle in, and I find Josie’s hand on the seat beside me, thread my fingers through hers, and give her an apologetic smile. “Sorry that my brother’s shenanigans spoiled our night.”
The corner of her mouth quirks. “That’s it. Chivalry is officially dead.”
“I don’t know about chivalry.” I raise her knuckles to my lips. “But I do know that I would’ve liked to wake up by your side.”
She scoots my way until our foreheads touch. Then she lifts her chin and finds my mouth with hers. It’s a gentle kiss, tentative even. For the first time, it doesn’t feel like she’s either pulling away from me or playing games.
“Okay,” she whispers. “You win. You convinced me.”
I squint at her. “Of what?”
“That maybe I don’t need to cower in the shadows every time there’s a camera around. That maybe we could…”
“We could what?”
“Try this.”
I nod gravely in an attempt to hide the fireworks shooting off inside me. “That’s great.”
“Just tone down the intensity, if you can.”
“Right.”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong. I like you for you. It’s just… the less attention we get, the better.”
Well, that’s encouraging, somewhat. “So, you do like me, then?”
She rolls her eyes. “Listen, if your love language is words of affirmation, I can tell you right now this isn’t going to go well.”
All righty, then. She doesn’t have to know how much I like her. I’ll hide it, just like I do all the things I really care about. Roll it up into a tight little ball and stuff it somewhere deep down, where nobody can prove it exists.
I unclasp our hands and open my arms. “My love language is cuddles, actually.”
She fake-groans. “God, that’s even worse.”
But she snuggles against me anyway. I close my arms around her and relish the feel of her relaxing into my embrace as the plane makes its gentle descent.
“What about you?” I whisper into her hair. “What’s your love language?”
She plays with the buttons on my shirt. “I’m not sure,” she whispers back.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to know.” I tighten my arms around her, nuzzle her head with my chin, and hold back from kissing her. I don’t want to scare her away, not when I’ve finally got her.
Stay blasé, Sean. You can do this.
Of course I can. For Josie, I can do anything.