13. Chapter 13
Chapter 13
Ginny
It’s warm.
Where am I?
My eyes jolt open as last night hits me in the face like a truck. Football game. Joker’s house. The mirror. The nightmare. Him trying to soothe me and the conversation after. The realization that Joker is so much more than most give him credit for. His quiet determination to protect the ones he cares for.
He told me he wanted me. He didn’t run away when he saw me in just my underthings. He was hard—while he was looking at me. Could he really mean it? Can I trust him like that? If my life were in danger, sure. I’d trust him, no problem. But with my heart? Is he really different from the other guys I’ve known? What am I going to do? I want him. It’s like a craving that only grows every time I’m around him, but I don’t know what to do.
“You’re thinking awfully hard over there.”
His deep, raspy, morning voice startles me so much I yelp, and jump about three feet off the bed.
“Sorry, sorry,” I say, looking over my shoulder at his sleepy face.
His hand flexes on my hip, and it’s only then I realize why I was so warm. We’re wrapped up in each other, our legs tangled and his arms circling me, holding me to his warm chest, and a distinctive shape pressing against my lower back. He removed his shirt and pants sometime in the middle of the night and I can feel his skin against me. As much as I want to take my turn and look, I’m already trying to calm my racing heart, so I keep my eyes firmly on the wall.
“I didn’t mean to scare you.” He chuckles, but I’m not sure he’s sorry at all.
“It’s fine. You’re fine. Everything’s just fine,” I reply, trying to catch my breath.
“How are you this morning?” he asks, pulling me even closer into his body.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m really sorry about the kid at the game. And that you were there to see it happen.”
“I just feel horrible for him and his parents. His friends, and, oh God, all the kids at school.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Really? You want to talk about it?”
“I want to do whatever you want to do. Besides, I like hearing you talk. Your mind is a wonderful place to visit, Beautiful.”
My face heats at the name, and my lips tilt into a small smile as I finally look over my shoulder to see a shy grin on his face.
“Umm,” I pause, feeling the early morning needs coming on strong. “How about a bathroom break and then, yeah, I’d like to talk if you’ll listen?”
He sits up, pulling me with him, like he’s unwilling to let me go, but he’s going to have to. No way am I peeing in front of this man. We only separate at the bathroom door, where I go in and quickly do my business. I wash my hands and see a toothbrush still in the package and a tube of toothpaste, and quickly brush my teeth. He might not run at the sight of my body, but morning breath? Probably a deal breaker.
I return to the bedroom and find my jeans. I’ve got one leg in when he returns. “What are you doing?”
“Getting dressed?”
“Nope.” He shakes his head and stalks across the room until he’s standing in front of me. “No getting dressed. It’s still morning. Back in bed with you.”
He pulls me back onto the mattress and we resume our earlier position, just without the need to pee.
“Okay,” he says once we’re settled. “Ready to listen.”
I shake my head at him. Who knew he’d be funny in the morning?
“I don’t really know what to say. I never thought this place would have something that could do that to kids. Or anyone, if I’m being honest. I know the situation with Lottie opened my eyes to some of it, but I thought it was just the old, rich women trying to recapture their youth.”
“Drugs are everywhere, Gin.”
“Logically I know that. Hell, if I want to smoke a joint, I’ll go two doors down and ask for one. I know it’s there, but I’ve never seen pot throw a kid into cardiac arrest.”
“No, I agree. It was something more than pot.”
“So what is it?”
“Don’t know yet for sure. The article in the paper says numerous kids are saying it wasn’t coke. They weren’t shooting heroin or anything. But as for what it is? No clue. But there are so many drugs out there that can cause what happened. It’s a matter of finding out what it is and stopping the flow at the tap.”
“Call me na?ve or stupid—”
“I will never call you stupid.”
“You know what I mean. I just never thought we’d have that here.”
“Think about it this way. There’s not a whole lot for the kids to do here. Hell, there’s not a lot for the adults to do. You want good pizza? Have to go to the next town over. Want to go to a movie theater? Well, if you’re under seventeen, you can only go the third Saturday of the month and then it’s a cartoon.”
“True,” I concede.
“What did you do when you were in high school?”
I blush, thinking back to exactly what we did in high school and remembering the field that we hung out in every weekend and holiday and school break. We lived in that field all summer.
“I see your point. The field. A big bonfire. Moonshine and whatever else was going around. Does it make me old to say I feel like it’s not the same as it was then?”
“It’s not the same. It’s so much more dangerous now. You were there with friends that watched out for you. The worst that was going to happen was, what? Throwing up in the bushes or passing out in your tent? Your friends would not desert you and leave you. You didn’t have to worry that the joint was laced with anything.”
“So what do we do?”
“I honestly don’t know that there’s anything we can do. Burn the whole town down and start over again?”
“If only it were that simple.” I smile at him.
“Simple, right?” He returns my smile.
“Can we talk about something else now? I can’t spend my day thinking about how everything is going to shit, or I’ll wallow.”
“What do you want to talk about?”
“Can we talk about last week? And…last night?”
“Okay, let’s talk.”
“I don’t know how to handle your love bombs.”
“My love bombs?” He laughs. “I’m going to need you to explain that.”
“When I think about you and Keith—”
“I would really rather you didn’t think about the two of us at the same time.”
I laugh, smacking his hand, which is settled right under my boobs. “Shut up and listen.”
“Fine, fine. The floor is all yours, Ms. Mills.”
“Here me out on this, okay? You’re the same. Both of you are aggressive. He was aggressive in his anger and meanness. The way he would tear me down, which I can see clearly now. I know what he was doing now that I can look back. I know what he was doing was wrong. Toxic.”
“Okay.”
“You are equally as aggressive.”
“I’ll never hurt you, Ginny.”
“No. That’s not…I don’t…I’m not afraid of you, Joker. Well, I am afraid of you, but not like that.”
“Explain. Please.”
“You are aggressively nice.” He grimaces at these words, but I continue. “You are! Fuck, Joker, you’re every woman’s fucking fantasy. Is that what you want me to say? I don’t know how to say this and not sound stupid.”
“You’re not stupid.”
“That! That right there.”
“Okaaayyyy,” he draws out the word.
“Anytime I say something, whether it’s literal or figurative or metaphorically, you correct me. Keith did this by hate bombing me. You are on the complete opposite ends of the spectrum, but just as aggressive.”
“Bombing is bombing.”
“Exactly. He tried to shove it down my throat that I wasn’t good enough, and you are trying to shove it down my throat that I am too good. I’m neither. I’m not bad. I’m not good. I’m just me.”
He closes his eyes, his face pinched like he’s in pain. “Ginny, I don’t know how to not be me?” He ends on a question, confusion in his words.
“And I don’t want you to be somebody that’s not you.”
“I need you to tell me what you want.”
“That’s just it. I want everything and I want nothing. I want to save the kids. I want to be there for my friends and family. I want to be four sizes smaller and comfortable in my own skin. Sometimes, I just want to lie in bed all fucking weekend and not do anything but read trashy books. I want to go to the bar on Friday night with my friends and not worry that people are judging me because I had more than one drink.” I take a deep breath and tell him my final truth. “I want to love you without fear that one day you’ll wake up and wonder what the hell you’re doing with someone like me.”
“I’m going to love bomb you now.” His smile is so genuine, I return it.
“All right. Here’s your chance. Love bomb me.”
“You are perfect.”
“But—”
“Nope. It’s my turn,” he tells me, putting his finger over my lips. “I’m love bombing you, remember?”
I nod, and he continues. “You are not perfect. But for me, you are.”
“What’s that mean?” I mumble under his finger.
“It means when I look at you, I see everything I never knew I wanted and then some. I look at you and I see everything I never knew I needed and then some. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, inside and out. You are perfectly flawed, and you are flawed perfectly. And I will take anything that you’re willing to give me as long as you let me show you how much I care about you.”
“Why?” I ask, tears welling in my eyes. “Why me?”
“I don’t know why. Why Trish and Davis, why Lottie and Tiny? Shit, who ever thought this one, but why Elle and Ranger? It doesn’t have to make sense, but it does. It just is. The universe is telling me that you belong with me and I belong with you.”
If that isn’t a declaration of love, I don’t know what is. Good God, could this man be any more perfect than he is?
“Joker?” I ask, turning around in the bed to face him. His hand never leaves my body.
“Yeah?”
“Will you kiss me again?”
“Thank fuck,” he says before gently bringing his lips down on mine.