Chapter 25 #2
He does a double-take, more shocked than anything. “How does that help? And forget it. Not a chance.”
“Why not?” My voice spirals higher, and, Jesus, I sound like one of the Chipmunks on uppers. “Because you’re thinking of her?”
“No,” he says, his voice tight with something dark and unknown. “Because a) I don’t fuck on demand. And b) You are worth more than that.”
“But you fucked her in all sorts of places, right? Don’t lie to me.”
JC leaps to his feet and starts pacing, sneakers crunching in the gravel. “Do you really want to have this conversation?”
Yes, you idiot! is what I want to scream. My heart drops like a roller coaster every time you walk into a room, and I can’t handle it.
“I want to know everything. How many women? Where, who, why. All of it. Now!”
I start pummeling his chest with my fists, and, yes, it’s come to this. Full hysterics.
JC grips my wrists with both hands. His voice has the authority of a mid-riot prison warden.
“Stop, Gia. No violence, ever. And if it means that much to you, how much detail do you want? That I’ve banged women in every conceivable position?
Slept with so many that I’ve lost count?
” His eyes pin mine with a desperate fury.
“To what end? The past can’t be changed. None of it matters.”
I wrench out of his grip. “It does matter! You deny me when I’m asking for the same things you’ve already done.”
His hand scrubs over his face once more as if he’d like to make this entire evening disappear.
“Did it ever occur to you that I think of you differently? I will give you everything you need, Gia. But I will give it to you the right way. Not cheapen you with…” he flicks his hand in the general direction of the bench, “garbage requests.” He rubs his forehead, like there’s a mark he’s trying to remove.
“I’m sorry I lied. I wanted to figure this out without you getting hurt.
We need to trust each other, Gia. If we can’t, none of this works. ”
“Do you trust me?”
“Over time, I will, unless you give me reasons not to. Trust is earned, not brokered.”
“So I’m right not to trust you. Not this soon.”
“You’re right to question me if there’s a legitimate reason.”
My eyes blaze onto his. “Tonight feels pretty fucking legitimate.”
After a few seconds, he says, quite diplomatically, “Yes. You’re right.”
“And my ongoing paranoia is legitimate given your reputation.”
The look JC gives me makes my stomach dip.
It carries a gravity, like I’ve misjudged him entirely.
“This might shock you, but give this concept some thought. That maybe I’d like to change.
That maybe you are the change I want.” He blows out what sounds like a tortured sigh.
“I’ve spent the past six months agonizing over you.
Do I tell you how I feel? Risk opening up?
Not once did I think Amber would show up out of the blue.
I tried to handle it and obviously fucking failed.
But that doesn’t change how I feel about you. ”
His voice isn’t demanding; it isn’t diminishing. What he says is merely a statement of fact. And how can I rail against that? A twinge of guilt ripples through me. He must clock it on my face because he dials his anger back a notch.
“Your fire can take you far, Gia, but you need to know how to control it. You can fight Sawyer, your mother, fight the entire goddamned music industry if you want to. But I’m on your side. You don’t pick fights with me.”
I feel an uncomfortable stab of resistance. “Because you’re older and so much wiser?”
His pupils, furiously black as the sky, lock in on me before they slowly soften. “Because those are my terms if you want to be with me. And yes,” he adds, “because I am older. Wiser, debatable.”
And he disarms me with a crumpled smile. All my bravado and posturing, whoosh, up in flames. JC waits for some sort of reply, and it comes, eventually, after I patch my heart together and remember to breathe.
If you want to be with me.
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes.”
It sounds like it’s taken all his remaining energy to utter one word. I stare up at him as all the panic and confusion trickle out of my veins. “But I can’t share you with anyone. I’m too territorial.”
He takes a step closer and cups my face between his warm palms. “Gia, I have trouble sharing food. No way I’m sharing you.
” I suppress a tiny laugh, remembering how he swatted my hand away in the diner after I tried to pluck a fry from his plate.
“And there is no stable of mystery women, okay? There is you. End of story.”
His kiss lands tenderly, and it all comes out: the tears and want.
I cling to him, afraid to lose the man who sees all my insecurities and likes me despite them.
I’m blubbering like an idiot, and unless the shit burrito I ate for dinner is tearing my insides apart, I have no other explanation for what I’m feeling.
I have to say it.
Even if it’s whispered in one battered breath against the soft cotton of his t-shirt.
And when I say, “I’m in love with you,” he tightens his arms around me, holding me for an endless moment.
I feel like I’ve stepped out onto a stage, stripped bare of clutter, and a single light illuminates the five words I uttered like an exhibit.
My thoughts clatter louder and louder, more chaotic with every passing second, as all of Zurich remains silent, waiting.
But he doesn’t say it back.