Chapter 9 Monk #2
“Maybe.” Verity shifts some of the pages on the floor, and I catch sight of a few cards with illustrations.
“I didn’t know you could draw,” I say, grabbing one of the cards. “You’re pretty good.”
“I’m aight in a pinch.” She takes the card back with a smile and places it into a neat stack. “My father was the artist in our family.”
She so rarely speaks of her parents, I want to probe, but every time I’ve tried, she shut down or changed the subject.
“You have any of his art?” I risk asking.
“Not much. He sketched some stuff in a notebook that was at my aunt’s house. That was one of the few things we didn’t lose in the fire.”
“Wow.” I sit on the floor cross-legged beside her. “That’s intense. I can’t imagine losing everything. I’m so sorry, babe.”
She nods, eyes sober, and grabs my hands. “If your place caught fire and you could only save one thing, what would it be?”
I stare at her blankly for a few seconds, unsure of how to respond.
“It’s kind of like Sidney’s question in Brown Sugar,” she goes on.
“Not that movie again,” I groan. “We’ve watched it like a dozen times.”
“You love it as much as I do.”
“No one loves that movie as much as you do.”
“Anyway, you know how Sid always asks everyone she interviews when did you fall in love with hip-hop?” She shrugs. “What would you save in a fire is kind of my question.”
Considering everything she lost in a fire, this isn’t theoretical to her and I should take it seriously.
“Shit.” I blow out a long breath “That’s tough.”
“I’ll make it easier. Top five. You can save five things.”
“Huh.” I lean back and press the heels of my hands to the floor behind me. “My grandfather’s old Fender. He left it to me when he died, and it’s practically a member of our family.”
“Okay.” She smiles and tilts her head, an indulgent look in her eyes. “What else?”
“My Songs in the Key of Life on wax. That album proved Stevie descended from Zeus or something.”
“I’m aware what Stevie Wonder means to you,” she says wryly. “You did change my ringtone to ‘My Cherie Amour.’”
I lean forward and kiss her nose. “I thought it was fitting.”
“Whatever.” She presses a finger into my forehead to push me back. “That’s two. Three more, and will everything be music?”
“Nah.” I rack my brain for a nonmusic item I’d save in a fire. “There’s this picture. My mom made us take one of those dumb family photos for Christmas postcards or something.”
I glance down at my hands and swallow. “It was a few weeks before the shit hit the fan and all the stuff my dad was doing came out. It’s the last time I remember us feeling like a family, so… I guess I’d save that.”
It’s quiet in the wake of my confession. I hadn’t thought of that photo, but it’s in a drawer by my bed. I rarely take it out, but I know it’s there. I need to know it’s there.
“Three’s enough,” Verity says softly, reaching across the small space separating us to cup my jaw.
I turn my head to kiss her palm and cover her hand with mine. “Come back to bed. You gotta get up soon.”
She casts an anxious glance at the papers strewn all over my living room floor. “But I just hit my stride and I—”
“Need to rest.” I reach over and drag her into my lap, her long smooth legs falling to either side of me. “You’ve barely slept this week.”
“It’s due soon. I need to finish this.” She hooks one arm around my neck and slumps against me. “I got plenty of sleep.”
I brush a thumb over the shadows under her eyes. “These dark circles tell a different story.”
My legs shake because she’s tapping her toes against the floor. Her fingers restlessly twist the hem of the T-shirt she’s wearing, one of mine. She’s practically vibrating in my arms.
“You okay, Vee?” I lift her chin and check her eyes. I know how little sleep she’s gotten, but she seems wired and emits this unrelenting energy so different from the relatively laid-back woman I’m used to.
“Of course.” Her smile is much too bright for three a.m.
“How many Red Bulls have you had this week?” I ask only half jokingly. “I know you got this project due, but—”
“Stop worrying about me.”
“Never.”
I lean forward to kiss her cheek, her nose, her lips. It’s hard to believe I’ve known her less than a year. Sometimes these feelings wash over me, a powerful wave that could drown me if I’m not careful.
And I don’t even care.
Ever since my parents’ marriage fell apart, our lives fell apart, I’ve been cautious about romantic relationships. It’s why I’ve only ever fucked and bounced my whole time at Finley. Leave it to me to meet the girl of my dreams when I’m graduating and she has another year left.
“I’ve been thinking about Juilliard,” I venture, watching her face for a reaction.
“Yeah, me too.” Her expression clouds, and she drops her gaze to her lap. “Hard not to, since you’ll be gone soon.”
“What if I delayed going a year?” I rush ahead of the protests I already know will come. “I could keep working at the studio and do gigs with Tony around town.”
“Why would you do that?” she asks, a frown gathering on her smooth face.
Because I’m in love with you.
It’s a silent declaration that bounces only off the walls inside my head.
It’s too soon to tell her. She probably wouldn’t believe me.
My advisers would try to talk me out of waiting.
My mom, who instilled my love of music from such an early age, would freak out.
My instructors at Juilliard, with whom I’ve communicated over the last two years, would be deeply disappointed by any delay.
Music has been the most important thing in my life for as long as I can remember, but that was before Verity.
And I know it sounds unreasonable to delay something so vital to my future for her, but how could I explain that she feels like my future?
And where I live, what I do—it’s just details I’m willing to reshape and build around her; around this connection that has felt deeper and more significant from the moment I met this woman than any other.
That not one day has passed since that first night that I haven’t thought of her?
But I can’t say any of that. When we started this, she told me the intensity between her parents had been too much. The last thing I want to do is reveal how deep this goes for me already. I might scare her away.
“Why would I delay a year?” I repeat her question, pressing my forehead to hers. “Because I don’t want to leave you. Petra might swoop in and take you from me again.”
I chuckle to keep it light and she searches my eyes, yielding a smile after a few seconds.
“I don’t want you to sacrifice that kind of opportunity for me, Monk.”
“I wouldn’t be sacrificing anything. Just delaying a year, the way you did.”
“Like I did?” She goes still, lifting her lashes to look into my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“When you withdrew from USC and waited till you were ready to come back to school.”
A hoarse laugh slips past her lips. “That was a very different situation. I certainly didn’t have Juilliard waiting for me while I got my shit together.”
“We’ve never really talked about what happened. I mean what really happened that last semester in Cali.”
“What do you mean, what really happened?” Her eyes narrow suspiciously. “Why are you digging in my business?”
Hurt stabs my heart for a second, but it’s a wound that closes almost instantly. I know she’s sensitive about that period of her life, and I shouldn’t press yet.
“Sorry.” I pass a weary hand over my face. “I guess Petra’s words kind of got to me.”
Fatigue has loosened my tongue, and I didn’t even realize I’d said that aloud until consternation wrinkles Verity’s smooth expression.
“You and Petra were talking about me behind my back?” she demands, her tone sharper than I’ve ever heard it.
“No, baby, I—”
“Then what words? What did Petra say that made you feel like you can’t trust me?”
“I didn’t say I don’t trust you.”
“You’re digging around in my past, asking questions—”
“Why I gotta dig? If you don’t have anything to hide, then—”
“I’m not hiding anything. Fuck this.” She wiggles, trying to get off my lap, but my arm tightens around her. “Let me go.”
“The hell I will,” I say, my tone sharp, too, as I capture her arm and hold her in place. “We’re not going to fight about this.”
“Newsflash. We’re already fighting.”
“You’re taking it wrong. It wasn’t like that.”
She stops squirming long enough to eye me. “Then how was it? What’d Petra say?”
“Just to take care of you. That when you guys first met, you were kind of fragile and she worries about you sometimes.”
“Fragile?” Verity’s eyes snap to mine. “She doesn’t need to worry about me. You don’t need to worry about me. My aunts don’t need to worry. All this damn concern is suffocating.”
“Your aunts?” This is the first time she’s alluded to her aunts worrying. Every conversation I’ve ever overheard has been light and affectionate.
“God, it’s nothing.” Her voice rises and her fingers, merely restless moments ago, now grip her shirt so hard the skin draws tight over her knuckles. “I wish everyone would just fuck off. I’m fine.”
I let her shout bounce off the walls into silence, hoping she hears how not fine she sounds. She closes her eyes, suddenly looking as tired as she should with as little sleep as she’s gotten this week.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I’m just trying to get this project done in time. It’s half my grade, and I had writer’s block for weeks. It clicked tonight and I wanted to work. I was happy about it, but then you came in here and started talking about not going to Juilliard.”
“Deferring,” I correct. “Just for a year.”
“And at the end of that year, what? I move with you to New York?”
I hadn’t gotten that far in my plan, but in the back of my mind, yeah. That’s probably what I thought would happen. Hoped.
“I mean, New York is the best place in the world for filmmakers,” I say.
“And your plans should supersede any I might make for myself, right? Because you’re the genius in this relationship and I should just follow you around.”