Chapter 34 1964 #2
Theo laughs so hard he’s almost crying.
“What’s so funny?”
He props himself up on one elbow, strokes a hand through my hair. “When I look at you, what do you see in my eyes?”
Things that make me feel beautiful. Things that make me feel desirable and loved and happy and safe. “Love,” I say shyly.
“Do you think nobody else can see that? It was at least three days ago that Jupiter asked when I was going to take you out on a proper date. And Maisie told me I’d better get you something good for your birthday, or else…”
“Or else what?”
“She didn’t say. But all the people who know you—they know. Why are we hiding?”
Because that’s how I live, the ghost of hallways and turrets. Bob’s never made good on his threat because I’m so insignificant that I’m not worth hurting.
“It’s easier,” I tell Theo, rolling away from him.
He lets a beat of silence pass. Then he says, “Lying here now, I feel like I’ve told you more about me than vice versa. Maybe I haven’t asked enough questions.”
I brace, but he just asks, “Favorite things?”
“Well…” I smile and roll back toward him, knowing I’m supposed to say that he is. “Hot dogs. We never did finish our hot dogs the other night. And you promised me one.”
“I can definitely promise you a hot—”
I laugh, head tipped back, then slide my body on top of his. Turns out I don’t mind this game after all. “Theo Winchester, get your filthy mind out of the gutter. Next question?”
“Spoilsport. All right, what do you hate? You like everyone and everyone likes you, but there must be something you don’t like.”
“Secrets.” I don’t even have to think. “I hate it when people use a soft word like secret to cover up the fact that they’re lying.”
I don’t know what I did but the laughter’s gone from the room. Is it because upstairs in my turret is a book with the pages cut out and some money inside it and I haven’t told Theo about any of it?
I’ve always thought other people were the liars, but now it’s apparent that I am too.
I press my lips onto Theo’s, don’t want to answer any more questions except the one that slips from his mouth after he lays me on my back. “Do you like that?”
I nod and whisper, “Yes. Yes I do.”
I wake a couple of hours later with the scent of smoke in my nostrils. I jump out of bed, run into the living room, fling open the doors to the balcony, sniff. Nothing.
No. Not nothing. It’s just not out here. It’s in my nostrils, like the fire is inside me.
A bleary-eyed Theo comes yawning out of the bedroom. “What’s going on?”
Nothing is burning. Except my nightmares.
Or my sanity.
I take a seat on one of the stools and rub my eyes.
“Tea?” Theo asks.
I nod, then smile at the sight of him, chest bare, filling a teakettle with water. And that’s when I hear myself say it, say something I haven’t said since I was thirteen years old and lived on the other side of the country and had never heard of the Chateau Marmont. “I love you.”
Oh, the look on his face. I hadn’t known that telling someone you loved them only made you love them even more.
He drops the teakettle and his mouth curves into the most beautiful smile. “Aria Jones,” he says. “Will you marry me? Next week preferably, because I don’t want to wait any longer to know that we are each other’s for the rest of our lives.”
“Mar…Wha…?”
Did I hear that right? But when will he go back to recording an album and being out with the wolf pack of girls who want Win inside them?
Where will we live and what will I be if I’m not Aria Jones, ghost of the Chateau Marmont?
Who would Aria Winchester be? Someone happy to sit in a house in the hills while her husband is in some other city singing a song that used to be about her, but that has become about some other girl?
Theo waits. Doesn’t get mad at me for not replying. He just waits for me, Aria Jones.
I walk over to him. Lift up a hand. Trace my fingertip over his brow.
Once upon a time, I couldn’t decide if his face was handsome or unlovely.
But look at his eyes, the way they soften to gunmetal whenever he’s in a room with me, as if there was always a flash of blue hiding in the dark and he just needed to find his tenderness.
He really wants this.
I’d been so sure that the only thing I wanted was to not be hurt. But what if my wish wasn’t about a not? Wasn’t about pain, but about love?
I grin. “I, Aria Jones, take you Theo—” I don’t get to finish. He’s kissing my neck so hard that I can’t stop laughing, my joy the only sound that echoes in the Marmont tonight.
Well, it echoes for about two minutes. Then I hear myself say, “Can we not tell anyone about it until afterwards?”
Theo’s whole face creases into a frown. “Are you ashamed of me?”
“Ashamed?” I gape at him. “Theo, you are literally a man most women would kill to have standing half-naked across from them. Why would I be ashamed of you?”
“Because all I do is stand on a stage and sing. Whereas you’re the smartest woman—no, the smartest person—I know.”
“Well, you do play the guitar as well as sing.” I smile, trying to get back to what we had a few hours ago—the two of us wound together like music, point and counterpoint.
He doesn’t smile.
“Theo,” I say. “I could never be ashamed of you. I’m just…” My voice cracks.
He cups my chin. “Tell me.”
“I’m scared,” I whisper, slipping my arms around his waist. “Every time I think I’m exquisitely, ridiculously happy, something terrible happens. I know it’s stupid, but I feel like until we’re actually married, I’ll keep waiting for us to be burned up in a fire.”