Chapter 25 #3
Joy looked up at him but his eyes were closed and his expression was blank. His head was thrown back and if his hand weren’t still moving against her thigh, she’d have thought he fell asleep.
Blame it on the romantic music, the bourbon still lingering in her blood, or the way Ace’s fingers stroked her skin but as she lay on Ace’s chest, Joy’s mind drifted.
Joy had never been loved — not in the romantic sense at least. They say to be loved is to be seen but she’d always played roles, being whoever she needed to be in that moment.
Until recently, she didn’t even see it as a possibility. Perhaps if she was able to become and stay normal, she would experience it. Maybe if she was able to evict the parts of her that made her cover the mirrors in her home on bad nights, she could experience more nights like this.
Joy felt something dim inside her. The fact that she was even considering being loved by Ace meant she was already in too deep.
“What’s wrong Rose?” Ace asked, sensing the shift.
Joy stared blankly out the floor to ceiling windows they faced at the Hudson River, illuminated by New York’s lights. She shook her head in response.
“Nothing. I-I actually need to go,” she said. She began extracting herself from Ace’s arms to rise but he tightened his hold.
“Nah. Why you running?”
Joy shook her head again in response. She didn’t know how to articulate her feelings at the moment.
All she knew was that being with Ace felt too comfortable, too right, and every alarm bell was sounding in her head to get out.
To run while she still could, because she was falling for this man fast.
“Just let me go Adonis,” Joy pleaded. She felt weak and pathetic and didn’t want him to witness it.
“No, baby talk to me,” Ace said. The soft tone in which he spoke to her and the sweet names of endearment on his lips only made her struggle harder.
She wanted to free herself before he made the decision for her but Ace wasn’t having it. He kept her close until she tired herself out.
The two of them now sitting upright, Joy looked up at Ace who looked down at her with concern but understanding.
“What are you so afraid of?” Ace asked, stroking her cheek with his thumb.
She couldn't help but to lean into the warmth of his touch. She couldn’t begin to formulate an answer to give him.
Ace was a contradiction to almost everything she’d been taught to believe about herself and the life she could live. Nothing about herself or the world around her made sense when she was with him and that was what terrified her.
The unknown. The idea that they were wrong. Or learning later, after she already dared to hope, that they were absolutely right.
“That you’ll make me fall in love with you, then leave me. And I’ll be alone again,” Joy answered truthfully, speaking to the fears that plagued her.
“I don’t wanna be alone either, Rose,” he said softly.
When she didn’t speak, he continued. “I’m right here. Just stay with me for a second, aight?”
Joy laid awake, staring at Ace’s bedroom ceiling.
He slept soundly beside her, his arm slung over her middle with a weight that gave the illusion of a security Joy didn’t trust.
She didn’t fall asleep, afraid tonight was a vivid dream she’d wake up from in her room alone.
Joy tip-toed down the stairs with her clothes thrown on haphazardly and her shoes in her hand to avoid the loud clacking of the heels against Ace’s hardwood floors.
Her hair was disheveled but she decided fixing it wasn’t worth the risk of spending more time under Ace’s roof and accidentally waking him.
When she got to the bottom of the staircase, she froze, seeing Von sitting at the kitchen island eating a bowl of cereal with a music video from a rap artist Joy didn’t know playing on his phone. He flicked his eyes up to Joy then flicked them back down to the video.
“My brother know you sneaking out on him in the middle of the night?” he asked, voice low.
“Does your brother know you sneak into his house in the middle of the night to eat his food?” Joy shot back.
Von said nothing, only stared up at Joy with a blankness that mirrored the one she’d seen on Ace when defending her against Marco and Curtis.
Slowly, Von set the spoon into the bowl and pushed back from the counter.
He stood and rounded the island, coming to stand in Joy’s face.
Her breathing increased and her fists clenched.
She willed herself to remain calm, knowing that the connection she was building with Ace and the life she’d started in New York would both come to an abrupt end should she hurt Jovon King.
“I’m only gonna tell you this once. Don’t. Hurt. My. Brother.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Von shook his head. “Don’t try, do it. If you can’t, walk away before I make it so you aren’t able to. We clear?”
Joy chuckled. “I thought I told you how I feel about threats.”
Joy bumped him as he walked past.
With her hand on the doorknob, she turned and spoke again. “Make that your last time coming at me sideways, or it’s gone be some slow singing and flower bringing ‘round this bitch and it won’t be for me.”