He hadn’t said it seriously. But raw truth was either the source of great comedy or stabbed relentlessly at your vulnerability. This did the latter. It crushed me hearing those words out of his mouth. They’d come out so casually but stained the air I breathed.
He glanced up at me with a smile on his face, about to say something else, still caught up in the comedy of this whole situation, but my expression stopped him. “Oh shit…I’m sorry I said that.”
I held my face in place tightly. The slightest move might allow tears out of a crack. I was close to the edge. I hated hearing those words. Now I know I’m dying continued to echo in my head.
“Babe. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke.”
I cleared my throat of phlegm and other ugly junk that festered there when you were bummed out. “I know you were kidding. We need to keep finding laughter in it all, right?”
He took my hand. “Yeah, I think we do. If it isn’t funny that I’m going to live with you, Nora, and Dixie, I don’t know what is. It’s not Jim’s kind of joke but it sure is mine. Will your mom let us share a room?”
I half-smiled. “Is that a ‘yes’ you’ll stay with us?”
“Yes. Anyway, this could actually be my chance to get revenge on your mom for how she treated me. Sabotage the surround sound with some rock music.”
“My mom’s taste is eclectic. She likes rock.”
“Acid jazz?”
I shook my head. “Likes that, too.”
“Crunkcore?”
I pondered the limits of my mom’s music taste. Metal-electronic screaming vocal hip-hop might just be the mess she couldn’t love. I tapped his nose. “Evil genius. I thought you weren’t the vengeful type.”
He wrapped his arm around my waist and tugged me into him. I fell over his body and braced myself on either side of him with my arms. Being this close filled me with lust, jump-your-bones energy. But I wasn’t sure he’d have that feeling anytime soon.
I was wrong.
Our faces nearly touched.
He whispered, “I’m feeling a lot better. I kind of want to give you a transfusion now.”
“You nasty boy. We might have to move into the pool house.”
He kissed my lips. “Summer is on the way. And fresh air and sunlight are mother’s nature’s medicine.”