somehow influencing you to go out of your way to protect me during the hearing. When I realized they’d already done everything they could do to me, though, I realized that I wasn’t answering the phone because I wasn’t ready for what you and I were turning into.”
“And what’s that?”
“You put your career on the line for me,” I tell him. “You did that before we were even in a relationship. I don’t know — that kind of selflessness isn’t something I’m used to.”
“It was the right thing to do,” he says.
“They told me I was on the placebo,” I tell him.
“They told me you were on the placebo, too,” he says just as quickly. “They were wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On paper, you were on the placebo, but I may have convinced one of the orderlies to give me access to the room where they keep the stuff. It took a while to figure out which you were on, but as soon as I found out that it was the placebo, I had you changed over,” he says.
“Why would you do that?”
“I wanted to give you a better shot. We don’t have to talk about that now, though. I saw you on the news,” he says. “I called, but you didn’t pick up.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “that didn’t work out for me any better than your hearing worked out for you. Actually, it went worse, because I know I’m fired.”
“Ah, to be unemployed at the top of a Ferris wheel,” Jace says, and I’m wondering how much of that wine he’s already drunk. As if aware of my question, he hands me the bottle, saying, “Let me know what you think. The clerk at the liquor store said it has a velvety texture with a bouquet of oak and citrus. As far as I can tell, though, it’s just another bottle of wine. Maybe you can tell me what I’m missing.”
I take the bottle and have a quick drink from it.
“It tastes like wine,” I tell him and hand it back. “What are we doing up here?”
“I told you,” he says. “We’re conquering our fears.”
“What does that mean, though?” I ask. “Pretty much everything I’ve had to be afraid of in the last year has already happened. If anything, I’d say that’s just more of a reason to be afraid.”
“You forgot something,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“Even with things going bad, we’re both still here.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s something,” I agree.
“I know that you’ve been avoiding me,” he says. “I know that the last time we spoke didn’t really go so well for either of us, but I also know that I like you, Grace. You’re stubborn and you talk like a sailor-”
“Have I ever told you exactly how thoroughly I loathe that expression?”
“What I’m getting at, is that you’ve brought a kind of excitement into my life that I’ve only dreamed of, and I don’t want things to be over between us. If you’ll let me,” he says, reaching into his pocket, “I’d like to spend the rest of my life bringing you the same thrill that your presence brings me.”
Even in the dark, I can see that the motherfucker’s holding an engagement ring.
“You’re not serious,” I tell him.
“Really,” he says, “I am. Grace, will you marry me?”
All right, when the cab pulled up to the junkyard, I figured we were probably on the road toward getting back together, but I did not see this one coming.
“No,” I tell him. “I mean — no. I mean… Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “We’ve already been through more shit together than most people face in a lifetime.”
“First off, I don’t know if that’s true,” I tell him. “Second off, haven’t you noticed that we’ve kind of skipped a few steps?”