Sledgehammer (Hard to Love 2)

“So beautiful. You look like her.” My voice sounds far away. I can barely make it out I’m so overwhelmed with emotion. “Do you carry these on you? They look really worn.”

His long lashes cast shadows on his cheekbones as he looks at the pictures. “Touching the paper somehow…” He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

I get it. For some strange reason I understand him. It seems as if we’ve been in lockstep since the day we met. Never pushing each other too far away, or pulling each other too close––dancing around this inevitable outcome since the start.

“Come back to me, Jones.”

I look up into his open face and see only the tiniest glimmer of that pale skinny kid, the one that grew into such an amazing man. Because he is amazing. Kind, smart, thoughtful, generous. Basically he’s a unicorn. My unicorn. Wait, he’s not mine. He’s definitely not mine.

This is all kinds of terrible. I can’t be having these feelings for him. I’m leaving soon––with any luck. I’m taking my foot off the brake pedal and charging full steam ahead with my career. And so is he. There’s no place for ‘feelings’ in this arrangement.

“Where’d you go? You looked like you were a million miles away.”

It’s his smile that’s my undoing. This time it’s relaxed, guileless…happy.

“You are.”

“I’m what?” he asks, his voice quiet. Cupping my face, he traces my bottom lip with the rough pad of his thumb.

“Perfect for me.”

My stomach clenches, my pride screaming in outrage that I’ve handed him the weapon of my destruction, that I may have authored my own demise with that admission.

His eyelashes flutter for the barest of seconds. When those almond shaped eyes find mine again, he’s wearing a frown. I’m about to pull away but he’s one step ahead, pinning me to the mattress with the weight of his body. He brings my arms up over my head, slides my hands open with his much larger ones and laces his fingers through mine. He’s holding my hands…I am toast. I am utter toast.

His kiss is sweet, coaxing, as if he doesn’t want to scare me off. In a spell I kiss him back. He spends the rest of the night convincing me with his body just how perfect for me he is.

“I’ve got fantastic news,” Marty announces as soon as I walk through the door of his office. He’s got an enormous pastrami sandwich between his meaty paws––and by the smell of it, with onions.

Pinching my nose shut, I plop down in the arm chair across from him and put my kicks up on the desk. “Scorsese cast me as the lead of his next flick.”

“I said fantastic, not fantasy.”

Shrugging, I say, “A girl can dream.”

“Forget the dream. The casting director for that time travel show you were crying about called.”

Every hair on my body stands upright. “And? You’re killing me Marty!”

“The sister of the lead is now available.” He takes a big bite.

“The Carinne character, the bitchy one?” I query, sitting upright in the chair.

“The Carinne character,” Marty mimics with a mouth full of food and nods.

“That sandwich stinks, my dear Martin.”

“I’ve been looking forward to this since breakfast. Deal with it.” He takes another bite of his sandwich. “The one they cast was pregnant and neglected to tell the producers. It’s a physical part so she’s shit out of luck.” He smiles broadly, a piece of pastrami stuck between his teeth.

And then it hits me like a freight train. I can’t go anywhere. Certainly not to Canada, where the show films.

“I can’t take it,” I say on the verge of crying. “My case hasn’t been settled.”

“What?? What the hell is taking so long?” Marty looks as crestfallen as I feel.

“It’s complicated. She wants a lot of money for the repairs. Money I don’t have.” Elbows on my knees, I rub my temples in a vain attempt to stave off a tension headache.

“Jesus Christ, kid. Get your shit together. Life is happening and you’re missing it.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“How do you wanna play this? I think we should tell our friends.”

I knew this conversation was coming. I’ve been dreading its impending arrival. My gaze steers out the car window, anything to avoid eye contact.

“Where is this thing?” I ask, deftly avoiding the question as I press my palms on the bare skin of my thighs. I’m wearing a simple black mini dress, sleeveless, mock turtleneck while Fancy McButterpants looks ready for the cover of Men’s Vogue in a closely tailored blue suit, white shirt, and black tie.

“Metropolitan Pavilion.”

The Titans organization is hosting a party to welcome the new draft class. I only agreed to attend because my best friend is a conniving mafia bitch.

Camilla threatened to post pictures of me on Facebook. Intimate pictures. Of a moment no best friend should ever black mail a best friend with. Pictures from when we were in the eighth grade and I got it in my head that I wanted big curly hair like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman. My grandmother refused to take me to a salon, no surprise, so I took matters into my own hands, no surprise, and bought one of those at-home perm kits with my babysitting money. You can follow that thread to its logical conclusion.