Page 131 of Full Tilt
“My brother’s dying and there’s not a goddamn thing I can do about it. That’s how I am.”
I stared at my hands through a beat of silence.
“How are you?” he asked.
“I can’t really sit over here by myself anymore,” I said. “Can I…hold your hand?”
Theo moved to sit beside me. His large, strong hand engulfed mine. I studied the tattoos that snaked around his forearms.
“Your designs?”
“Some.”
“What drew you to tattooing?” My voice sounded like I’d been screaming for hours—tear-soaked and hoarse.
“Permanence,” Theo said. “Tattoo is art thatbites deep. Leaves blood. Can never be washed away. It stays.” He looked down at me with his whiskey-colored eyes. “You stayed.”
I smiled. “I want a tattoo from you.”
“Name it.”
“Not sure yet. I’ll think about it.”
He nodded and we waited, hand in hand. The Fletchers came out then—Beverly looking frail and delicate, Henry ramrod straight, stoic and stiff—his grief boiling below the surface.
“Theo, dear,” Beverly said in a tremulous voice. “He wants you.”
Theo went in, and I sat wedged between the Fletchers, holding her hand, resting my head against his shoulder. They weren’t my parents, but I loved them. And I felt loved by them in a way I never had from my own. Even Henry’s reserved affection was a million times warmer than my father’s.
I hadn’t thought of him since San Diego. Or my mother. They’d never met Jonah, and now they never would.
Their loss,I thought bitterly, but in the next instant that bitterness morphed into fierce pride, and even joy. I had known Jonah Fletcher. I had been loved by him, and it was a privilege I would carry with me for the rest of my life.
Theo emerged, looking bewildered. He gave me a strange look I couldn’t define, then said, “He’s asking for you.”
Jonah lay on the hospital bed, reclined as he had in his chair in his apartment. A nasal cannula ran beneath his nose, delivering oxygen, but his breathing was erratic. He took little sips of air, his chest jerking instead of rising and falling. His dark eyes were stark against his pale face. His thick silken hair now thin and brittle. Tubes and wires ran into his right arm, held there with white tape. The dialysis machine churned continuously from beside the bed. Another monitored his heart. I didn’t understand the blood pressure numbers but the jumping, electric tick of his pulse monitor sounded fast and agitated in my ears.
“You sent for me?” I said, as I sank into the chair next to the bed. I leaned my elbows on the mattress and took his hand inmine.
“I’m extracting promises,” he said, between short, shallow breaths. “No one…can refuse a guy…in my position.”
I tried to find a clever comeback, but I had none. Only the howling wish he was in any other position than this one.
“Do you want anything?” I asked. “Anything at all.”
“No, Kace. Just you. Here with me.”
I nodded. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He smiled with a weak twitch of his lips. “And that promise.”
“What is it?”
“Promise me,” Jonah said. His voice was weak and soft, but a desperate intensity wreathed his gaze.
“What, baby…?”
“Love again.”
