Page 69 of Full Tilt
He relented with a small laugh and a shake of his head and bent to pick up something from the ground next to him. “So, this is your house-warming present, of which I was quite proud until you sent me Mega-Bed.” He arched a brow. “I should’ve made you a damn chandelier.”
I ignored his sarcasm, too busy staring at the beautiful lamp in his hands. It was two lamps, actually, made from square-shaped, antique amber whiskey bottles. The bottom had been cut out of each, and oblong, Edison light bulbs were attached to the neck inside. The cords came out the bottlenecks and were woven through small links of a wrought-iron chain that connected the two lamps as a pair.
“Oh my God.” I stared at the lights, then at him. “They’re beautiful. You made these? What am I saying? Of course, you did.”
“Want to test them out?”
I bit my lip, glancing around. “I don’t know where… Oh, the balcony.”
We went to the sliding glass door that led to my tiny balcony overlooking the street. “I plan to have a sitting area out here. Potted plants and a little chair and table to have coffee in the morning.”
Jonah gave me a look. “You? In this heat?”
“I need to get used to it. No one likes someone who bitches about the weather every other minute.”
“You got that right,” he muttered.
I gave him a little shove toward the balcony door. “Out. Lights. Hang.”
He strung up the whiskey bottle lamps on two plant hooks—one slightly lower than the other—and plugged them into a covered, outdoor socket. Lit from within, the amber glass glowed as if still filled with whiskey.
“They’re gorgeous,” I said. “I can’t wait to see them at night.” I glanced up at him beside me. “Now I havetwoJonah Fletcheroriginals. I won’t have to work at Caesar’s after all. EBay, here I come.”
His eyes rolled. “I wouldn’t put in your two-week notice just yet.”
“I’d never part with them anyway. But I think it’s only a matter of time before the world learns how talented you are.”
He looked down at me. “I could say the same about you.”
The air thickened between us, and his brown eyes were soft. When his eyes held mine like this, I felt like he was looking down deep, to a place I rarely examined myself, but where I might have a good song lurking if I did.
The seconds ticked. I was supposed to look away, but I didn’t look away and neither did he, until a passing car screeched at a red light, the sound tearing the moment. Jonah jammed his hands in his pocket and my eyes roved for something to look at besides him.
“So, the whiskey bottles,” I said, nodding at the lights. “Are you repurposing my bad habits?”
He smiled. “No, just a friendly reminder.”
“Of what?”
“That you can find beauty everywhere, even in the things that scare you the most.”
A warmth spread in my chest, and I almost teased him for being deep, but my phone call with Lola came back to me, and how she’d voiced what actually scared me the most: being lost in the dark.
I turned my eyes to my new lamps, then to the man who made them.Lola’s wrong. Somehow, some way, his lights will stay on, and I’ll never be lost in the dark.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-TWO
When Kacey’s couch arrived, it took her, Theo and me half the evening to put it together. When it was done, and the empty box and pages of instructions were thrown out, her apartment was complete.
“Well,” she said, surveying the finished product. “It’s definitely like one of those model rooms in the IKEA store. They should pay me for the free advertising.”
Theo mustered his version of a smile. He’d warmed up to Kacey—slightly—over the last ten days. His eyes didn’t automatically roll when she talked to him, and he actually engaged with a couple of her teasing remarks.
Now, as we readied to leave, she threw her arms around his neck. “Thanks, Teddy,” she said and kissed his cheek. “Is it okay to call you that?”
It was definitelynotokay. I braced myself for Theo’s harsh rebuke against being called Teddy, but he only muttered something about waiting for me in the truck and slipped out.
