Page 78 of Art of Love
“No.” He chuckled.
“No, what?” I pretended not to know. Nowadays, he could just look at me and know straight away what I was thinking.
“You know what. You’re thinking about this morning, or last night because we’re on the sofa. No more sex until we figured this out.”
My eyes bulged. “What? That could be never.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
“What if it’s not today? Are you saying no more sex today?”
He squinted his eyes as he considered that. “Bad plan. No sex for the next few hours.”
“Hours. What if we wanted a break? Like we could take one now.”
His eyes dropped from my lips to my breasts, and I unbuttoned the top button of my shirt. His lips parted, then he shook his head.
“Jia, Jesus Christ, woman. Stop trying to seduce me.”
“I wasn’t trying,” I cooed feigning innocence.
“No, you’re right. You don’t have to try.” He chuckled. “Love, please. We need to get this done. Imagine if we figure it out, then we won’t have to worry so much.”
He was right.
Damn it...
I’d lost focus and my grip on the situation. We had three weeks left. Three damn weeks. That was it. The tour would come to an end on Saturday, and then we’d have two weeks to prep our portfolios.
I needed to concentrate.
I returned my gaze to the TV and listened, trying to pick up on something new that I might have missed.
The sea of purple flowers made by the actors was truly fantastic. Cora had done a really good job. The music playing in the background was cool too. A psychedelic mix of William orbit’sAdagio for Strings. Then it changed to an instrumental remix of house music.
I liked it. Art went hand in hand with music. It was so much the better when there was something new and innovative.
When I first heard the mix, I thought it was a mix piece to add to my Spotify playlist. I meant to ask Cora what the piece was but kept forgetting. It did sound familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I bent my head down for a second but snapped my eyes back to the screen when a jingle in the music caught my attention.
It caught and held my attention.
Then ... I had a memory. A memory of ...
Something John had said to me.
Yes...
I closed my eyes, and it came to me. It was that day when I’d left three years ago. We were talking about grief and pain after losing a loved one. I was completely inconsolable after Todd’s death and so sad I’d had to leave Impasso.
John spoke to me. He’d said he understood how I felt all too well. When I tried to ask him about it, he said it was 1999. The whole year was bad. He said something happened to him that changed his life forever. Then he followed that up by saying maybe he’d be able to talk about it one day.
God... how did I not remember that?
The jingle in the song was the tune from Prince’s song1999.
But more importantly, there was no way that Hunter would have guessed that. That was a private conversation between John and me. Unless he had the same conversation with Hunter, which I doubted because we wouldn’t be here trying to figure things out.
