Chapter 7 Chapter 4 (i)
Fae
"Okay,” I whispered.
I realized then that I trusted him for as long as I could remember. Even though he was friends with Carl, he wasn’t stupid or reckless. When the guys talked about his misdemeanors, they were mischievous shenanigans, natural to young, precocious men. If not for his brooding looks, he was more agreeable than any guy I had ever met.
Even more than Carl.
Why didn’t I like him instead?
I closed my eyes as he took me from the bar stool into his arms, clinging to him while he lifted me like I was just a sack of cotton.
And I liked it. It felt good being taken care of. My tears kept falling. Feeling so pitiful and heartbroken, I hid my face on the side of his neck. I raised my eyes when it became quiet around us, only to see we had reached the elevator. I lowered my head, feeling ashamed.
“Hey...? You awake?” he asked in a soft voice. I made a tiny sound. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“You...” I replied, head low. “You know everything... but never... you never judge me. Or... at least, I don’t feel like you do.”
“Oh.” He secured his hold on me, then he sighed. “There is nothing to judge.”
I raised my eyes again and noticed something. I giggled.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, smiling slightly.
“My girly purse straps... on your very manly shoulder. It just looks silly.”
When I peeked at his face, he was looking up at the floor counter that slowly counted up, and he was smiling. Then he noticed my look and lifted the culprit shoulder, acting coy and batting eyelashes at me. “Strike a pose?”
“Nooo! I want to unsee that!” I giggled as I heard his soft laughter.
Then we went silent for a moment.
“Thanks... for rescuing me there. I never liked Tom,” I said.
His smile died, and he looked down at me. “Did he do something he shouldn’t?”
I shrugged. “It was a long time ago. Just irritating. It’s nothing.”
“Tell me,” he ordered.
I blinked at him. But the elevator stopped. The doors chose to slide open right then, so he carried me out. He still didn’t let me down on my feet.
“I can walk, you know...” I reminded him. The walls still moved a bit out of order unless I squinted my eyes at them. But I could speak better, if a little slurred, than when we were at the noisy bar.
He snickered. “You couldn’t even sit up straight downstairs.”
I winced, then added gloomily. “I would have been dancing right now... if it had been another wedding.”
“What did Tom do?” he insisted.
I frowned, trying to remember. “College... second year of pre-law. He wanted to take me out. I said no, and that I was already interested in someone else. But I was single... no... I am still single...” I raised my forefinger, connoting the number ‘1’ in the air.
“What did he do?” he insisted again.
So persistent, sheesh. “He said Carl didn’t even like me back but he could replace him. I could just want him.”
“He’s a big piece of shit.”
“I don’t do casual sex,” I said quickly before he could get angrier, wanting him to know I knew exactly what Tom really wanted from me. “I don’t. So don’t be angry, huh? See? He and Sarah ended up liking each other,” I said, as if that proved a point.
But I got really quiet because now, Sarah was Carl’s bride. And even though I saved myself for Carl, he was now Sarah’s groom. So, what I said about Tom and Sarah didn’t prove even a shade of a point.
He opened a door with a key card, carried me inside, and carefully lowered me onto a big couch in the living area. It wasn’t my hotel room. It was probably his living quarters here in his hotel, as I spotted a large painting of Lola Leah on the opposite wall.
There were none of his parents, though.
I tried to remember what happened to them. Ah, yes. They were still alive, unlike Carl’s parents and mine, thank you very much. They divorced and had other families now, leaving Jigo with his paternal grandmother, Lola Leah.
In my drunken opinion, that was no less tragic. Carl and I got to be with our fathers before they left us, at least. But, as far as I knew, Jigo’s parents divorced when he was very little, and brought him back here to live with his grandmother before they married other people and started different families. Everyone knew Lola Leah loved her grandson to pieces, but I didn’t know of anything that could replace the loss of loving parents. There was nothing you could stuff inside the empty spaces in your life where instinct said a mother and a father should have been.
We’re all alone.
I wanted him to bring me here because I needed to be with someone, talk to someone. I didn’t want to be in my empty hotel room.
Where it was quiet.
And I could only think of Carl.
I wanted to be here with him. Jigo already rescued me, and I got him to smile, didn’t I? And I wanted to drink more. He said he would drink with me. He promised.
And Jigo was sexy. That helped a real lot when the one you wanted had completely abandoned you.