Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83394 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 417(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
He didn’t cry, but I knew he needed to, and that eventually he would when he was ready. “You did good, Jojo. You should be damn proud of yourself. I am. You’re taking your life back.”
“Feels like I’m tearing myself apart, is what it feels like.”
I smiled into his hair. “That sounds about right.” When he pulled back, I pressed a kiss to his lips. “You wanna garden with me? Maybe it’ll help.”
“Yeah. I do.”
So that’s what we did. We spent close to two hours out there, sweating and working in the Southern Californian sun. We talked and laughed, but this air of melancholy around him persisted, and every few minutes he’d lose himself to it, space off, obviously remembering everything we’d been, what I’d done, and his life afterward.
When his stomach gave a low grumble, I nodded toward the casita. “Come on. Let me feed you.” I never felt better, never felt more like myself and like I mattered, than I did when I was taking care of Jojo. Maybe it wasn’t right or all that healthy, but that’s how I felt.
We put the tools away in the small shed, and I took his hand and led him inside.
“Can we shower first?” Joey asked.
“Yeah, of course.” I liked the we.
We went into the bathroom, and I turned on the shower. There was no tub, and I wished there was, wished I could sit with him, his back against my chest as the water cleansed us of our past.
“I hate feeling like this. Like I’m not only emotionally drained, but physically and mentally as well. I wonder if it’s always going to be like this when I talk to her.”
We were taking our clothes off, baring our souls with our bodies the way we always did together. “Just means you’re putting in the work, I think. It has to get easier.”
“Feels like I took a cheese grater to my skin; my heart too.” I opened the shower, and he stepped inside. “Makes me feel needy.”
Following him in, I wrapped my arms around him from behind. “What you are, I am.” I was just as needy for him.
We stood under the cascade of water, letting it rush over us, easing some of the tension. Eventually, we pulled out of the spray. I washed Jojo, then myself, wanting to take care of him. He was almost vacant in a way, like talking to his therapist had dug up so much, he couldn’t process it all. That had to be a good thing, right? I figured it was. Other people knew better than me, and therapy was something people did all the time.
I washed his hair, conditioned it. He closed his eyes, letting me take care of him. He gave himself to me in the way he used to, but had held himself off from giving to anyone since he was eighteen years old.
When we got out, we dried ourselves off, put on underwear and shorts.
“Sit down,” I told him. “I’ll make you some food.”
He nodded, went to the bed, picked up the astrology book, and read to me while I shredded leftover BBQ chicken to make sandwiches and a salad. I didn’t understand half of the shit he read, but the words sounded pretty in his voice.
We ate sitting in the middle of the bed, plates on our laps, legs crossed. “You’re gonna go back, right?”
“Yeah. Once a week. I must really be fucked up.”
“That makes two of us.”
“What you are, I am.”
“Are you sure about that? Because I’m kind of obsessed with you…like, I want to do dirty, kinky things to you, and that means you want to do them to yourself.”
He chuckled, sounding more like himself, before his hazel eyes darkened, the heat radiating off him singeing the hairs on my arms. Joey got off the bed, took the plate from my lap, and set them both on the table.
Then he came back and stood beside the bed, pulled off his shorts and underwear in one swoop. My throat was thick with want, but I waited, letting him show me what he wanted, what he needed. Whatever it was, I would give it to him.
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Joey
I wasn’t lying when I said I felt like I’d been rubbed all over with a cheese grater, inside and out. I was raw and infected, turned into this most fragile part of myself, and for a little while, I just wanted to forget. I wanted to feel good. I wanted to pretend Gage could take it all away.
I hooked my fingers in the waistband of his shorts. Gage lay back, lifted his hips, and let me tug them off. He was half-hard, his shaft beginning to fill.
“What do you need, Jojo?”
I lay down on my back, and he looked at me with those eyes that somehow broke through the storms inside me to give me sunlight. “I need you. Make me forget.”