“Seriously. It’s the desert, sweetheart. Water there is a rare and wonderful thing.”
Jasper fell silent for a while, listening to the rain’s lashes against the windows. It sounded like needles, and Jasper wondered if there wasn’t some snow mixed in. Even though it was spring, anything could happen in Chicago.
He finally gave voice to the question he dreaded asking because the answer could be much more complicated than it might appear on the surface. “So… when do you need to go back?” He shifted. “To the desert?”
Rob shrugged. “Maybe never.”
The answer stunned Jasper.He has to be kidding.
“Maybe I’ll just stay here. With you.” And he turned and kissed Jasper—long, luxuriously. A flame could have been ignited, but Jasper, for once in his young and perpetually horny life, wanted to talk. In bed. With a hot man.
What was happening to him?
Jasper didn’t even want to fantasize about how that might work. Still, his mind ran to a penthouse with Lincoln Park, lake, and city views. He and Rob curled up on an oversized sofa with two Italian greyhounds curled at their feet. He thought of accompanying Rob on book tours, the quiet but proud guy in the background as hordes of fans crowded the signing table, jockeying for position for coveted chairs at a reading.
“You wouldn’t do that,” Jasper said.
“Why not?” Rob smiled. “I can do whatever I want.”
“Must be nice to have money.” Jasper wanted to force the words back in his mouth.
Rob didn’t seem to mind. Maybe he was used to the mention of money—or the envy of it. “People say money can’t buy happiness, but it does give me freedom. And it certainly provides the solution to a lot of problems, both real and potential.” Rob stared up at the ceiling. “Look, I’ve always been rich. I don’t say that to brag, but it’s just a fact of life. Does that bother you?” He turned a bit to face Jasper.
“A little.” Jasper rubbed his eyes and then laughed self-consciously. “No. A lot. Unlike you, I grew up poor… in a two-bedroom house that probably had the square footage of this suite. We ate things like boxed macaroni and cheese and fish sticks. If Dad was feeling extravagant, he might spring for a round steak. One of my favorite breakfasts is frozen waffles with fried Spam.”
Rob laughed.
“You think I’m kidding? I ate so much of that crap growing up that whenever I see a blue can, I start to salivate. People think it’s nasty, but it actually is pretty good, probably because it’s loaded with salt.
“Anyway, I think being poor made me suspicious of rich people. The unfairness of them having so much when I had so little.”
“Unless we’re really destitute, we all have the same stuff—food, a roof over our heads, someone to love us, maybe.”
“Easy for you to say.”
“True for me to say.”
They fell silent for the longest time. Jasper wondered if Rob had drifted back to sleep. His own eyes were fluttering when Rob spoke again.
“Lacy had money.”
Jasper turned a little. “What?”
“Heather. Lacy. She was a daughter of privilege. She grew up with everything she wanted. Went to exclusive private schools. Equestrian lessons. The best toys, the best clothes, the best shoes. A cute little Infiniti for her sweet sixteen.” Rob’s face was flickering pain and nostalgia. Jasper assumed the memories were coming now. And he had no idea what the texture, the shape, of those memories would be. He didn’t know this girl.
“What did she look like?” Jasper asked, because he really didn’t know.
Rob’s answer surprised him. “Thin, blonde, the silkiest, straightest hair that hung down to her waist. A California girl.”
Jasper almost laughed because the description of Lacy was so far afield from the young woman he had known and loved. But he didn’t laugh. The description, foreign and strange, ultimately made him sad.
“That’snother. She wasn’t like that at all.” His Lacy was dark. Sure, they had laughs sometimes. And their nights out and pub crawls were legendary. Jasper recalled being at some piano bar with her one late night and Lacy going over backward in her seat at their bistro table, her head landing in the lap of the guy behind her. She wasn’t motivated to move. The guy behind her was most decidedly not amused. He remembered that night was a sick pain—the long walk through the streets of Wicker Park, searching for a cab. Jasper had had to help her up off the sidewalk more than once. He remembered the long days and nights when she wouldn’t get out of bed, when she would simply lie there, doing nothing, staring at the wall.
Why didn’t I do more to help?
Her hair, her clothes, so decidedly not blonde, not colorful, reflected her. She liked to joke that she had a black heart, a black soul. But the joke fell flat when you realized how depressed she was. Jasper felt a hot flush of shame that he didn’t truly absorb the truth of that until it was too late.
“What happened to her?” he asked Rob, his voice weak, breath trembly.
