14
JASON
We got home very late tonight, the guys with the stag party just did not want to see a good thing end and we didn’t see any reason to break up the party, so we let them have go on drinking until we had to call cabs to take them wherever they were going, incapacitated by booze as they were.
I was the last to leave and as I was locking the door, Alex put her hand on my shoulder to make me turn around.
“You can…uh, come home with us,” she said, embarrassed.
“Are you sure?” I asked her, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s your house, I don’t have the right to throw you out.”
“I don’t give a damn about the house, Alex. If my not being there helps you relax I won’t come near those walls. I’ll sleep on the street if necessary.”
She smiles at me and shakes her head, her golden hair following her movements and all I want to do is pull her close to me.
“See youat home,” she concludes, before walking away with Liam and Rain.
“Who would like a cup of tea?” Rain asks as soon as we get back.
“Not me, thank you. I’m tired, I think I’m going to hit the hay,” Alex responds.
“Sure, go on to my room, I’ll be there shortly.”
“Take mine, I’ll sleep on the couch.” I tell them.
Alex throws me a confused glance. “Go on, really. I’ll be out here for a while anyway.”
“Are you sure, Jay?” Rain asks. “It’s not a problem for Liam.”
“Really guys. I wasn’t going to bed right now anyway. I’ve got some contracts to go over.”
“Thanks, Jason,” Alex says.
Jason.
And it’s all I can do not to throw myself on her and squeeze the life out of her.
Alex goes upstairs to my room and after a while everyone goes to bed. I stay in the living room with my guitar, trying to vent what I’m feeling, knowing that she’s upstairs, in my room, in my bed, wrapped in my sheets.
Then I remember the problem about her irregular heartbeat and the possibility of her heart slowing during the night without anyone being aware of it, and I jump to my feet.
What an idiot. Why didn’t I think of it? She can’t sleep alone.
I leave the guitar on the couch and slowly climb the stairs. The door to my room is semi-open, so I gently push it and close it behind me.
Alex is asleep, wrapped up in my bed covers.
Her perfume is in the air and her presence here is palpable.
I can feel it all around me and I don’t know how I can face one day without it.
Alex is everywhere.
In the walls around me, in the fibers of the blankets, in the air I breathe, in my confused mind, in my incomplete soul.
Alex is in every damned thing.
