“I don’t know. Why would he put down the gun, if he knew I was there?”
“He probably didn’t, then. He probably didn’t even know you existed, Johnny. Why would you give him the power to control your life for the rest of your life?” She hugged me tight.
“How is it that I can talk to you about this stuff?” I marveled, stroking her hair.
“Because I’m awesome.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” I murmured.
Her soft eyes met mine again. “I think you need to tell more people the things you’ve told me. Take down the wall of that fortress you built.”
“I really don’t know how to, Angel.”
“Same way you built it,” she said. “Brick by brick.”
ChapterThirty-Seven
Johnny
That night, after hours of working in my studio, playing around with song ideas, I came up to bed late and found Angeline in my bathtub.
She looked like she’d been crying and it wrenched my guts, a hot, painful squeeze around my vital organs. There was a half-empty wine bottle next to the tub and a glass in her hand.
I sat down on the edge of the tub and took the wine from her, setting it aside. We’d had dinner together when I took a break from work, but I thought she’d gone home to Shayla’s after that. She’d said they were having a girls’ night.
“Hey, sweetheart,” I said gently. “How long have you been up here?”
She looked at me, unfocused, through the tears in her eyes. “How long does it take to turn into a raisin?” She held up her fingers to show me her little fingertips, pink and wrinkly like raisins.
I took her hand and kissed them. “What’s wrong?”
“I told Shayla about us.” She sniffled. “She flipped out.”
I cupped her face in my hand and looked into those watery blue-gray eyes, wondering what she was feeling. Pain? Sadness? Despair?
All of the above.
I could see that. I could feel that, when I really let myself. It was terrible, like having a giant scab peeled off my ribs, from the inside out. It hurt like hell. It was so uncomfortable, I knew now why I’d avoided feeling these things. Feeling for a woman. Falling in love.
But I felt it all now.
Her pain, acute, in my body.
I got up and got undressed, then slipped into the tub at the other end and drew her toward me. “Turn around, Angel.” She turned and sank back against me, resting her head on my shoulder. I kissed her temple, then her neck, as her head lolled to the side, relaxed. I ran my hands up her arms and kneaded her shoulders. “You feel that?”
“Uh-huh,” she said drunkenly, more relaxed from my touch than the wine, I was sure.
“That’s me holding you. We’re staying together. You and me. No matter what anyone else says or does about it.”
She melted into me.
“Shayla will be okay,” I assured her. “She loves you. And she loves me.”
“I know. She’ll accept this, once she gets past being mad at me.”
My hands faltered mid-massage. “Why would she be mad at you?”
“Because she warned me not to do this. Not to fall in love with you.”
