Chapter Twenty-One
Learning to Breathe
Grace
I’m sitting in the back of a cab that Jace apparently sent for me, wondering just where the hell I’m being taken.
I got Jace’s message.
His hearing’s over and there’s no more damage to be done. Everything in my life has completely fallen apart.
KJBP came out with their announcement that they accepted the offer of…it doesn’t matter. They did what I expected them to do and chose the better deal. For me to expect anything different would have been pure idiocy.
Rather than take personal responsibility for her role in ensuring that M.E. would never land a contract with KJBP, Mrs. Sutton immediately called for my termination, and she got it.
John had a great big smile on his face when he told me that I’m fired.
So that’s it. M.E. is going to stay local and completely overlooked. Everything I’ve been working toward these last couple of years is out the door, along with me.
I don’t know what Jace is planning, but given the way everything’s been going lately, I’m not getting my hopes up.
“We’re here, madam,” the driver says, and I look out the window.
It’s the junkyard.
I get out of the back of the car, and I’m surprised that Jace would want to meet me here after the last time.
We’ve drifted apart, but despite myself, I begin to hope that things are going to change. Why would he invite me here if there were to be no forgiveness between us?
As soon as I close the door to the cab, the driver speeds away, leaving me standing alone next to the fence. It’s always astounded me that whoever owns this place never invested in any kind of security, but right now, that’s not a bad thing.
I’ve had some time to recover since my last round of chemo, but I’m still nervous to find out how much strength I have. The good news is, I’m able to get over the fence.
I land on the ground inside the junkyard and I start looking around. I don’t see Jace.
The place is so dark tonight with the new moon, but the stars are out in force.
I pull out my phone and call Jace’s number.
“You’re here,” he answers.
“How very creepy of you to say,” I respond. “Where are you?”
“I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
“That’s all well and good,” I tell him, “but if I don’t know where you are…”
“You know exactly where I am,” he says. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
He hangs up and I start walking again. Even with all the stars, the night is so dark that I’m having a little trouble finding the correct path through all of the wreckage. Soon enough, though, I’m through, and staring up at the Ferris wheel.
I don’t see Jace.
I pull out my phone and call him again.
“You coming up or what?” he asks.
He’s at the top? Last time, he vowed that he’d never climb “that fucking thing” again. I gaze up at the Ferris wheel, trying to spot him, and I manage to make out his shadow against the backdrop of the night sky.
That’s a surprise, all right.
“Come on!” he shouts from the top. “I don’t have all night!”
A thrill flows through me, and I make my way to the base of the ladder. Climbing up, I forget my usual fear and just keep putting one hand above the other.
As I get toward the top, though, that trepidation returns, and I’m slow to make it to where I can look over the top of the ladder and see Jace sitting in the car.
“You’ve got this,” he says as he holds out his hand.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “What am I doing here?”
“Why don’t we talk about this after you’re in the car?”
I climb up and reach out to him. He takes my hand. It takes a little bit of maneuvering and my life flashing before my eyes more than once, but I manage to get into the car.
Jace reaches forward, puts the pin in the front of the restraint, and turns to look at me.
“What are we doing here?” I ask him as I try to get my body to stop shaking.
“We’re both overcoming our fears,” he says. “They say that the only way to do that is to confront them directly, so here we are.”
“That’s very new age of you,” I tell him, “but you didn’t send a car for me just so I could-”
He reaches down to his side and produces a small bottle of wine.
“It’s nothing fancy,” he says, “but it’s all I could fit in my pocket for the climb up.”
“How did your hearing go?” I ask.
“I’m suspended until they can figure out what to do with me. I was hoping for a little less, but considering that they could have fired me and immediately called for the revocation of my license, I’d say it’s a win.”
“I’m sorry I’ve been ducking your calls,” I tell him. “At first, I was telling myself that I didn’t want to further jeopardize your career by somehow influencing you to go out of your way to protect me during the hearing. When I realized they’d already done everything they could do to me, though, I realized that I wasn’t answering the phone because I wasn’t ready for what you and I were turning into.”
“And what’s that?”
“You put your career on the line for me,” I tell him. “You did that before we were even in a relationship. I don’t know — that kind of selflessness isn’t something I’m used to.”
“It was the right thing to do,” he says.
“They told me I was on the placebo,” I tell him.
“They told me you were on the placebo, too,” he says just as quickly. “They were wrong.”
“What are you talking about?”
“On paper, you were on the placebo, but I may have convinced one of the orderlies to give me access to the room where they keep the stuff. It took a while to figure out which you were on, but as soon as I found out that it was the placebo, I had you changed over,” he says.
“Why would you do that?”
“I wanted to give you a better shot. We don’t have to talk about that now, though. I saw you on the news,” he says. “I called, but you didn’t pick up.”
“Yeah,” I tell him, “that didn’t work out for me any better than your hearing worked out for you. Actually, it went worse, because I know I’m fired.”
“Ah, to be unemployed at the top of a Ferris wheel,” Jace says, and I’m wondering how much of that wine he’s already drunk. As if aware of my question, he hands me the bottle, saying, “Let me know what you think. The clerk at the liquor store said it has a velvety texture with a bouquet of oak and citrus. As far as I can tell, though, it’s just another bottle of wine. Maybe you can tell me what I’m missing.”
I take the bottle and have a quick drink from it.
“It tastes like wine,” I tell him and hand it back. “What are we doing up here?”
“I told you,” he says. “We’re conquering our fears.”
“What does that mean, though?” I ask. “Pretty much everything I’ve had to be afraid of in the last year has already happened. If anything, I’d say that’s just more of a reason to be afraid.”
“You forgot something,” he says.
“What’s that?”
“Even with things going bad, we’re both still here.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s something,” I agree.
“I know that you’ve been avoiding me,” he says. “I know that the last time we spoke didn’t really go so well for either of us, but I also know that I like you, Grace. You’re stubborn and you talk like a sailor-”
“Have I ever told you exactly how thoroughly I loathe that expression?”
“What I’m getting at, is that you’ve brought a kind of excitement into my life that I’ve only dreamed of, and I don’t want things to be over between us. If you’ll let me,” he says, reaching into his pocket, “I’d like to spend the rest of my life bringing you the same thrill that your presence brings me.”
Even in the dark, I can see that the motherfucker’s holding an engagement ring.
“You’re not serious,” I tell him.
“Really,” he says, “I am. Grace, will you marry me?”
All right, when the cab pulled up to the junkyard, I figured we were probably on the road toward getting back together, but I did not see this one coming.
“No,” I tell him. “I mean — no. I mean… Don’t you think it’s a little soon?”
“What do you mean?” he asks. “We’ve already been through more shit together than most people face in a lifetime.”
“First off, I don’t know if that’s true,” I tell him. “Second off, haven’t you noticed that we’ve kind of skipped a few steps?”
“What steps?”
“Well,” I tell him, “we’ve never lived together. We’ve never talked about whether we each want to have kids or anything. We’ve never sat down and planned anything except to defraud your hospital and the clinical trial. Jace, we’ve never said ‘I love you.’”
“Well,” he says, “I lov-”
“Oh, don’t say it now,” I interrupt. “It just makes it seem like you’re trying to prove a point, not that you actually mean it.”
He’s looking at me, the ring still in his outstretched hand.
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” I ask with a laugh.
“Yeah,” he says. “I really do.”
“I love you for it,” I tell him.
“I love you, too,” he says. “Does that mean-”
“Oh, hell no,” I tell him. “I’m nowhere near prepared to get married, but I have another idea.”
“What’s that?”
“Do you remember what I was planning on doing with you up here before you started flailing like a moron?” I ask.
“I take exception to most of that question, and no,” he says. “What were you going to do with me up here?”
“Put the ring back in your pocket,” I tell him. “You don’t want to lose it.”
He puts the ring back in his pocket, and I kiss him on the lips. With that restraint in place, we’re not going to be able to be too creative, but I think I’ve got a few ideas for getting around that.
Our arms are around each other, and I can feel that Jace, despite his generally calm demeanor, is shaking. Whether it’s from the height or from the breeze or from the adrenaline of the moment, I have no idea.
He’s pulling me close.
“Exactly how far were you planning to go?” he asks.
“Far enough,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I have no idea what that means,” he says. “I’m just thinking that with the bar there, we can’t, you know, and if we unlatch the bar, I don’t think we should.”
I pull away from him and move as far as I can to the other side of the car, which granted, is only about a foot from where I was before. I lift my feet until they’re above the footrest and I straighten my legs only to bend them as if I were going to cross my legs. That way, I’m able to get my legs out from under the restraint and cross them in front of me on the seat.
“Now you,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I get what you did there, but at what point while my legs are hanging over the footrest does gravity decide it’s time I was back on the ground?”
“Quit being such a pussy and just do it,” I tell him.
“You know,” he says, “you’re really going to have to stop calling me that one of these days.”
“You’d think so, but no. Just do it.”
It takes him a while and a fairly impressive string of curses, but he finally manages to pull his legs up and set his feet on the seat, mirroring me.
“Now what? There’s still a lot of-”
“Take your pants off,” I instruct.
He gives me a look as if to say, “How the fuck am I supposed to do that?” so I turn and put my legs over the restraint. I unbutton my pants and slip them down over my knees. Once I get them that far, I pull my legs back toward me and pull them the rest of the way down.
When they’re off, I work my legs back to where they were and I lift my butt to set my pants beneath me.
“Like that,” I tell him.
“I still don’t know how we’re going to-” he starts.
“Just trust me.”
It’s not graceful or even remotely attractive, but he does manage to get his pants off and put beneath him.
“There,” I tell him. “The rest is easy.”
I put my left leg down on the floor of the car and I stand up enough for him to put his legs between mine. He slides down a bit, and I position myself over him.
I’m not going to say it’s not awkward, because it is, but once he feels my wetness on him, he seems to relax.
The particulars of the situation have him a little less than ready, so I lean forward and kiss him deeply on the lips and pull my shirt up just enough to encourage one of his hands underneath to rest on my breasts.
“You’re crazy, you know that?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I tell him. “I’m aware.”
I’m kissing his neck and working the front of his buttoned shirt open, trying to keep the car as still as possible as I go.
He reaches around under my shirt and unclasps my bra, giving him access to my waiting skin, and I’m reaching between both of our legs, grabbing his already growing cock and bringing it the rest of the way.
“Now,” I tell him, “no big movements.”
I slide up the length of him and put his tip at my entrance, feeling a renewed surge of adrenaline running through me.
“I’ve always wanted to do this,” I tell him, and put him inside.
We move slowly and deliberately together, and his arms are out from under my shirt, wrapped around me now, holding me ever closer as he enters me sweetly, again and again.
The night air is getting cold, but I don’t feel it. I only feel him — his arms, his lips, his sex, and his love, warming and comforting me.
“So, you switched the medications for me, huh?” I ask.
His eyes are half closed and his voice is quiet as he says, “Yeah, I did.”
“That was very sweet of you. I don’t suppose you happened to get a look at my scans.”
“What was that?” he asks, his eyes opening.
“It doesn’t matter right now,” I tell him.
So here we are, somewhere between fucking and having sex and making love at the top of a broken-down Ferris wheel.
I’m out of a job, he’s suspended, but probably out of a job, too, and I’m still dying.
But I’m not dying today.
Today, I’m just learning to breathe.