Thirteen
“You did a good thing today.” Gigi smiled softly at Jon across the round dinner table later that evening, spread with once steaming serving platters that now went empty. Her voice echoed through the small dining room and even humbler house. The low walls and tight spaces had barely been roomy enough for two during Viola’s childhood, let alone three. “Telling your story so honestly like that. The kids didn’t complain once. Do you have any idea how rare that is? Most of the people who come and speak to them spend more time making charts and graphs on the whiteboard than actually talking to them. The way you sat down and looked each of them in the eye. Telling them how you sat in their exact seat when you were their exact age… I think they could feel your genuine spirit. They couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas gift, and neither could I.”
Jon watched Gigi from the corners of his eyes in the seat next to hers. “Wish I’d had a proper story of triumphant sobriety to lift their spirits at Christmas. Still not sure what you think my presence accomplished except encouraging the false belief that they can still get high and get rich at the same time.”
“But you didn’t give them false encouragement. You told them the truth, which is all I wanted you to do. I still remember the days when you were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen… coming and going from the center, year after year, over and over again. I remember how down you were. The kid I knew back then could barely roll himself out of bed, let alone find the strength, the drive, or the fortitude to do something as simple as even learning a few strings on a guitar. But to learn the guitar, stick to it, and build it into something incredible, the way you have? Please. You’ve come so far, and you can’t even see it. Everything you’ve been through… how can you not see it? Sober or not, you are the triumph, babe.”
Jon studied Gigi silently, then his eyes shifted to Viola.
Viola’s gaze shot down to her plate the moment their eyes met, a little too quickly, in the embarrassing way that only confirmed how hard she’d been staring before getting caught. She stabbed her fork at her plate, which was already empty—fried pork chops and mashed potatoes long demolished—while trying to play it cool.
“Baby, if you jam your fork into that plate any harder you’re gonna crack the glass. You know I took out the good plates just for Jon and your life will be over if there’s even a scratch before they go back into storage.”
“So your good plates are more valuable than my life, Mom?”
“I’m so glad we understand each other.”
Viola rolled her eyes and cut a look at Jon. When she saw him giving her a sideways smile, she straightened. Jon Baca? Smiling? At her? It was a phenomenon she’d been convinced she’d never experience again. A softness in his eyes that defused her all the way down to her very soul. Until she couldn’t even remember what she and her mother had just been fussing about. Until she’d forgotten her mother’s existence altogether.
As if he’d realized what a colossal mistake he’d made with just the simple act of letting the corners of his lips rise in her direction, Jon tore his eyes from Viola and stood from the table while clearing his throat. He picked up the empty serving platters in the middle of the table, careful not to knock over any of the water glasses, and stacked his own empty plate on top of them.
“Oh, sweetie, you don’t have to do that…” Gigi frowned as Jon began clearing her empty plate as well, followed by Viola’s.
“You went out of your way to cook an amazing meal. The least I can do is slap some soap on a sponge.” Jon began toward the kitchen sink without another word, with all of the dishes cradled in his hands.
Gigi watched him go with her mouth agape, waiting until he’d made it to the kitchen sink and turned on the faucet before throwing Viola a wide-eyed look across the table. Viola couldn’t tell what the crazed look on her mother’s face meant. Was she silently imploring Viola for living eighteen whole years in that house without ever having the grace to offer to slap some soap on a sponge the way Jon just had? Or was she silently imploring her to get her ass out of that chair and take what could be her last chance to have a true moment alone with him?
When Gigi widened her eyes even more and than cocked her head violently toward Jon—hard enough to make it appear seconds from snapping off her neck—Viola had her answer. One only had a few opportunities in life to seize the precious moments before it was too late, and that moment was being presented to Viola.
So she stood from the table, hands already shaking with nerves as she called into the kitchen. “I’ll help you!”
She swore she saw the winged muscles on Jon’s back freeze and then shift. As if they were preparing to sprout out of his skin and help him fly away from the situation—from the very idea of Viola standing at that sink next to him.
“I got it,” he spat, not even bothering to look over his shoulder, voice gruff.
Viola gave Gigi a desperate look. Gigi clenched her teeth and snapped her head toward Jon again, harder this time. Viola skipped a beat, gathered as many of the water glasses as she could get in one hand, and hurried into the kitchen. Mostly because she was worried her mother’s skull was going to become dislocated if she snapped it one more time.
Jon’s entire body stilled when Viola came up next to him at the sink and dropped the glasses into the soapy water on his side. His jaw muscles moved under his skin like a rolling pin as his cheeks went cherry red. The clank of the dishes and silverware in the soapy water before him came louder, faster, leaving him in real danger of being the one to ruin her mother’s good plates, not Viola.
“I’ll rinse,” Viola whispered.
His nostrils flared, breathing heavy, and he kept his eyes down on the sink he’d filled to the brim with soapy water. So full that every time he sank his hands underneath, it caused the hot suds to overflow into the opposite sink, where he’d laid a few utensils he’d already cleaned, waiting to be rinsed off. He continued scrubbing utensils and tossing them into the opposite sink, ignoring her completely.
The man just wanted to be left alone. Did she really want to force herself on him like this? Was there anything more unattractive to a man than a desperate woman chasing him? She looked into the dining room and saw her mother had left the table, so her gaze shifted to the small living area. She found Gigi standing at the miniature Christmas tree she’d set up in the living room windowsill. Gigi was pretending to straighten the red and gold ornaments while watching Jon and Viola like a hawk. The moment Gigi and Viola’s eyes met across the room, Gigi snapped her head toward Jon again, looking at Viola as if she couldn’t believe how badly she was blowing this.
“Talk to him,” Gigi mouthed.
Viola turned back toward the sink, her heart racing, staring straight ahead at the wall above the sink, where her mother had hung a plaque with her favorite Bible prayer.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change
Courage to change the things I can
And the wisdom to know the difference
It was a verse her mother had forced her to read every night as a child. A verse she’d had drilled into her head for eighteen long years. A verse she’d insisted Viola live by. Now, in some sadistic twist of fate, Gigi was demanding Viola take the exact opposite action that the prayer called for. Jon hated her, and Viola couldn’t change that. No amount of courage would do it. She was wise enough to see it, but apparently, her mother no longer was.
The irony almost made her laugh, but laughter was impossible. It was an action too near to happiness, an emotion she’d lost touch with the moment she’d learned he was Milo’s brother. An emotion that couldn’t exist when his big arm suddenly brushed against hers from next to her, knowing it was a feeling she’d only ever feel again by accident. A pulse-pounding feeling that was enough to leave her mind an empty canvas. Like a brain that’d never learned a single letter of the alphabet, let alone the words to express just what the soft sweep of his skin against hers did to her.
Yearning. Fire. Thirst. Fervor. Just a few words of many that had completely escaped her. Words she could feel down to her very core, but somehow couldn’t expound upon. Did he feel it too?
Her speechlessness continued when his hand brushed hers as he offered her a dish over the double sink. White soapsuds dripped down his tanned skin and tickled hers, making the back of his hand almost as slippery as the throbbing cavern between her legs.
“Can you take this before it slips out of my hand?” he demanded.
Viola’s breath came up short as she stared at the gleaming white plate, a warm shiver rolling all over her body, and a lump forming in her throat. The action of taking that plate from him couldn’t have been farther from her mind, too busy fantasizing about taking his sudsy hand, sliding it past the waistband of her jeans, and showing him what slippery really felt like.
“You offered to help,” he spat. “So help.”
Snapped out of her haze, she looked up at him with a soft gasp. The fury in his blue eyes lit her up, sending shockwaves through her that brought her blazing back down to Earth. With trembling fingers, she took the plate.
“Damn,” he spat in frustration, shoving the faucet head toward her so the spout was on her side of the sink and slapping the handle upward. Water shot out. What she wouldn’t do to see him exploding in the same way. Releasing all the tension that had pulled his biceps tighter than a rubber band, veins pulsing like they were moments from busting through his skin, snapping in two. Never in her life had she wanted something to snap so badly. Never had the thought of a man snapping, gushing, surging like the sink before her, appealed to her in quite the way it did right then. Quite the contrary, in fact, she’d always been grossed out by the sight of a man’s cum. Terrified the moment it materialized and went airborne. Ducking and dodging like it was acid that would melt her skin. But at that moment, she wanted Jon’s all over her body. Wherever she could get it, even if it did eventually prove itself acidic. Melting through her skin and bones. Couldn’t be any worse than the emotional agony that was already dissolving her anyway, growing stronger with every moment she was in his presence, the naked hatred he felt for her permeating off him like deadly radiation.
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,” she prayed under her breath, rinsing the soap off each dish he handed her and placing them on the drying rack, which sat on the counter next to her. Not only had God granted her serenity, he’d also granted her basic decency and composure. Which was why she had no doubt that very God was up in the sky somewhere, feeling extremely unhappy with the vulgar direction her thoughts were taking her in at that moment.
Jon’s hand brushed against hers again, offering her a clean, soapy fork.
Her heartbeat tripled as she took it, praying for decency. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… courage to change the things I can… and the wisdom to know the difference. God grant me the serenity to accep—”
“Are you speaking to me?” he asked.
What little strength the verse had given her dissipated like smoke in the air the moment his angry voice kissed her ears. “How long are you going to go on hating me?”
He froze, leaving only the sound of the running water to fill the small kitchen. Then he made a noise. She couldn’t tell if it was a huff, a chuckle, or a combination of both.
With every moment of silence he allowed to pass, she lost a little more restraint. “So… the friend you were talking about at the center today. Brock Baca…?”
He drew in a heavy breath, slamming his eyes closed.
“That’s where you got your stage name, huh?”
He licked his lips and offered her another fresh dish. “Yes, Viola.”
“You must’ve really loved him, huh?”
“Yes.”
One word answers. Sharp voice. Tense muscles. As if talking to her was a chore. A job so tedious it needed business hours. The only thing missing was a placard around his neck listing the times he’d be available and happy to speak to her. Operating Hours: Fucking Never to When Hell Freezes Over.
He clearly resented the fact that she was using Brock’s name to drag a real response from him. Using a story that’d been meant for the kids’ ears, not hers. Exploiting his late friend for her own benefit the same way he believed she was exploiting Milo.
“My Dad overdosed too,” she whispered.
His head snapped toward her, and he froze in the midst of scrubbing the next plate as his eyes met hers. They widened. His lips fell open even as he held his breath, making his broad chest freeze in mid-rise.
Viola smiled softly. “I guess you probably already knew that. I’m sure my mom talked about it all the time down at the center…”
“No.” A lump moved down his throat. “No, she didn’t, actually. I didn’t… I didn’t know that.”
Viola frowned softly.
He did too. “I’m sorry.”
“She’s always talking about how the kids can’t connect with her. About how much they value honesty. I’m surprised she never told you guys. Seems like the perfect way to show how much she understands.”
“Maybe she didn’t want to use him like that.”
“It’s not using him. I mean—he’s the reason she was inspired to open the center in the first place. The reason she stuck with it even though it’s a huge money pit and has nearly taken us under too many times to count. It really is a labor of love for her. In her heart, she does it for him.”
Jon searched her eyes for a long moment before going back to the dishes. This time, he handed her the plates and silverware he cleaned slower, more gently, instead of shoving them at her like he had been a moment earlier.
He cut his eyes to their corners as she rinsed them, but didn’t fully meet her gaze. “Were you close to him?”
She held her breath at the question. He was speaking to her kindly. Willingly. The placard around his neck had swung around and now clearly read ‘Open’.
Knowing that placard might never read ‘open’ again, she leapt. “I never met him. He died before I was born. But my mom shows me pictures of him all the time. I look like him. She says I act like him too. ‘Loudmouthed and stubborn.’ That’s what she says we have most in common. Some days I can’t decide whether to take it as an insult or a compliment.” She smiled when he spluttered out a laugh. “When I was a kid, I used to fantasize about him still being alive. I used to talk to the walls like they were him—like he was standing right next to me—until my mom caught me talking to a lampshade one day. Scared her so much she put me into child therapy. Told me how unhealthy it was and begged me to stop. I secretly kept doing it until high school. Sometimes I still do.”
Jon stared into her eyes silently.
She waited to see judgment. When it never appeared, she blushed. “I would’ve given anything to have a real dad that I could actually look at. Touch. Talk to whenever I wanted.”
“Yeah, well, just because you have a father in the flesh doesn’t mean you have a father. I bet your lampshade dad was ten times the father some of these father’s still walking around above ground are.”
She frowned up at him. Some part of her wanted to regale him with what a caring man Robert Moore seemed to be. A little bit of a hardass, sure, but still a good man at the core. A good father who worked hard and did everything he could to provide for his family. Tough on Jon, but not in a cruel way. In a way that wanted what was best for him.
Jon spoke before she could. “You know he’s never been to a single one of my concerts?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Not one. You know how many free tickets I’ve sent to him? How many front row seats? First class flights?”
She shook her head, eyes wide.
“Neither do I.” He handed her another plate. “Lost track a few years ago.”
She rinsed the plate. “There’s a lot of tension between the two of you, but I always figured it was that normal tension that a lot of kids have with their parents.”
“Nah, you and Gigi? You guys have tension. Me and him?” He hissed. “Fuckin’ stone cold, rock-hard ice. Nobody wants to bend. Maybe because we both know if we bend, we’ll break.”
“Is it because you were in rehab all those years? Is that what Milo was talking about at dinner the first night? About the 10k?”
Jon stared ahead at the plaque as if he was the one reading the Bible verse now.
When he didn’t respond, Viola stopped blasting questions at him for fear of driving him deeper into the vat of silence he’d fallen into.
“He wants me to be… good…” His eyes danced over the lines of the prayer, repeatedly. “But I can’t be. Maybe that’s why I’m so drawn to people who seem good…”
Viola’s breath fell short when he suddenly looked down at met her eyes once more.
“Why I want so badly for people to be good, even when they aren’t.” His chest rose. “I hope some of that goodness might rub off on me. Save me from myself before my own debauchery swallows me up.”
“Is anyone ever really good?”
He raised an eyebrow, studying her. “Apparently not.”
“Well… I think you’re pretty damn good.”
He chuckled, looking away and giving his attention to the dishes once more.
“No, I really do,” she said. “Even though you’ll obviously never feel the same way about me. Maybe it was actually me that was drawn to you on that plane. Hoping some of your goodness might rub off.”
He handed her several more clean dishes, one after the other, before responding. “When saving my lunch money stopped being enough, I’d lift cash from his wallet. When he stopped putting cash in his wallet, I lifted my mother’s jewelry. When I finally lifted a ring that’d been in the family for three decades, he showed me the door. What the hell’s good about that? What? Tell me.”
Viola hesitated, not because she couldn’t think of an answer, but because she was shocked at how quickly he’d just opened up to her. “Like my mom said, the triumph. The recovery. The fact that you took something bad and made it better.”
“It’s not a triumph when it’s not a choice—when you’re fifteen and out on the street. I didn’t choose to succeed. I had no choice but to.”
“I think you’re the only person splitting those kind of hairs. I mean—it’s not like Adam put you in his band on a whim. You had to work hard to become talented enough to join The White Keys.”
“Adam was just as fucked up as I was when we formed The White Keys. That vanilla bean version of him you met the other night is a direct result of Shaun Green. The Adam I met ten years ago and the Adam today? Night and day.”
“Why can’t you give yourself the same credit? If Adam went from bad to better, why can’t you?”
“When did I say he was better? He used to be fun until Shaun swept in and neutered him.”
“Do I sense a little jealousy?”
“I’m not jealous. Just saying, she stole him from me.”
“Maybe Shaun was onto something, after all. I think you and Noodle really are secretly dying to settle down. To be domesticated.”
He smirked and went to respond, but Gigi cleared her throat from the dining room, causing his eyes to fly toward her in shock as if he’d completely forgotten he was not just in Gigi’s house, but actually having a pleasant conversation with her daughter—a woman he’d been determined to hate.
Viola shot her mother an infuriated look. All that neck snapping Gigi had done earlier, and she’d had the audacity to interrupt them mid-conversation? The first real conversation he’d had with her, willingly, since their plane had touched down in Utah? It took everything in Viola not to explode.
Gigi seemed to realize her mistake right away, regret written all over her face. “I just wanted to let you know that I have the couch all set up for you, Jonathan. That’s all.” Gigi tried to leave, make her escape, desperate to get away from Viola before the fire blazing from her eyes made its way across the room and engulfed her in deadly flames.
“Nah…” Jon called, causing Gigi to freeze in mid-retreat, swivel, and face them once more, still looking defeated while shooting Viola a look of deep apology. “Nah, Gigi, I’m not staying.”
“Oh, Jonathan, honey, are you sure? It’s so late, and it’s such a long drive.”
Something had already shifted in his eyes when he looked back at Viola. As if realizing for the first time in the last several minutes that she was the bane of his existence. As if he couldn’t believe he’d allowed himself to forget who she really was. Enough to carry on an entire conversation. To open up about his late friend—about his father. About his irrational jealousy toward his bandmate’s new fiancée. Viola swore she could see every stunned flash of awareness in his eyes as they whisked their way through his brain. She swore she could see the moment he made a silent vow to never let it happen again.
Jon turned back to Gigi once more. “I’ll come back for Viola tomorrow.”
The moment his back was turned, Viola made claws with her fingers and aimed them silently at Gigi’s neck.
Gigi raised her shoulders. “Our pull out is outrageously comfortable. Even more than our actual beds. Like sleeping on a cloud! I’m really not at ease with the idea of you driving back this late. I won’t be able to sleep if you do. Do you want me to lose sleep? You really should stay. I demand you stay. I’ll take it as a personal insult if you go. Do you really want to insult me?”
Gigi was laying it on thick. Viola’s chest heaved as she waited for Jon to agree to stay just to shut her up.
He sighed. “You guys need some mother and daughter time. Don’t need all my testosterone fuckin’ up the vibe.”
“We love testosterone,” Gigi smiled, now practically begging on her daughter’s behalf.
Unlike Gigi, however, Viola knew it was too late. Her heart hit her feet when Jon confirmed that by crossing the kitchen to Gigi and placing a kiss on her cheek. Gigi’s face curled at Viola in regret as he did.
“Thank you for dinner,” he said to Gigi before adding, “hell, thank you for everything.”
“Sounds suspiciously like goodbye,” Gigi said. “And you know how I hate goodbyes.”
“Never goodbye,” Jon said, looking over his shoulder at Viola.
Viola straightened when their eyes met, her entire body tense as she yearned for him to cross the kitchen and warm her cheeks with a few goodbye kisses as well.
He clenched his fists, cracking each of his knuckles as he did. Pressing his lips together, he spun away and exited the kitchen without another word, leaving both Gigi and Viola in silence. His stomps shook the floors in his retreat, and the click of the front door opening rang out.
Viola jolted when it slammed closed a moment later, proving that no conversation between her and Jon would ever be powerful enough to change the dynamic of their failed relationship. The fact of the matter was, they had no relationship. Whatever once in a lifetime connection they’d shared on Flight 485 was as good as dead.
Because now he knew who she really was.
Or, at least, he thought he did.