“Okay, Larissa,” Ginny pushed through numb lips. “I’ll really sit down and consider it this week. I mean that. I don’t want you to be miserable.”
“Aren’t you miserable, too? Don’t you want to try something new? We could…I don’t know. We could try something new together, even? I’m not that bad, am I?” Her stepmother bit off a curse. “Listen to me rambling. I’m just stressed.”
“It’s fine.” Ginny pressed her lips together. “Bye, Larissa.”
The line was already dead.
Ginny let the phone drop to her lap, starting when she found Jonas standing at the end of the couch, watching her with concern.
“Did you hear all of that?” she asked.
Equations solving themselves behind his golden eyes. “Yes.”
She nodded, grateful when he didn’t press. “I have to go home.”
“I know.” It was clear he didn’t like it, too. “Tonight is important to you. Roksana will stay with you until I can…”
“Go outside?”
Jonas remained unmoving. But for the first time, the differences between them were a long-term problem. They weren’t just details that would no longer matter once her memory was erased. Jonas couldn’t go outside in the sunlight. They could never walk along the boardwalk together, or even lie in bed on a Sunday morning with light streaming in through the window.
When did she do those things anyway?
In a way, she already kept the hours of a vampire, sleeping through most of the day and working the night shift. Staying indoors during the day wouldn’t even be that big of an adjustment for her, but Jonas looked concerned nonetheless.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll miss you until tonight, but it’s okay.”
“I’ll miss you, too. Mercilessly.” The vein in his temple ticked as he held out a hand. “Come have breakfast.”
It was definitely a new experience, eating breakfast while sitting on Jonas’s lap, his thumb brushing back and forth against the small of her back. She was thankful Roksana had some of the eggs, too, so she didn’t have to be the only one eating. Once they were finished and they all pitched in cleaning the dishes, her stomach started to jangle with nerves. Because she was leaving Jonas?
That’s what it felt like. As if they were going to be on opposite sides of the country, instead of opposite ends of Coney Island.
“I can hear your pulse beating fast, love,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s going to be all right.”
Ginny fanned her face. “Why do I feel like this?”
“I hate letting you go, too, but I don’t know if our reasons match.” He tucked her head beneath his chin. “Maybe you’re worried the pain will come back if you leave me. It won’t. Not before I see you again.”
“I’d be more worried about the pain coming back for you…but I don’t think that’s it.” She tried to find a way to put her anxiety into words. “Everything feels so fragile. Like this…us…could get taken away any minute.”
He kissed her forehead hard. “We’re the opposite of fragile, you and me.”
Still walking on pins and needles, Ginny nodded. Pull it together. They couldn’t be together twenty-four hours a day. They both had responsibilities. They were independent people. She had to work the funeral home and maintain her interests. He had the newbies to train. If she fell victim now to the impulse to never leave Jonas’s side, she’d never overcome it in the future.
“Why are you worried about letting me leave?”
“While we are not fragile, love…you are. You couldn’t withstand an accident or a long fall or—” He broke off with a rough exhale. “Roksana, please.”
“I’ll guard her with my life,” the slayer said where she waited at the door. “To the best of my ability. You know I will.”
“I know we have to worry about the High Order finding out about us now, but Seymour is gone. You took care of the immediate threat last night,” Ginny reminded him, pushing off his lap to her feet. “I’ll see you when the sun goes down.”
“I’ll be watching the clock,” he murmured, catching her hand and dusting his lips across her knuckles. “Bye, Ginny.” She was almost to the door when Jonas appeared between her and the door with a determined set to his jaw. “Will my mate not kiss me goodbye?”
Flowers bloomed in the soil of her nerve endings, sprouting like spring daisies. “Are you sure that’s a good—”
Jonas mouth was already on hers, depleting her lungs of breath. He took it into himself and gave it back to her in a greedy exchange. The fingers of his right hand molded to the back of her neck, sliding up into her hair and fisting it, his tongue traveling into her mouth to touch their tongues together. Just a hint. And another. Such gentle friction compared to his hold which might as well have been made of steel bars. Ginny’s thighs itched to perch on his hips, but he made her too dizzy to follow through, once again pulling the air from her body and breathing it into her once again.
“I carry you in my veins, you carry me in your lungs.”
Dazed, she nodded.
With a satisfied smirk, he turned her to face the door where Roksana was still waiting with her eyes averted. “Tonight, Ginny.”
She left in such a daze, she didn’t realize until they were standing outside on the sidewalk that Jonas didn’t blindfold her. Turning to face the building, she realized she’d been sleeping in the basement of the abandoned Shore Theater all along. The men’s apartment was a series of dressing rooms, wasn’t it? That’s where those big-bulbed frames came from.
“Nothing surprises me anymore,” she murmured, staring up at the boarded up arches and vintage stonework.
“No?” Roksana said, tossing her a wink. “In this world, when things stop surprising you, wait five minutes.”
In that moment, Ginny didn’t know enough to acknowledge the truth of her friend’s words. She would soon enough.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ginny stepped aside to avoid being run over by Larissa and her suitcase.
“What do you mean you’re outta here?”
“I’ll explain it one more time,” her stepmother called over her shoulder. “An investor called and asked if the business was for sale. I told him, yes, of course. That he should get in touch with you to make an offer. But he was only interested in my share.”
Larissa ran back up the stairs, emerging a moment later with another suitcase, this one bursting at the seams with undergarments.
“I don’t know why I never thought of that angle before, but your father’s will states that the company would be split fifty-fifty in the event of his demise. There’s no language precluding me from transferring my portion to someone else. And it’s done.” She held up her arms in a touchdown signal. “Hallelujah. I’m out.”
“But…” Ginny pressed the back of her wrist to her forehead. “You just sold half of the business without speaking to me?”
“I spoke to my lawyer.”
Ginny sat down on the stairs out of necessity. Her legs would no longer support her. “But I don’t even know this person.”