But finally the door opened and Jonah King leaped out.
His haircut wasn't a surprise. The tabloid that covered it was still sitting in the dentist's office six months after the fact. I'd seen him, even as I pretended to avoid him. He was still working, honing his solo career after the King Brothers broke up two years ago. He'd opened a leg of Wreckage's US tour, played festivals, and showed up for bit parts and cameos in B-movies. His face was as familiar to me as my own at this point. So I knew exactly how upset he was right now.
But anger tightened in my chest all the same. "You missed it," I called.
He stopped short. "Ruby," he exhaled, taking me in. "You cut your hair."
There was a brief flash of pleasure tinged confusion that he would have noticed that, but I crossed my arms over my chest all the same. "The priest is giving the blessing," I went on as if he hadn't interrupted. "Your dad already gave the eulogy, so..." I trailed off. He was fifty yards away from me, across a bitterly cold parking lot, but I could still feel it.
That magnetism. The thing that made him a star at fourteen and had kept him in the limelight all this time.
I fucking hated it.
"So yeah," I went on, stepping into the lot. "You basically missed it all."
Jonah threw up his hands. "West Ridge was closed!" he complained, distress written in every line of his body. "I had to go all the way up to Johnson Bridge to get across."
"It's been closed two years now," I said pointedly. "Ever since the flood."
He pressed his lips together in frustration and hissed out a low breath of pissed off recollection. "Right."
"If you'd come home since then..."
"I got it, Ruby," he interrupted, raking his hand through his dark hair. For one moment, his face was pure heartbreak, but as quickly as it came, he smoothed it away and forced his face back down into its usual arrogant smirk. He shook his head. "Anything else you want to say or can I go in and be with my family now?"
"Yeah I have something to say." I crossed my arms. "You should wait."
"You said it was almost done, I don't want to miss it." He stepped to the side.
I stepped right into his path. He was a full head taller than me now, something I never remembered about him until I saw him face to face. Or rather, face to collarbone.
He glowered a second and stepped to the right. I countered him.
"We should have had you in the band," he muttered. "You're a good dancer. But let me by."
"No."
"Ruby, he's my uncle."
"And he was my best friend!" I blurted.
He paused and looked down at me. "I thought my sister was your best friend."
My voice broke. "She was. I mean, she is." It was hitting me. Tenses were fucking me up. My words got ahead of my brain, coming out in a desperate, angry flood. "Gid is... he was a different kind of friend, like more of a mentor and I can't believe this! Like, he was working on the school play just last week and telling me about the music he was writing for it and now he's gone and.."
The sobs I'd been holding back all through the service suddenly broke free, which pissed me off because the last thing I wanted to do was cry in front of Jonah King. I wanted to rage at him for too many reasons to even count right now, but instead of quailing under the force of my righteous fury he suddenly pulled me into a hug.
I froze. His arms were around me, my nose pressed into his chest. "It's okay," he breathed. "I know. My uncle was a special guy, for sure."
I stiffened but for some reason I couldn't push him away. I hated that I didn't start hitting him. I hated that I wasn't yelling at the top of my lungs for him to let go, that didn't need his comfort.
Apparently I did. Because as he pulled me to him, my tears came harder and faster. I gulped great breaths, trying to stop my sobs and in the process filled my lungs with the smell of Jonah. He smelled fancier somehow, but I still could detect a little bit of something familiar there, the same scent that lingered in the air when he would pass through the room where Claire, Willa, Sadie and I were playing. I knew that scent and I knew him too, which was why my body sagged into his and I allowed myself to soak his shirt. But I hated him, and hated myself, the whole time I was doing it.
"It's okay," he said again, more hesitant this time. I felt his arms tighten around me, his fingers sinking into the wool of my coat. Clinging, even. Like he needed my comfort as much as I needed his.
His familiar scent was playing havoc with my memories, steeped in tender nostalgia. My body didn't feel connected to my brain anymore.
To my shock, I felt my own arms reach up and squeeze him.
He exhaled in a rush and pulled back. The corner of his mouth tugged into that same studied smile I'd seen on posters and magazine covers my whole fucking life. "Thanks, Ruby. I think I needed that." And in one smooth motion he stepped around me and bounded into the funeral home.
I watched him with my mouth open, wanting to say something but not knowing what the hell it was.
He was such a fucking asshole.
I followed him back into the vestibule and it was only then that I remembered I hadn't gotten Izzy shoes.
Chapter Two
Jonah
I ran inside, convinced Ruby was deliberately making a scene to get sympathy. And I'd obliged her, enjoying the feel of her little body pressed against mine a lot more than I was expecting. But when I stepped into the vestibule, I realized she'd actually been telling the truth.
I'd missed it.
I'd fucking missed it.
I felt the sick realization settle into my limbs, weighing me down. And then right after it came the dull detachment as I pulled back from that awful feeling, unready and unwilling to feel it fully yet. This was Gid's funeral and I'd fucked up and missed it. I knew the despair was going to hit me soon enough, but right now all I could do was sigh as I opened the second set of doors and entered the funeral home.
The sickeningly floral smell hit me first - nothing natural or fresh smelling about those flower arrangements, they all smelled like they'd been spritzed with old lady perfume - and then the sound of scraping chairs and stretching bodies. The service was over and everyone was making to leave and no one seemed to be looking for me, or towards me, at all.
It was odd. I couldn't remember the last time I entered a room without all eyes on me.
The pissed off adrenaline over the closed bridge was slowly draining away, leaving behind a muddy sort of unreality. Half because I was in a funeral home and that was my Uncle Gid in a box over there. And half because I was back in Crown Creek and I hadn't seen any of these people in almost two years. I stood there for a moment, trying and failing to collect myself, to call on the years of being in front of an audience to pull myself together, but the old creeping anger was still raising the hairs on the back of my neck. And it only got worse when I caught sight of my brothers. I touched the flask in my back pocket. I'd filled it with the good shit when I'd left very my hotel in Ohio very early this morning, knowing I might need a lot of help to get through this day.
Beau had been the one to call me, and at first I thought it was some kind of sick joke. Maybe a cheap trick to get me to come home and force a reconciliation with my brothers. I'd even been hoping that the closer I got to Crown Creek, because the alternative was too insane to bear. Uncle Gideon, dead? That couldn't possibly be true.