"I'm sure he's fine," I said. Jonah sighed and nodded, pulling me close and scratching the back of my head. I pulled back immediately and grabbed his hand. "Your fingers?"
"They work," he said, with a touch of pride.
"Can you feel everything?" I asked, pressing them to my lips.
His eyes darkened. "I feel that."
Heat rushed through my belly and then down to my core. "Don't you want to stay here? You're the man of the hour, aren't you?"
He shook his head. "No. Gid is." He glanced at the laughing knots of people. None of them were even paying us a bit of attention. "Let's get out of here. My fingers have healed enough to play guitar. Now I just need to make sure they can still make you come all over them."
Spoiler alert: They could.
Chapter Forty-One
Ruby
"Happy New Year, baby," he groaned as my bones turned to jelly. I buried my face in his neck to muffle my scream of pleasure. He was right there with me and then we were falling together, our own private fireworks on New Year's Eve.
I fell back on the bed with a contented sigh, then laughed when I saw Ginger's paw sliding under the door. "She knows what we're doing in here."
I expected Jonah to laugh, but when I looked up at him, he was watching me with a strange expression on his face. "What's up?
He looked like he was mulling something over, and then all at once came to his decision. "I need to do something now," he announced, standing back up again.
His stuff was scattered all over my house, including the guitar he'd played the night of the memorial concert. He told me later that it had been Gid's guitar, a little tidbit that had made me weep openly and then attack him all over again.
It was that guitar that now stood in the corner fo my bedroom. I had wondered why he very deliberately moved there before laying me down on the bed, and I wondered even more as he walked over and picked it up. "Are you feeling inspired or something?" I teased.
He didn't say anything, only lifted the strap to sling the guitar over his body. I settled down low over his hips and I mock pouted. "It's hiding the best part of you now."
He grinned but oddly didn't take the bait. Instead he thoughtfully strummed. And then started picking out a lilting little memory.
I sat up on the bed, listening. The song was simple and totally catchy, the kind of thing that the King Brothers would have sung in their prime but without the overdubbed vocals and the slick production. Just a simple little song that already had me smiling.
The he started singing.
Never meant to love you
I fell without a chance
Now I'm trying hard to love you
Though I suck at the romance
He paused to let me stop giggling. With a gracious, self-deprecating smile, he strummed and cleared his throat.
It's a brand new year now
And I wrote a song for you
About the life I want now
I want to spend it with you.
He paused again. My heart was beating in my ears. "Are you proposing... naked?"
He gave a small shrug.
Ruby will you marry me?
I swear forevermore
To love you, make you happy
It's you that I adore.
My breath hitched. I couldn't talk. I couldn't breathe. He grinned again and shook the guitar.
Then frowned and shook it again.
Then turned it over, lifting to look inside.
I burst out laughing. "Is the ring stuck in your guitar?"
"Gid's guitar," he grumbled, giving a mighty shake. "I don't exactly have pockets to put it in right now, do I?"
I was laughing so hard I couldn't get the words out. When the small platinum circle finally clattered through the strings and fell to the floor, I held my hand out.
He bent to retrieve it then looked at me. "Is this a yes?"
I nodded, still helplessly, hysterically laughing.
"You have to actually say it, Ruby," he growled. "It's kind of important."
"Yes!" I choked.
His shoulders finally relaxed. He slid the ring onto my left hand where it fit perfectly. Then his eyes slid from my hand up to my breasts, and then widened. "I think we need to consummate this."
"You consummate a marriage, not an engagement!" I cried. But he had already tackled me down to the bed and, well, we were both already naked so I really could see no reason to object.
Epilogue, Part One
Jonah
It was supposed to be a celebration of the impending spring, but the morning of the school play dawned wet and muddy and miserable. A fine sleeting rain made the roads slippery as hell.
I drove us to the Saturday morning performance. Ruby was still intermittently nervous about slippery roads and gladly let me take charge.
Backstage was pandemonium, with parent volunteers trying to corral the nervous, hyper kids and get them into their costumes. I saw Luke Keely, the dude who'd been after Ruby, chatting up some PTA mom as he braided a first grader's hair out of her eyes. The mom was looking at him like she might jump his bones any second.
I gave the guy a mental high five. He'd been after Ruby which meant he had good taste. I wished him good luck, but it looked like he didn't really need it.
"Oh no!" Lydia Walker suddenly squealed, but deftly managed to get a trash can in front of Kayleigh before the kindergartner vomited all over the floor. ""Oh no, did you eat spaghetti last night?" Lydia groaned.
"Oh dear," the PTA mom moaned, rushing over with her nose all wrinkled up. Luke had wisely melted into the woodwork.
Ruby slid her arm into mine. "Ah, chaos," she sighed.
I leaned in and kissed the top of her head. "People flirting, people puking. It's just like being backstage at a rock concert." I considered for a moment. "Maybe a little less drug use."
"I'd hope," she gasped, looking horrified. I laughed. "Okay!" I shouted, clapping my hands. I was getting good at this teacher shit. "Time for warmups!"
I took them through vocal warm-ups, with all those little voices singing my words back to me, every face turned to mine like I had the spotlight trained on me.
All eyes on me.
It felt kind of like being a rock star.
I heard the sounds of the parents thundering into the auditorium. The show was about to begin. "Okay, you're going to do great!" I called, leading them through one more cheer. Just like I'd done with my brothers night after night for years, I put my hand out and waited for them to put theirs in to. Only instead of three hands, thirty-three little hands covered mine this morning. "One, two, three..."
"Sing!" they shouted in unison and barreled off to take their places.
I stood in the wings before the curtain opened, more nervous for these little kids than I had ever been for myself. Some of the older ones, the nine and ten year olds, they were the age I was when I started playing. This could be the start for them, the little shove onto the path of music. It was exciting as hell because as weird as my life had been so far, it had also been incredible. And I had my brothers and best friends there living it with me.