by Debra Doxer
“What girl wouldn’t watch a reality show about his life?” I asked.
“If he’s bald and weighs three hundred pounds now, not a single one.” Jonah was humoring me, but he was enjoying the back and forth as much as I was.
“Please, women are not that superficial. But wait, if he’s three hundred pounds, he could go on The Biggest Loser. That’s a brilliant idea.”
“Um, Seaborne.” Jonah cleared his throat.
“What?”
“We’re here.”
He pointed out the windshield. We were parked in front of a brick building, and beyond it was a large oval-shaped greenhouse of some sort.
A small purple sign beside the entrance caught my attention. “The Butterfly Place?”
Jonah grinned at me. “Come on.”
“They have butterflies here?” I asked dumbly when I met him on the sidewalk.
He just laughed at me and headed toward the entrance. As I followed him, I wondered how he even knew about this place.
When we reached the door, a group of kids came streaming out, screeching and carrying what looked like pinwheels shaped like butterfly wings. They ran toward a yellow bus parked at the end of the lot, and I assumed they were on a field trip. This is an odd place for Jonah to have brought me, I thought as I looked around, trying to hide how baffled I was.
At the counter inside, an older woman with thick eyeglasses told Jonah that tickets were fifteen dollars. I noticed her staring at his scar as she spoke. It was the first time I’d seen anyone be so obvious about it, and I wondered if it bothered him. As I pulled out my wallet, he raised a hand to stop me. “I got this.”
“My goodness. What happened to your fingers?” the woman asked. I’d taken off my gloves to dig for my wallet.
After the way she’d rudely stared at Jonah, I felt like being a wiseass to her. “Wood chipper accident.”
Her eyes widened as she scanned between my hands and Jonah’s eye, and I could see the wheels turning in her head, wondering if the injuries were related, even though Jonah’s scar was obviously older. In my peripheral vision, I saw Jonah’s head turn in my direction. When I glanced at him, he was trying not to smile.
“How awful,” she said quietly, her lips pursing as she shuddered.
Jonah took the tickets and we followed the women’s hand when she pointed us toward a door on the other side of the room. It led to the greenhouse in the back, she explained. There was a coat rack beside the door, and Jonah began to shrug off his coat.
“Go ahead.” He urged me to take my coat off too. “You won’t need it in there.”
Despite the chill, I figured the greenhouse would be warm based on the condensation on the glass and the fact that greenhouses were generally supposed to be warm. Weren’t they?
Once we both had our coats off, Jonah pushed open the door, holding it for me. We walked into a small hallway with another door at the end. A sign on the wall told us to enter quickly and to close the door firmly behind us.
After Jonah pulled the second door open, I stepped inside and paused as a smile swept across my face.
With Jonah at my back, urging me forward, I allowed my gaze to travel over the glass-domed room, spotting butterflies fluttering among the green vegetation. I caught flashes of red and purple along with bursts of orange and yellow too. But one obvious aspect of this place answered my question as to why Jonah brought me here. It was the heat.
It was tropical inside the greenhouse, like those dog days of summer everyone complained about, but I always loved. The moist, warm air blanketed my skin, melting away the penetrating chill I’d felt since Jonah pulled me out of that freezer.
With a big silly grin on my face, I turned to look at him. He was watching me closely, waiting for my reaction, and I couldn’t hold back. I threw my arms around his neck and squeezed him tight. “It’s amazing,” I said. “You picked the perfect place, Jonah.”
He wrapped his arms around my back, pulling me close. I wasn’t exaggerating. It was perfect here. I was choked up, finding it hard to believe he’d found this place for me. I wasn’t used to such kindness. It was overwhelming.
“Thank you,” I said, unwinding my arms from his neck and resting my heels back on the ground.
He looked at me with gleaming eyes that were nearly translucent in the bright sunlight.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “You called me Jonah.”
“I did?”
When he nodded, I shrugged. “You started the last-name thing. I never got what that was about.”
Before Jonah could respond, one of the orange butterflies landed on his shoulder.
I giggled in delight. “Keep still,” I whispered. Pulling out my phone, I tried to take a picture, but the bandages were in the way, and I nearly dropped it. Frustrated, I changed my grip and tried to use my thumb.
“Let me.” Jonah took my phone, turned it, and snapped a butterfly selfie just before it flew away. When he handed it back, I grinned at his handsome image, knowing that picture was a keeper.
“That’s a monarch butterfly,” he said, pointing toward a large chart on the wall filled with pictures of butterflies of all colors listed with their scientific classifications and English names. The monarch was in the Common column with a picture of its orange black-tipped wings.
“Come on,” he softly urged, settling his hand on my lower back as he guided me to a bench on the other side of a path that meandered through the bushes.
I was still reveling in the heat, knowing it would be a long time before I’d want to leave here.
“How did you know about this place?” I asked, once we were sitting beside each other to watch the delicate, colorful show.
Jonah rested his arm along the back of the bench behind me and stretched his long legs out in front of him. “I did some searching online. I was actually looking for a hotel or something that had a sauna or a steam room you could use without having to stay there or belong to the health club. Somehow, one of my searches brought this place up.”
My chest grew tight at the thought he’d spent time looking for a warm place to take me. I couldn’t think of anyone else who would do something like this.
We fell silent then, watching the butterflies, listening to the whisper of sound they made as they alighted on the tree branches. I wasn’t sure what made me turn my head to look at Jonah, but as I did, he turned too.
Our eyes connected. At first it was a friendly acknowledgment, but as I watched, something changed in his expression. His gaze sharpened, growing heavy and determined, looking like someone who knew exactly what he wanted. As I sat there mesmerized, his eyes silently begged me to want the same thing. I swallowed hard because I did want it.
When my lips parted on a small breath of air, his nostrils flared and I sensed his intention. I was already filled with anticipation as his face drifted toward mine, and I leaned in to meet him.
Our lips touched, and I pulled in another soft breath at the sensation. His mouth pressed harder as his fingers drifted into my hair, holding me in place so he could kiss me more firmly, fusing his lips to mine.
My hands slid up his chest, pausing over his heart long enough to notice the way it sped up, before I wrapped my arms around his neck so I could anchor myself to him.
When I opened my mouth, he slipped his tongue inside. My skin broke out in goose bumps as the muscles low in my belly curled tightly in a way they never had before. He surrounded me with his arms, his scent, and his need, and I knew this was the potential I’d sensed all along. From the first moment I saw Jonah, I knew it would be like this between us. Heady and consuming.
“Excuse me.”
We both heard the voice. I could tell by the way Jonah briefly stilled, but neither of us stopped, not until a throat cleared pointedly.
Gradually Jonah stopped kissing me, but he didn’t move away. We were both trying to catch our breath when I finally leaned back, feeling dazed and disoriented.
“There are children here.” A w
oman with dark hair, dressed in a blouse and a tan skirt, spoke sternly to us. Behind her, children laughed and pointed at the butterflies. Some children were watching us too, and my face reddened as I realized how carried away we’d gotten.
Jonah’s eyes searched my face as he tried to gauge how I was feeling. When I smiled, he did too before he turned to the woman.
“Could you take a picture of us?” he asked, not looking a bit embarrassed as he held his phone out to her.
It was hard not to laugh at his earnest expression.
His request threw her, defusing her outrage, and I caught Jonah’s lopsided grin as she sputtered a moment before sighing and taking the phone from him.
“Smile, Candy,” he said softly as he put his arm around me.
When she snapped the picture, I knew I had a dazed look on my face along with flushed, rosy cheeks. He’d called me Candy. Just the sound of my name falling from his lips had my heart skipping wildly again.
Once the woman was gone, one of the children approached us, a little boy dressed in a white T-shirt with a sweater tied around his waist. “What happened to your hands?” he asked.
I held them out in front of me so he could get a better look. “Shark attack.”
He gasped as his eyes went wide. Then he ran off and we overheard him telling his friends.
Beside me, Jonah snorted. “You’re having way too much fun with this.”
“It’s either that or feel sorry for myself, right? Next time someone asks, I’m going to say knife fight.”
Jonah didn’t laugh. Instead he frowned, reminding me why I joked about my hands in the first place or tried to hide them. Too much reality wasn’t fun for anyone. I was wishing I hadn’t been so honest when Jonah kissed the side of my head, right by my hairline, making me glad my father washed my hair this morning.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For bringing me here. For understanding.”
“You don’t have to thank me.”
“But I want to. You’ve always understood about my hands, right from the start. Most people don’t get it or they think it’s no big deal. But you’ve been really thoughtful about it, and I want you to know I appreciate it.”
His arm came around my shoulder and squeezed. “You’d be better off living somewhere warm.”
I shrugged. “Maybe I will someday.”
“It doesn’t have to be someday. You could go to college in a warmer climate next year.” His voice was soft and low beside my ear.
“I wouldn’t want to be that far away from my father.” I said the words automatically because they’d always been true, but now I wasn’t so sure. Things were strained between us, and I didn’t know how I felt or where we stood.
A few heartbeats passed before he asked, “Why didn’t you live with your father after your mother died?” His words held no judgment, but it was obviously a question he’d been thinking about for a while.
“I wanted to,” I replied, knowing I couldn’t tell him the whole truth. “But he travels a lot for work. He thought it would be better for me to live with my aunt. The day I became an adult and could decide for myself, I came home.”
“I have a feeling you were an adult long before the legal system said so.”
Knowing it was true, I rested my head on his shoulder. “What about you?” I asked. “How old were you when your mom left?”
After a pause, he answered, “Fifteen.”
That surprised me. For some reason, I’d imagined he was much younger. “Do you have any contact with her?”
Jonah shifted beside me. “No.”
His one-word answers made his reluctance to talk apparent. “You’re angry with her.”
“Not angry.” He sighed. “Disappointed, I guess. I thought she was someone different than who she turned out to be.”
“Who did she turn out to be?”
He hesitated, and as much as I wanted to know more, it wasn’t enough to risk ruining the mood.
“Never mind,” I said. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
His hand smoothed over my hair. I thought he might say it was okay, that he didn’t mind telling me, but he said nothing.
Before when I asked about his mother, Jonah said she’d left because she wasn’t happy, but if she had no contact with her son, there had to be more to it. Eventually, I hoped he’d feel comfortable enough to talk about it since it obviously still affected him. Maybe he’d tell me about his scar too, because I was getting the feeling both those things were part of the reason Jonah didn’t have it easy, like Heather told me at Parker’s party.
Jonah and I stayed on that bench, neither of us wanting to move and break the spell we’d cast around ourselves. As people came and went, he never reclaimed his arm, keeping it around me as I leaned into him, feeling safe and warm and utterly content to sit here all day.
When Jonah finally shifted beside me, my heart sank because I knew what he was about to say.
“We should probably be getting back.”
I groaned. “Can’t we live here? I’d be willing to pay rent.”
He rubbed his hand down my back one last time. Then he stood and reached out to me, tugging me up gently by my arm.
“Now that we know it’s here, we can come back,” he said.
“Promise?” I pouted at the thought of going out into the cold.
He chuckled. “I promise that from now on, when you get cold, I’ll make it my personal mission to warm you up.”
My stomach fluttered at the possibilities.
***
Theo: Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.
We ate take-out food in the car, laughing and talking the whole the way home from the The Butterfly Place. Once Jonah was parked in my driveway, he turned to me and asked, “Can I see you this weekend?”
A bubble of excitement expanded inside my chest. “You mean like a date?”
His lips twitched. “No, Candy, not like a date, an actual date.”
My name, spoken in his low rough voice made my skin prickle, even though he was kind of laughing at me. It was dusk, too dark to see his eyes clearly, but the shadows emphasized his chiseled jaw and broad shoulders.
“What would we do on this date?”
He shrugged. “Make out, mostly. If you’re lucky, I might feed you.”
I laughed, reaching for the door handle. “How can I say no to that?”
“Hey, not so fast.” He reached out and laid his hand on my arm.
When I turned toward him, his hands came up to cradle my face, his thumbs smoothing over my cheeks. “Have I told you you’re beautiful yet? Because I’ve wanted to. Every day.”
My suddenly self-conscious gaze shifted up to someplace on his forehead as my cheeks flooded with heat.
Jonah pressed his thumb to my chin to get me to look at him again. What he said next broke my world apart and then pieced it back together again.
“I wish I was the first guy you fell for. Then maybe the shadows in your eyes wouldn’t be there, and when I told you how beautiful you are you’d believe me. You make me want to erase those shadows and chase away the memories that put them there, because every day that you don’t realize how amazing you are is a tragedy in my book.”
Oh my. My head was spinning. I felt raw and exposed, but also understood and safe. Somehow Jonah could see the secret place inside me where I hid my devastations, big and small. He knew they were there, and he wanted to take them away. But before I could wonder at that, his lips were moving against mine, putting his words into action with a kiss more demanding than before. Our tongues tangled as his hands gripped me tighter, spreading a warm, wonderful sensation through my limbs, heating me from the inside out.
His hand moved to my lower back and pressed hard, sliding me over the center console, which forced me to grip his shoulders for balance. A shudder ran through him when my body made contact with his. A moment later, warm fingers slipped beneath the bottom of my
shirt, caressing my bare skin, making me shiver. Jonah sucked gently on my tongue before his lips moved down to my neck, dropping kisses along the sensitive skin there. Breathless, I tipped my head back, feeling the need build inside me.
He kissed back up along my jawline, stopping below my ear. Then he laid his forehead on my shoulder. “We need to stop. We’re still sitting in your driveway.”
My eyes opened slowly and I released a breathy laugh. I’d nearly forgotten where we were. Time lost its meaning, but we’d been going at it long enough for the windows to fog and my whole body to feel flushed and feverish. In all likelihood, my father was waiting for me inside. Jonah was kissing me senseless.
Gently, he set me back in the passenger seat, lifting me by my waist as if I weighed nothing at all, and then he raked a hand through his hair, muttering something about losing control.
Touching my lips, still feeling him there, I smiled because I liked that I made him lose control. Control was highly overrated.
“Wow,” I whispered, because it was all I could manage.
Jonah laughed, and we looked at each other in the dark.
“I’d better go,” I said without moving.
He nodded, his eyes shining.
“Thanks again for today.”
Starting to reach for me again, he stopped and gripped the steering wheel instead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Pulling in a deep breath, I took one last look at him before getting out of the SUV. He waited until I was in the house before driving away. The alarm wasn’t set, which meant my father was home. After hanging up my coat, I walked past the dark kitchen doorway, headed for my bedroom, when my father called out my name.
Startled, I turned to find him sitting at the kitchen table in the dark.
“What are you doing?” I asked, holding my hand over my racing heart.
Reaching for the light switch on the wall, I flipped it on. He squinted, and I noticed that his hair was disheveled as if he’d been running his hands through it.
