A laugh barked out of me. “Something like that.”
Zelda narrowed her large green eyes at me. “Have you two ever…?” She sawed the bread stick in and out of the O of her thumb and index finger.
“Jesus, Zelda.”
“Well?”
“No. We haven’t even kissed. And I feel like a junior high school dork talking about this.”
“Youshouldtalk about this. With her. If you want her, tell her. Fly to wherever she is tonight and tell her.”
“Tell her what? I don’t have the words,” I said. “Jonah did. He could say all the right things to make her feel special, or at least tell her how he felt. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not good at romance and shit.”
“Not calling it ‘romance and shit’ is probably a good place to start.”
I shrugged. “Straight sex is easier for me.”
“Fantastic.” Zelda rolled her eyes. “I’m on a non-date with the last nice guy in Vegas, who’s probably a beast in the sack and happens to be in love with someone else. Who’s luckier than me?”
“I’m not in love with her.”
Zelda rested her cheek in her hand, stirred her beleaguered breadstick in her water glass. “Liar.”
“I don’t know what I feel. I’m fucking frustrated. Is that what love is? Trying to do right by everyone while feeling like my guts are inside out? I can’t think about, sleep with or even touch another woman.”
Zelda’s eyebrows shot up. “You haven’t slept with anyone else? Since when?”
“Dude, I haven’t so much as jerked off in year.”
Zelda stared at me for a moment, then blinked and shook her head. “I feel like I should drink some water and have you tell me that again so I can do a spit-take.”
“Yeah, well…”
“What about all those dates Edgar is always teasing you about? The blonde and her party? The redhead with the snake on her ankle?”
I shrugged. “Lies.”
“I’ve heard you blow off Edgar a hundred times, saying you had a woman waiting. Where do you really go?”
“Church.”
“Say that again,” she said, taking a sip of water.
I smiled into my own water glass. “I go see Jonah’s installation. It’s still at the Wynn. I just sit there and think. I don’t pray or anything, but it’s like…sitting in a cathedral.”
Zelda shifted in her chair. I looked up and her green eyes were heavy and soft. The sharp edge of sarcasm fell away, revealing a soft vulnerability underneath. “I see.”
“It’s stupid.”
“It’snotstupid. Jesus, why do you dismiss or belittle every single emotion that crosses your heart?”
I stared. “I don’t…” I thought of Kacey in the cemetery in New Orleans, how I’d kept my mouth shut at maybe the worst time.
“We’re just friends, right?” Kacey asked.
Zelda leaned on her hand, smiled. “Tell me.”
“Fucking hell. Okay, here it is. Jonah knew I cared about Kacey. He saw it, somehow. And he told me, right before he died, he wanted me to take care of her and…”
