Full Tilt (Full Tilt #1)(15)
After taking a short pee in the one bathroom in the place, I went to wash my hands in the sink. I expected to find all kinds of scary guy-living-alone nastiness—shaving residue, or phlegm wads. During the short time I lived with Chett, he was always leaving disgusting messes in the sink or toilet.
Jonah was not Chett.
Like the rest of his place, the sink area was clean and uncluttered. I started to rinse my hands, but the reflection in the mirror stopped me cold.
What was left of my eye makeup was smeared down my cheeks, as if I’d been crying. My lipstick had left a pale red stain under my lower lip, like some kind of rash. My hair was a tangled mess and my pale skin appeared sallow under the fluorescent lights. Mortification that I had been sitting around talking to Jonah like this all morning punched me in the gut.
“God, Kacey…”
I cleaned up the smeared eyeliner and lipstick with toilet paper, then opened the medicine cabinet in search of toothpaste. I froze at what I saw.
The Crest and the Listerine were there, but they were crowded out by row after row of medication. Orange pill bottles with white caps as far as the eye could see.
“Holy drugstore, Batman.”
I turned some of the bottles my way to read the names. None were remotely familiar.
Prednisone. Rapamune. Gengraf. Cyclosporine. Norvasc.
“What the f*ck?” I turned more labels to face me. Some had names I thought I recognized from TV ads: pain meds, a few for high blood pressure, two for lowering cholesterol, and one bottle of antibiotics.
Why would a young guy need meds for cholesterol and blood pressure?
The pink seam of the scar on Jonah’s chest reared its head in my memory. Some kind of heart condition? That would explain the anti-smoking and the small pharmacy he had going on in this medicine cabinet.
I closed the cabinet door quickly, toothpaste forgotten, feeling like I’d just walked in on someone naked or had read a highly private diary entry. I left the bathroom and went into the kitchen in search of more water. I needed to wash out the bad taste in my mouth from having snooped into Jonah’s life.
In the fridge, I found the bottled water Jonah mentioned and not much else. Some wilting vegetables, packaged salads, and at least three trays of various casseroles covered in tin foil. I gave a peek in the freezer, taking a moment to appreciate the cold air, and saw more packaged food: Lean Cuisine and ‘heart healthy’ brands, as if Jonah were on a diet.
This was not the fridge of a typical Las Vegas bachelor.
And the medicine cabinet is?
My stomach twisted with nerves instead of hunger. I’d never been good around sick people. I never knew the right thing to say, could never find the right balance between sympathy and pity. I clammed up during any kind of health discussion and hospitals gave me the absolute heebie-jeebies.
You’re being stupid. You need to eat. You haven’t eaten since…
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Apparently I was on a diet too. A liquid diet.
A bowl of cereal might be safe. I opened a few cabinets, looking for a plain old box of Cheerios. Instead, I found a shit-ton of vitamins, supplements, and protein powders.
I closed that cabinet in a hurry.
“Dammit.”
Jonah had said I could help myself, but now my appetite was gone completely. He wasn’t just a total stranger; he was a total stranger who had a serious medical condition. It felt really intrusive to know all this so soon. I was getting a crash course on his extremely personal shit, and he knew next to nothing about me. I wish I’d been brave enough to just let him take me back to the Summerlin house.
I wandered back into the living area, not entirely sure what to do. The TV might have a news report about what happened at the Pony Club last night so I left it off, and tried to let the quiet of Jonah’s place settle me.
I couldn’t sit still. As a kid, my mother had been quick to diagnose me as ADHD, using it to excuse my exuberant behavior to my dad, who got irritated at the slightest noise or sign of rambunctiousness. I was always restless in my own skin. As I got older, I felt like two people trapped in the same body, an introvert who shied away at her dad’s angry lectures, and an extrovert who practiced her electric guitar in the garage as loudly as possible to piss him off. A constant war with myself.
Right now, the introvert in me whispered to enjoy the quiet.
The extrovert wanted a drink.
Bookshelves lined one wall of Jonah’s living room: industrial arts, art history, biographies of artists—some I’d heard of, most I hadn’t. I liked romances, horror, and a fun mystery now and then. Jonah was all non-fiction. Boring.
I kept moving.
On the opposite wall hung a bunch of framed pictures. Most showed Jonah smiling with what looked like his mom and dad, and a good-looking, broody guy. A brother, maybe? The guy had the same basic facial structure as Jonah, the same dark hair, but he was shorter and bulkier. His features were more chiseled. His eyes were a lighter brown and harder. Dark tattoos snaked around his well-built arms.
He looked exactly like the kind of guy I loved to take home for the night, losing myself in everything that was masculine and strong and powerful about him. A guy who would bail at the first rays of sunlight the next morning, no strings attached, just how I liked it.
Jonah looked like the kind of guy you wanted to meet on the side of the road at night if your car had a flat.
Or if you got blacked out drunk and wrecked a Vegas club.