Sing

CHAPTER 19.

MONICA

He was lucid. I knew because he smiled when he saw me.

“Goddess.”

“Sir.”

“I’m very upset with you.”

“I’ll skip the spanking joke.”

“You need to ask for what you need.”

He was talking about the money.

“Thank you,” I said. “But I couldn’t ask.”

“I can’t read your mind.”

“Can we have this discussion when you’re better?”

“Did anyone explain the odds of that to you yet? Because—“

“Stop it.”

I held up both hands, and he took one. He was going to start talking. He was going to start telling me what I already knew from Margie and Brad and any doctor I happened upon in the halls. But I didn’t want to hear it. I especially didn’t want it from him, because he was going to be Mr. Control and hearing it from him, in that measured, if shredded voice, I was going to either scream or run out.

“Tell me what’s happening with you,” he whispered. “I hear about me all day.”

“Eddie asked about you.”

“Tell him he’s a douchebag for me.”

“I will.”

“Did he get you a new date to record?”

“Not yet. Christmas is coming so it’s dead.”

My face was close to his. Close enough to own my attention, shutting out the scritch of the stylus and the hissing of the oxygen tubes. Close enough for him to look at me long and deep to see the contents of my heart.

“Don’t lie, Goddess.”

“Carnival has to wait. A four song session will take all day. If something happens I need to be here.”

A machine beeped.

He pressed his lips in his teeth. It was an expression he’d used when he was healthy, and it made me want to beg him to take me.

“I need you to do your work,” he said.

“Jonathan, I won’t do it right if I’m worrying about you.”

I felt his hand on my waist, a light touch through my shirt. It slid up to my rib cage, the memory of everything we’d been together, when his hands were forceful and cruel, responsive to desires I didn’t even know I had. He fingered the black Bordelle bra I’d worn at his command.

“You’ve come so far,” he said. “You’re not the same woman I met. You have control. You can take it all and channel it into the work. If I promise you that, would you believe me?”

“I can’t.”

“You don’t know your own power. Please. Go sing. Sheila will watch me.”

“I’ll think about it.”

He nodded as much has he could, and I pressed my lips to his. I kissed him like I kissed him every time since he fell into my arms, like it might be the last.