I nodded and searched her eyes, scanned her up and down and saw the way she was holding herself. “First, I want you to give me a drug test. I want you to call Bob and tell him you found me in the bus with Lela and cocaine. Let’s go back to Lorraine’s and have me take one.”
She shook her head, eyes widening. “No,” she whispered and then blurted loudly, “No! You’re not doing that. We aren’t torpedoing your role in this movie to prove… whatever you’re trying to prove.”
“The fact that you think I’m torpedoing my career means you don’t believe nothing happened on that bus. So I’m going to show you.”
She frowned.
“Lela!” I yelled. The wizard of a woman appeared in her doorway immediately. “Did we sleep together or use on your bus?”
She looked baffled by the question, like I hadn’t spent the night on her bus. “So, it might be a good time to tell you both that I’m only attracted to women. Also, we don’t use anything on my bus, Jay. But if we did, Mikka, Jay would be sober as a judge. Really not a fun guy to pull an all-nighter with, quite honestly.”
“See!” I raised my eyebrows at her. “Let’s go, little one.”
She begrudgingly followed me.
We didn’t say a word to each other on the way. I didn’t even look back to make sure she was following. She ascended the stairs like she was on death row. I grabbed the supplies and started to unbuckle in front of her. Even then, she rolled her eyes and turned around.
I pissed in the cup and set it down on the table. As I zipped back up my jeans, I walked over to sit on the bed.
She closed the bedroom door and leaned against it. She stared out the window on the opposite side of the room, then murmured, “I don’t care one way or the other, Jay.”
“You wouldn’t care if I fucked her and relapsed?”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Fucking her is one thing. That’s unforgivable. Relapsing is something totally different.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning we’d get through it.”
“Your mom would never want you to be with a man who uses drugs.”
“I’m not concerned about what she wants.”
“She raised a gold standard of a daughter to be with a gold standard of a man, little one.”
“We all have our flaws.” She sighed and rubbed her neck.
“Okay.” I nodded, urging her on but not asking.
“Are you going to ask where I went?”
“No. I’m going to accept whatever you have to give.” I waited because it was her story to tell. I waited because she’d been pushed and controlled before. My anger and impatience to know where she’d been didn’t have a place here.
“What if what I have isn’t much?” she asked, her voice small.
“It’s all I want,” I said without even considering it.
“Compared to other women–”
“There’s no other woman to compare you to for me. You’re it. I’m taking whatever you’ll give me.”
She took a steadying breath and nodded. “I’m going to tell you what happened last night, and I want you to remember that everything has been taken care of.”
Leave it to Mikka to have already solved the problem.
“I left last night because my mother called. Dougie showed up there. He showed up and he wouldn’t leave until he saw me…”
I rose to go to her but fell back to the bed when my legs gave out. With a push, I forced myself to her side and cradled her face in my hands. “Why didn’t you tell me?”