Page 30 of From Me to You

“Sweetheart, what is wrong? Have you been crying?” Jay asked, dropping his hand to my face as he took in my pink pajamas with little daises, fluffy socks, a bunny headband, and swollen red eyes.

“Oh, Jay! George O’Malley died,” I said as I let him in.

His brows furrowed as we walked to the living room. “George O’Malley?”

“Yeah, George O’Malley, do you not know him? From Grey’s Anatomy?” Who didn’t know who George O’Malley was?

Jay glanced at the screen, finally understanding who I was talking about. He threw his head back and laughed. “You are crazy.”

I rolled my eyes. He would never understand how hard it was to watch one of your favorite TV characters die when they weren’t supposed to. He then noticed Aunty M, who also looked like she had been crying, and stopped laughing.

“Hey, Marie.” He greeted her, placing his guitar near the wall. He brought his guitar almost everywhere with him. There was always one in the back of his truck. You never know when the inspiration strikes, he told me. I had been with him during a few of his writing sessions—honestly, I did nothing but watch him. He always looked spellbound, with various emotions running through his face as he created his art. He was so beautiful like that.

“Hey, hun,” Aunty M said as she got up. “I need to get ready for my shift, darling. I start in an hour. I will leave you kids to it.” She sighed, making her way to her room.

I frowned, she was taking more shifts than usual lately. Both day and night. And she wouldn’t tell me why.

“Everything okay?” Jay asked as he ran a finger along my cheek.

“Yeah,” I mumbled as I took my seat.

Jay replaced the seat that Aunty M vacated. I lay in the same spot and put my feet on his lap. I took the remote and changed to the first season of ‘The 100’ that Jay and I had started to binge-watch. I resumed on episode six, where we left off last time. We sat in comfortable silence, watching the show while he massaged my feet. God, that felt good.

We were almost done with episode six when Aunty M came outside in her scrubs and donned her jacket from the stand near the door. She grabbed her dinner from the fridge and made her way out. I paused the TV once again to send her off.

“Bye, Aunty M.” I waved.

“Bye, Marie,” Jay yelled from the living room.

“Take care, kids, and remember, no fooling around.”

I blushed as I remembered her little talk earlier this week. She told me I needed to be careful and safe while being intimate with Jay. I told her we weren’t like that, but she wouldn’t listen. She said that she trusted me and would always support me, but I needed to be responsible as I had a whole life ahead of me. And she told me to ask her if we needed anything. Like birth control. I was mortified, to say the least. Jay wouldn’t even go past kissing me.

I sighed as I took the seat beside Jay again. I suddenly craved brownies. “I am going to make brownies,” I announced, getting up.

“You are weird. You know that, right?”

I rolled my eyes at him. “I want brownies, so I am making brownies.”

“You suddenly decided that you wanted brownies while we were watching the 100?”

I rummaged through the kitchen to get all my ingredients. “Yeah, I can want brownies any time of the day,” I mumbled.

Jay laughed and took a seat on the dining table facing me. He pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and brought the guitar closer to him. I sighed, looking at the butter and eggs on the counter. He was probably writing a song, and I was going to miss it because I had to make brownies now.

I finally put the batter in the oven about twenty minutes later. Jay was still in the same spot, his brows furrowed in the cutest way possible as he picked at his guitar, which was acoustic that he only used for songwriting. The guitar that he used for his performances was different. It was his most precious possession. It used to be his uncle’s who taught him everything about music. His uncle sadly passed away when he was around thirteen. He missed him so much and he was crazy about that guitar. He only let me touch it once, which made Mike so mad because he had never let anyone touch it before.

I sighed as I made my way to him. I missed him already. I was becoming a pathetic idiot when it came to him. I was drawn to him like an addict.

I took a seat on his lap as I placed a strawberry milk in front of him. I ran my fingers through his velvety, smooth locks, nuzzling my face against his neck and inhaling his delicious, spicy, but somehow clean scent.

Jay grinned. “My sweetheart knows exactly what I need, her and strawberry milk.” He placed the guitar on the floor and closed his arms around me. “You smell like chocolate.”

“Hmm,” I said, burying my face in his neck.

“You are killing me, sweetheart.” His grip tightened around my waist.

I reluctantly got up from his lap and sat on the chair next to him. I leaned my head onto his arm, and he went back to his guitar while he slurped his drink. I dug my phone out of my pocket and took a picture of the both of us. Mostly of him. I have been doing that a lot recently. There were hundreds of photos on my phone of just him. I even had several albums dedicated to him.