jingle I’d written in an ad for his auto repair chain. Need it done right? Need it in a hurry? Pick up the phone, have no worries. At Miller Auto Shop: we fix it right. It was hardly a real song, just a cheesy jingle. I did get paid for it, though, and still received “royalties.” Dad paid me fifty dollars for the jingle and twenty-five dollars each month it aired. That was our deal. I think he only did it to get out of having to give me a real allowance.
I turned my head into the pillow, embarrassed at the thought of being disqualified and horrified that Gavin had actually heard the jingle. My body was hot, and my head felt stuffed, like my brain was too large to fit into the cavity tasked with containing it. Swollen glands felt like they were bulging out of my neck.
“Have you been here long?” I was thrilled he had come back, even if it meant I was going to be shipped downstairs as soon as my injuries healed. His words came back to me: “You’re not going mad.”
Another slight smile turned up at the corner of the left side of his mouth. He leaned in toward me so that his face was a few inches from mine.
“Yes. I’ve been here for the past two hours. And, Grace, you’re not insane.” He reached under the barely-there hospital-issued covers, and I froze. He felt around for my hand and took it in his. “You won the contest, I swear, but the jingle thing does in fact disqualify you. I’m sorry about that. I wish I had better news as far as that is concerned. But … ” He paused and gazed into my eyes with a look the devil would have been jealous of. I felt my chest rising and falling in a fit of excitement and was immediately embarrassed. “I’m here for you … because you were promised to me,” he offered plainly, no hint that any further explanation was coming.
He smelled good. It reminded me of the sandalwood incense my dad used to burn in his shop, mixed with the scent of the yuzu juice he often drank. The juice was disgusting—sour—but the scent was citrusy and intoxicating. I let his smell have its way with my nostrils.
I exhaled. He kept looking at me, slowly inspecting my eye, cheek, then eyebrows … wait. He stopped, and I freaked ’cause he was staring at my mouth. He seemed to examine each lip intently, as if one could exist without the other.
“I … I don’t know what to say.” I wanted to ask how he knew my mother. From Broadway? That had to be it. Celebrities all know one another; I think they may even have the same management company, come to think of it.
I wanted to tell him I saw him talking to my father, who happened to be dead. I wanted to tell him I had seen Remi spread wings made from fire right before I landed in this room. But how could I?
“What do you feel when you look at me?” he asked. There was a strange sense of urgency to the question. Careful not to respond with “crazy” and the desire to declare my irrational love for him—for his voice, I closed my eyes. If it was at all possible that I was perhaps not crazy and I really was talking to Gavin Vault and he was in fact the voice in my head all those years, I couldn’t risk screwing things up. The truth was that I’d loved Him since He’d first spoken to me as a kid—but I’d had no idea He was Gavin Vault. And now that I had a face and a body to go along with the voice, I wasn’t sure that I loved Gavin Vault.
“I’m drawn to you. It feels like I’ve known you my entire life. I … don’t want to be … without you.” I lowered my gaze, ashamed of how much I’d revealed and angry with myself for even having such feelings.
He didn’t move an inch. I assumed he was weighing my words against the loud thumping of my heart and the strain in my voice. I clutched the white blanket to my throat with my free hand. My cheeks burned with turmoil as I waited for his response.
“You have,” he declared, despite the fact that I’d only met him minutes ago. Perhaps it was Gavin who was insane.