Burning Moon by Jo Watson Read Free Book Online Page B

those terrible eight months, when our parents were either violently fighting or drunk, high, and partying.
    But as much as I love Stormy—and I really do—I’d been dreading her play all week. I’d never enjoyed or understood any of them, and the evening always ended with the inevitable “So what did you think?”
    I reflected on some of the answers I’d lavished on her over the years. You see, I’d had the foresight to kidnap one of my mother’s theater books, Acting for Theater: The Joy of the Fourth Wall and used it as a reference. This had furnished me with the following answers:
    “Mmmmm, wow, you really took that character off the paper and reassembled her with a profound* three-dimensional depth.”
    or
    “Mmmmm, wow, I thought the use of kitchen sink staging techniques really highlighted the fullness of your character and her profound* complexities.”
    *Note: I use the word profound a lot, because it is the word du jour with the theater ilk.
    As usual, Stormy’s play confounded me. She rolled on the stage, cried out for her mother, and bathed in a tub of green water. But what was different about that night was that I happened to be sitting next to the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen.
    Michael was good-looking, no doubt about it. He was tall, muscular, and blond with blue eyes and an incredible smile, which was something I’d been looking forward to seeing while walking down the aisle. He ticked all my requisite aesthetic requirements and then some. Although right now, I wished Michael looked more like a short, fat, hairy hobbit with leprosy and a limp so he’d never be able to find another girlfriend again and would die a sad, lonely, and pathetic death in a damp sewer somewhere.
    The attraction between us had been instant and mutual, and we’d found ourselves stealing glances at each other throughout the play. During the second half, when he turned to me and whispered, “What the hell is going on?” I knew I wanted to get to know him better.
    We went for coffee after the play and worked out that his brother was the graphic designer who’d made the poster for A Mother’s Jealous Tears —obviously the reason for the green water—and that he’d been given a free ticket and felt obliged to go. During our initial conversation, we established that he was a computer systems analyst (very professional), his family belonged to a country club (very respectable), he owned his own house (very upwardly mobile), and we enjoyed several of the same hobbies, TV shows, music, and movies. We also seemed to have the same ideals: He also wanted marriage and kids and dogs and a big house.
    He was perfect. He crossed all my t’s and dotted the i’s. It was even better when everyone said they liked him. So when he’d started playing golf with my dad and my brothers, I knew I was in love.
    And Michael said he felt the same way, too.
    The funny thing, though, the thing I can’t wrap my head around, is that our relationship had been perfect. We never fought, conversation was always easy, and we fell into a predictable, comfortable daily routine. So what had happened?
    I’d played our entire relationship over in my mind, looking for the telltale signs of dissatisfaction. But I couldn’t find any. Unless I was missing something? Stormy-Rain had said something to me once that was suddenly reverberating in my ears. “ You know, if a guy’s not getting it regularly, he’s going to go looking for it somewhere else! ”
    My blood ran cold. He was a red-blooded male after all, and one who could probably get sex a million times a day with a million different women. Hot, thin women. God, my mind was spinning. My thoughts were going haywire, and once again I was overcome with an urge to phone him. I needed to speak to him.
    I reached for my phone and realized it was off. I suspected that my friends and family were panicking by now and had probably sent out search and rescue helicopters and sniffer dogs, so I dropped them