Jah had been calling Yoshi for the last day and a half and hadn’t gotten an answer. His emotions constantly bounced between anger and regret, knowing that he was about to pledge his heart to a stripper and she didn’t even have the common decency to call him back. To make matters worse, he found himself sitting across the street from her building, watching it like some crazed stalker. “Playing myself,” he mumbled, getting off the bench and heading up the block. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he literally bumped into Billy coming around the corner.

“Oh shit!” She jumped back, startled. “My bad, Jah.”

“Nah, it’s my fault. I should’ve been watching where I was going.” He smiled weakly.

“What’re you doing down this way?” Billy asked suspiciously.

Jah hesitated. “Ah … well, to be perfectly honest with you, I was looking for Yoshi.”

“Yoshi? Why are you looking for her?”

“It’s kind of personal.” Jah looked at the ground.

“Well, Yoshi isn’t feeling well, so you’ll have to see her another time.” Billy walked past Jah.

“I really need to speak to her,” he said and walked alongside her.

“Jah, I don’t know what kind of arrangement you and Yoshi worked out, but now really ain’t the time for that bullshit. Like I said, speak to her another time,” Billy said, marching up the stairs to Yoshi’s lobby.

“I love her,” he blurted out.

Billy froze in her tracks. She slowly turned around, knowing that she had heard him wrong. “You what?”

Jah put his head down as if he was ashamed of his feelings. “I don’t know how or when it happened, but I do,” he said softly. Jah couldn’t explain why he was about to jump out the window and expose himself to Billy, other than maybe he just needed to say it out loud. Love is a blessed thing, but it can also be a heavy burden to carry. Jah went on to tell Billy of their friendly flirtation that had become something more, not omitting a thing. He told Billy of his sleepless nights swooning over memories of a shared moment, which almost brought her to tears. When it was all said and done, Billy was in a state of shock.

“I’m not out here chasing, Billy. I just wanted to tell her how I felt, while I still had the nerve to do it,” he said sincerely.