Total pages in book: 59
Estimated words: 56294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 281(@200wpm)___ 225(@250wpm)___ 188(@300wpm)
After around an hour of waiting, during which I took two business calls in the staircase lobby, the doctor tells us Paul is ready for visitors. I let my woman go first. For fuck’s sake. I let Sophie go first. Not my woman, obviously.
When she returns, eyes red, she murmurs, “He’s really excited to see you.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah.” She looks at me for a few long moments, a lingering look that makes me wonder if she’s jealous or something. “It is.”
I turn away from her, which is more challenging than it should be, and follow the nurse to his room. Paul’s leg is in a cast, propped up, his head shaved and covered in bandages. He’s hooked up to a couple of machines, too. When he sees me, he makes a visible effort to sit up. It clearly hurts him to turn his head, but he does it anyway. He smiles shakily. “It’s good to see you, man. You didn’t have to come.”
It takes him a long time to get these words out. I sit next to his bed, leaning forward and gently placing my hand on his arm. I’m barely touching him, just enough to let him know I’m here. “Of course I did.”
“But I mean… Remember what we were talking about last week? The company? The downturn?”
“A quarterly blip. You don’t need to worry about that, Paul.” He didn’t need to worry about it before his injury, but especially not after. He left the company and went to live the life of his dreams. “Just focus on getting better.”
“They… need you, though,” he says.
Glancing over my shoulder, feeling like a guilty ass, I make sure we’re alone. Then I tell Paul about the video I’ve started to make, despite my concerns. “Tyrone thinks it’s a way to kill two birds with one stone. I can be here, help you, and hopefully produce—I don’t know—a viral video. Apparently, the more intimate it is, the better, but…”
I lean forward, looking at him firmly. It’s how we’ve looked at each other countless times over the years and how he looked at me when he said he was leaving the business. We know that when we get like this, we mean whatever we’re about to say.
“If you want me to kill the idea, I’ll do it right now.”
“No,” he replies. “I’m glad you’re here. I won’t lie, but you need to take care of business. Get your camera out.”
“You want to record here?”
“The more intimate, the better, right? Come on before these damn meds put me to sleep again. Wait, before I forget.”
“Yeah?”
“Can you persuade Sophie to go home? She needs to rest.”
“She wants to be here for you,” I tell him. “I’m not sure what I can say.”
“Please.”
I nod. “Okay, consider it done.” However, I’m not sure how I’ll persuade her. “Anyway, you’ll be home soon, too. I’m going to arrange for a nurse, home care, everything you need.”
“You don’t—”
“I do have to do it.”
Mainly because, even as I sit here with my mangled, broken friend, part of my mind is still on his little sister.
“Fair enough,” he laughs weakly. “No point arguing with you sometimes, and one last thing. It might be better to keep the video angle hidden from Sophie. She might not understand.”
Pathetically, a wave of relief washes through me. “I feel dirty just thinking about work.”
“But you have to,” he says. “Right, let’s get on with it. Ask me how I’m feeling. Ask me if I’m worried about being bedbound. Give me a chance to…” He pauses, sucking in a trembling breath. “Complain.”
CHAPTER SIX
Sophie
“Yeah, I know,” I say when Kaleb tells me what Paul said. “He asked me to go home, too, but how can I?”
Being this close to Kaleb and keeping up the coldness is so difficult. Just being near him, despite the circumstances, makes me want to smile like a giddy idiot. Guilt twists through me every time I resist the urge to grin.
“He’s going to be home soon,” I tell her. “I’ve already put arrangements in place. By tomorrow, my people will have sorted it. The best nurse. The best care. The best rehab specialists. To get better, Paul can’t be worrying about you. This is best for him and you.”
“I can see why you’re so good at business,” I mutter, not looking at him.
He might think it’s because I’m pissed about having to leave. He’ll never guess it’s because looking at him makes me want to do so many inappropriate, impossible things. He’d never think that I’m fighting the desire to stroke my hand over his body right now.
“It’s the truth,” he says. “Do you need a ride?”
“Uh, I can call a cab.”
“You didn’t drive here?” he asks.
“My friend gave me a ride. I was too stressed, honestly.”
“That’s understandable. Let me drive you.”
I finally look up, and our eyes meet. He seems so much more distant than the last time we were together. I remember our hands brushing when he handed me the gift box with the camera, the electricity that sparked up my arm, the hunger. There was so much heat in that one moment, so much impossibility. On my end. In my mind. He wasn’t experiencing any of that.