For Her Own Good

by Parker, Tamsen

  “Fine. We’ll both sleep in the bed. Now, march.”

  There’s a glint of satisfaction in her eyes as she turns to flounce toward the bedroom, but she’ll learn I’m as clever as she is. Well, probably not, but in this one instance I can outwit her.

  I pull back the covers and point to the expanse of sheet.

  “In you get.”

  There’s a smile on her face as she hops up, tucks her feet under the blankets and lies down, head on the pillow and arms by her sides. It kills me to cover her up, pull the linens up to her chin and tuck them under the mattress. I’ve often wished I could keep Starla with me, look after her, put her to bed when she’s tired, make sure she eats when she’s hungry and drinks water before she gets thirsty, give her constant reminders of how loved she is. Having her here, the opportunity to do just that within my grasp and refusing it all, is fucking with my head.

  Saint Lowry. Fuck me.

  * * *

  Starla

  It’s six in the morning, and the late-winter sun is trying its best to force its way through Lowry’s curtains. I know this because I am in Lowry’s bed. So is he. But not holding me in his arms, not even with his head on a pillow beside mine. Oh, no.

  I can still hear the deep, even breath of sleep coming from the foot of the bed where he is sleeping crosswise. I cannot believe he is for real doing this. That he honest-to-god slept like that. All night. When he first lay down, I made to join him and he made one of those distinctly Scottish noises. I don’t know how they do that, make a single sound that contains so much meaning. This had a distinctly warning note.

  And then he’d said it: “Star. Don’t.”

  I should have been insulted. I should have gotten up, called a car, and left. I should have told him to make up his goddamn mind, to either be with me or not, but this was bullshit. To want me here, to want me to be well and safe and in his goddamn bed but not have anything beyond a polite concern for me. It doesn’t make any sense.

  But… While I had felt chastised and frustrated, I’d also felt a twinge of arousal. Star. Don’t. His tone had contained all the best things about being scolded. Restrained power, confidence. Brevity because he believed I would obey. The way he said my name… Could be making this up because I want it so badly, but it sounded almost as though he wanted me but was holding himself back, a verbal bite of his fist. Giving himself a warning as much as he was warning me.

  I’d had half a mind to get myself off imagining what might have followed if this were my perfect life instead of the one I’m actually living. I’m not a brat, though. Never have been, beyond a little sass. No, I desperately want to please, be a good girl, and I don’t think that masturbating in his bed with him right there would qualify, especially since he hadn’t even been willing to grant me the intimacy of sleeping side by side. After some pouting, I’d fallen asleep because apparently I was exhausted and the comfort of his bed overtook me. So now I’m frustrated in more ways than one.

  I should get up and go home, start my day. Read over some more of those reports my advisors have compiled about the state of Patrick Enterprises and what different scenarios would look like. Not what I want to do, but apparently very little of my life is about what I want. Which seems wrong somehow. I can buy any goddamn thing I want in triplicate, but the things I want most desperately, I can’t buy.

  There’s movement from the end of the bed, and I hold my breath. Lowry slips off the mattress, and even in the gloom of the early morning I can see that at some point last night he took his shirt off so he’s only in cotton pajama pants. Doctor Lowry Campbell, shirtless, is a sight to behold.

  Not because he’s built; he’s not, really. He’s that middle-age thickened torso that’s sturdy as hell but with none of the definition other women seem to drool over. I don’t want chiseled, hard muscle. I want thick, solid, warm flesh with strength underneath. And yeah, some chest hair isn’t going to hurt.

  Before I can start drooling, he snags a T-shirt from the floor and pulls it over his head. Does he always sleep this way?

  “Starla?”

  Caught.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s six thirty, do you need to get home?”

  “Soon, yeah.”

  He reaches for the curtain and pushes it aside, letting more sunlight in, and I squint against it. Maybe I was a mushroom in another life. Or one of those cave-dwelling fish or some shit.

  “Your clothes are dry and on the bureau,” he says, gesturing with an arm. He must have been busy last night, I don’t remember him getting up at all. “I’ll make you breakfast before you go.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Don’t you have to get ready for work?”

  “My first patient canceled so I’ve got a bit of wiggle room. And I know I don’t have to but I’m going to. Pancakes or eggs and toast? Or all three?”

  Bossy man. But a bossy man who’s going to make me breakfast, so I guess I can’t be too mad. “Pancakes. Please. But only if you have real maple syrup.”

  Because I’m spoiled like that. Lowry doesn’t react with anything other than a nod, though.

  “Why don’t you get dressed? I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

  By the time I do, I’m mortified anew by what I did last night. And also his response. Reminds me that we’re scheduled to have our regular dinner tonight, and I don’t think I can sit across a table from him again.

  He must feel the same way because by the time I settle myself at the breakfast bar in the kitchen, there’s a stack of pancakes on a plate set out with a mug of coffee, a cup of orange juice, butter, and the requested—nay, demanded—real maple syrup, and he’s wiping his hands on a dish towel.

  “Help yourself to anything else you’d like. More coffee’s in the pot, there’s fruit and yogurt in the fridge if you’re still hungry.”

  I won’t be, since I rarely eat this much in the mornings, but god, it’s sweet of him. “Okay.”

  “I’m, uh, getting in the shower now.”

  Yep, awkward. So I dig into my hot breakfast, the pancakes fluffy and perfectly cooked, and break out my phone to text Holden.

  You know the only thing that would’ve been worse than texting Lowry last night?

  Oh my god, you didn’t.

  I send him a pic of my half-devoured breakfast with the text “Pancakes at Cafe Campbell” splashed across it because I sure as fuck did.

  Oh, honey, no.

  Don’t I know it. Can we drink tomorrow night? Please?

  Sure can. I’ve got a date with Ben tonight and I think I’m going to tell him I don’t want to see him anymore so that’ll be fun.

  Wait, I thought you were dating Anna?

  What’s your point?

  Fair. Holden for realsies goes out on dates, and with multiple people at a time. I could never, but he seems to enjoy it.

  I finish my breakfast, the only noise accompanying my meal the muffled sounds of Lowry getting ready for the day. I start to think about heading out before he returns, leaving a note, because honestly, I don’t think I can deal with seeing his face for a week at least, maybe ever. Except that I can’t even manage that because what do you say to a man who you confessed your love to and he tucked you into bed like a small child and slept at the foot of his bed instead of next to you? Those vaguely warm feelings I’d had about the experience have drained away, leaving me only with shame and mortification. And not a little anger with a glaze of indignation.

  Mission accomplished, I suppose. That’s what I wanted, right? To be so humiliated that I wouldn’t be able to speak to him again? It’s worse than I expected though, far worse. Should’ve listened to Holden. I hope he’ll at least refrain from I-Told-You-So-ing the shit out of me.

  I gather my things, check twice before I bail that I haven’t left anything else of mine that Lowry will have to clean up. He’s cleaned up after enough of my messes already.

  Chapter 14

  Starla

  “This one has a vertical layout and this
one has a horizontal. Does either of those play nicer with your brain?”

  Lois wrenches her mouth to the side and studies the planners I’ve laid in front of her.

  “I don’t know that my brain has a preference about that.”

  “Cool. Sometimes people feel really strongly one way or the other. Like for me? I cannot even with a vertical layout. Makes my head hurt. How about Sunday versus Monday start? Because this one has a Sunday start, and this is a Monday.”

  Helping people pick out planners is definitely one of my favorite parts of my job. Especially when they super nerd out over them and develop elaborate systems of stickers and color codes and washi tape and whatever else. I can’t do it myself, so I stick to a super basic system. Only because I invariably let it slide toward the end of my ECT cycles when I start dragging and then I feel bad for failing. But I love looking at other people’s pretties, they’re works of art. I get the feeling Lois might be one of those.

  “Oh, I hadn’t even noticed that. But now that you mention it, I definitely prefer the Monday start so the weekends stay together. Is that weird?”

  “No, not at all. That’s why I asked.”

  I smile at her and she smiles back. She’s doing a lot better with her short-term, day-to-day getting shit done using a white board that has the everyday things labeled with washi tape so she doesn’t have to write those over and over, and blocks of time left to let her brain do whatever it wants. It’s good mix of keeping up with the basics but also letting her brain run wild sometimes so she doesn’t feel frustrated and restless and always eyeing the new shinies. Now we’re tackling the best way to keep track of longer-term plans so she doesn’t double-book herself, which has been a real problem.

  “So why don’t we go with the Monday start for now? You’ll use it for a couple of weeks and we can check in on it during our next meeting. Make sure you write down what you like and what you don’t, so if it’s not working, we can tweak it. If there’s not a perfect planner for you on the market already, I can help you customize one. There’s nothing wrong with being picky as hell. I don’t go for that right away because they tend to be pricey and it sucks when what you think you want and what actually plays nice with your brain aren’t the same thing. Hopefully this way saves you some money and some headache.”

  A lot of my meetings I do by phone or video chat, but Lois works close to my apartment and it turns out we both like sushi and boba tea, so we’ve started doing our meetings over lunch. It’s nice.

  “This is awesome,” she says, flipping through the pages. I can practically see the stickers and washi and pens and clips dancing through her brain already, and I can’t wait. “I’ve always liked the idea of a planner, but I never had the patience to go through a whole bunch of them and figure out which one would actually work best, so I always ended up using them for like a day and going back to my Post-its.”

  “Hey, Post-its are awesome, right? But for one-off reminders that you can stick on your fridge or the edge of your monitor. Somewhat less than ideal for organizing your entire life.”

  “Ugh, exactly. You’re so freaking smart.”

  I have to laugh. “Smarter than a box of rocks, anyway. But it’s more about paying attention and translating people’s strengths and weaknesses into systems that emphasize the former and minimize the latter. I’ve been doing this for a while, so I’ve usually got a good baseline of where to start depending on what people struggle with the most.”

  Gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that I’ve been able to help her, and will hopefully be able to help her more. Super satisfying. As is this almond milk tea with tapioca pearls. Cold, creamy, and sweet, I suck some more through my straw and get the ideal number of bubbles with it, which is obviously three. Fight me.

  “Well, I think you’re brilliant. Between you and Doctor Campbell…” She trails off and looks up at me, pursing her lips conspiratorially. “He’s real cute, isn’t he?”

  I almost inhale my boba. That’d be mortifying. I can see it now: Billionaire Heiress to the Patrick Enterprises Fortune Chokes to Death on Tapioca Pearls. Not today, motherfuckers. I pound against my chest with a fist and swallow.

  “He is an objectively good-looking man, yes.”

  “But not your type? Not even with that accent? God, I think it’s killer.”

  Can she not see the flames emanating from my face?

  “I’ve known Doctor Campbell for a very long time,” I say carefully because I can’t admit my real feelings for Lowry, but I’m not going to outright lie. Especially when she’s sharing. I think we could be friends.

  “Oh yeah? How do you know him anyway? He never said.”

  Of course he wouldn’t have. Because privacy.

  “I was his patient back in the day. He saved my life.”

  “Oh, wow.” She really does look impressed as she dips a piece of cucumber maki into the soy sauce/ginger/wasabi concoction she’s mixed together with her chopsticks. “That doesn’t surprise me. He’s good at his job, like you. But still, that’s cool.”

  “Yep. Very cool.”

  And isn’t that enough for you, Starla? Jesus, what else do you want from the man? You ask too much. Far, far too much. I need to stop. Stop wanting him or at least stop tormenting myself with this fraction of what I want. Knowing he’s probably with a patient because it’s just past the hour, I text him.

  I have to cancel for tonight. Sick.

  And shove the phone into my pocket until lunch ends and I part ways with Lois, only to pull it out when it buzzes as I’m walking into my apartment.

  Ugh, of course.

  “Why are you calling, Lowry?”

  “You left without a word this morning so I was going to check in with you anyhow. But now you’ve said you’re sick. I’ll bring you something and we can have dinner at your place if you’re not feeling well. I’ve met you, Starla. I’m not going to let you eat a bowl of cold cereal or Doritos dipped in tuna when you’re feeling poorly.”

  I am “feeling poorly” because I’m mortified. I want to crawl in my bed and never get out again because I am so completely humiliated. My stomach aches with embarrassment, and chicken soup or whatever the hell he would bring me isn’t going to help with that. What I want is to flop on my couch and cover my face with a hand.

  “Stomach flu. You don’t want a piece of this so you definitely shouldn’t come here. I’ve been puking and…” I can’t quite bring myself to lie about having diarrhea. “You get the picture. So you definitely don’t want to come here and be doing the same thing. You have patients to see. Can’t do that when you’re glued to the toilet.”

  Why can I not stop talking about toilets? For fuck’s sake.

  “Okay,” he says slowly, because no one wants the stomach flu. Even the most hardened anti-germaphobes will keep away from that ish. “But I doubt you have Gatorade and saltines and ginger ale hanging about. I’ll drop by and leave them on your doormat.”

  He’s far too goddamn decent. “Please don’t. Don’t come. I don’t want you here. Why won’t you take no for an answer? Weren’t you the one who taught me that ‘no’ is a complete sentence? Why are you pushing this?”

  There’s silence on the other end, and I regret snapping. It’s not his fault. He’s trying to be kind because that’s what he does, and I shouldn’t discourage him from being that way because it’s one of the best things about him. Besides, I’m the one who showed up on his doorstep last night with no invitation, no notice, and he welcomed me. Gave me clean, dry clothes, a comfortable bed to sleep in, and made me breakfast when he could’ve turned me away. Would probably have been more comfortable if he had.

  “That’s fair and I apologize. You’re right. Did you know my brothers used to call me Saint Lowry? Always trying to help even if people didn’t want help. It’s a bad habit of mine, and I’m sorry I’m inflicting it upon you. You deserve your privacy. I won’t come by if it will really bother you.”

  Goddammit, there he goes again. Being a good, respec
tful person. Which is of course why I concede. But only an inch.

  “Fine. I like the purple Gatorade. And the white. Orange is the worst. You bring that shit here and I’ll puke on you.”

  “Brilliant. I’ll be by round seven thirty. Take it easy for the rest of the day, aye?”

  Sure, sure, I’ll coddle myself so I recover from my fake illness. I do my best to imitate one of his Scottish grunts and fail, likely sounding as though I’m about to have another round of vomiting because I’m sexy like that, and then I hang up.

  * * *

  Lowry

  Armed with a bag full of Gatorade and crackers, I make my way down the hallway toward Starla’s apartment. The odds of her actually being ill are near zero, but props never hurt. Particularly when I’ve bought my way into seeing her or at least being near her with the promise of the sort of food you only resort to when sick. Except maybe not Starla. She probably eats this for lunch regularly because for a rich girl, she’s got some dime-store taste when it comes to cuisine.

  I knock on her door and am utterly unsurprised when she responds with a shouted, “Just leave it. I told you that you don’t want a piece of this. I have the plague.”

  The woman is… If she weren’t so infuriating, she’d be adorable. I mean, she is that too, which is part of the reason she’s infuriating. If only she were sick, she might let me take care of her. But since I suspect it’s more her emotions than her body that feel like utter shite—and because of me—it’s no wonder she’s yelling at me through the door.

  I’d called Maeve in between patients and told her about Starla showing up last night and her text claiming illness since.

  “You know, for such an intelligent man, you’re awfully dense sometimes.”

  “I’m offended, how—”

  “You’re no such thing. You’re calling precisely because you want someone to tell you that you’re thickheaded and I’m only too happy to do it.”