Lose Me: (New Adult Billionaire Romance) (Broken Idols)

by M. C. Frank

  “Um. . . could I stay for a sec?” he sounds embarrassed, as though he’s worried that I don’t want him here. Which is ridiculous, isn’t it?

  “Sure,” I say, turning my head away from the sun streaming from the window. “Grab whatever you want from the kitchen, if you haven’t had breakfast.”

  “Thanks,” he replies, but his voice sounds rough. “Wait here,” he adds in a moment, placing a hand on my back. He gets up.

  A second later I hear the window-shutters bang on the wall and blessed darkness envelopes me like a blanket. Wes moves the ancient ventilator slightly at an angle, so that it will keep me cool but not cold, and starts looking around him with curiosity.

  My room is small and plain, its walls painted a light green, old-fashioned windows that overlook the back yard of the building block.

  Ever since I finished school, all that’s on my desk is my laptop, my phone charger, and a notebook, where I keep a journal—it’s not even that, per se. It’s just that sometimes I need to write my thoughts down in order to process them. I used to write in it a lot when I was little and missed having a mom; I haven’t written anything for ages. I never let anyone touch it.

  Other than that, my room is pretty uncluttered. I don’t like to have things scattered around; all my clothes are put away in the wooden closet, and there’s a small office chair with wheels for my desk—the chair is currently next to my bed, where dad left it last night. There’s nothing else in my room right now, except for a tall, gorgeous pirate and the smell of my fear.

  Wes steps close to my desk, and starts ruffling through my notebook.

  “No, don’t touch tha—,” I start saying as another pain doubles me in two and cuts my phrase short. He’s immediately by my side.

  “Ari? Hey. . . ” He keeps talking to me until the wave of pain passes. I swallow the nausea following it, and lean weakly back on the pillow.

  “Just go,” I tell him.

  “What can I do?”

  His voice is pleading and cracking, and I hate the pain I hear in it, but unless he’s a highly-qualified brain surgeon, I don’t know what to tell him. Those damned tears start to fall again.

  I have no idea what to say. I moan softly, the sound muffled by my pillow and his hands are in my hair, on my neck, supporting me.

  “That bad?” he asks tightly. I start to answer, but another stab of pain steals my breath. “Breathe for me,” he murmurs. “That’s it, you’ll be fine in a minute.”

  He’s right. It does pass in a minute.

  He stays with me for hours.

  At some point grandma comes with soup and freshly baked bread and he greets her politely. She proceeds to stand by my bed, and give him the history of our island in a jumble of Greek and English, the bits she’s picked up over the years. I’m sure he doesn’t understand most of what she’s saying, but he keeps nodding and gazing at her intensely.

  Greek people do that, by the way.

  They’ll stop tourists in the middle of the street and try to give them the ancient historical roots of the place they’re standing on, whether they’re interested or not. (Usually they are). If you ask a few questions, show a bit of knowledge of the ancient Greek history and philosophy, they’ll invite you into their home for lunch. That’s just how we are.

  Grandma’s wearing her apron. Knowing her, she must have just finished cooking and immediately brought the soup up to me, not taking the time even to take her apron off. Her hair is combed in short curls, and her eyes are shining with kindness as she tries to explain to Wes that our island was the home of Homer’s Ulysses.

  I steal a glance at Wes’ face as she’s talking animatedly to him. He’s towering above her, ridiculously tall and fit next to her short, plump form, but he doesn’t look bored. He actually looks interested. Maybe not in what grandma’s actually trying to say to him; in her. I don’t think he’s ever met anyone like her in his entire life.

  I try to stop her around the second world war, but Wes shushes me. The guy actually shushes me. I mean, he doesn’t even turn to look at me, just gestures at my general direction with his hand, and wheels the chair in front of grandma.

  “Please sit down,” he tells her and she does, with a long-suffering, I’ve-been-on-my-feet-all-day sigh.

  “Where was I?” she asks him in English.

  “Mussolini,” he replies immediately. Satisfied that he’s following, she continues. How he picked up that name among her torrent of Greek words, I can’t even imagine.

  Eventually she goes away, leaving me almost dead from embarrassment, but he stays.

  For a couple of hours I’m better and we talk, then when I’m worse he takes out his phone and shows me photos of his family and childhood—his actual one, not his Tristan one. He looks so different when he’s not on screen, his eyes smiling for real, but still there’s a sadness there, an emptiness that tears my heart in two. He talks to me about his one-eared Labrador, Hook, whom he rescued off the streets three years ago and I ask him if he misses him and he winces.

  We don’t talk about what happened last night, although he tries to open the subject once or twice. I steer him away from it. I don’t care right now. All I need is to feel him near me, to savor these moments for as long as I can, with no darkness threatening to interrupt them.

  Then I must fall asleep, because the next thing I know it’s dusk and soft voices speak over my head. The one is his and the other is dad’s. I open my eyes and look at them, chatting like old friends, and declare that I feel much better.

  Dad goes out to get groceries, and I get up and head for the bathroom, hoping to make myself look somewhat human.

  I’m standing in front of the mirror, trying to drag a comb through my beehive and fighting back tears at the sudden realization that I look gaunt, when a sudden wave of dizziness knocks me to my knees. Ouch. That’s going to hurt tomorrow. A searing pain shoots up my thighs.

  “Ari?” Wes yells from the hallway, and I hear his shoes thudding on the floorboards as he runs through the hall. “Ar—”

  I turn blindly for the toilet as a violent wave of sickness shakes me and I start retching—there’s nothing left in my stomach to come up. Strong hands, his hands, grab my back and hold me close, as his voice murmurs soothing nothings in my ear.

  Through the spasms of retching I feel his chest heaving against my back, and I wonder if he’s panting. His hand is on the back of my neck, sending warmth through my thin top to my chilled skin. Then I feel his fingers on my hair, wiping the cold sweat from my forehead.

  “It’s o-o. . . ” I try to tell him it’s ok, but I can’t catch my breath.

  “Come on.” He slides an arm around my shoulders and helps me stand. His height dwarfs the entire bathroom; his rapid heartbeat drums against my clammy cheek.

  “I mi-might be sick,” I say through clenched teeth.

  “You can be sick all over me for all I care,” he says fiercely and walks to my room.

  He lies on the bed beside me and holds me against his body until the shaking subsides. He glides his hand across my back in a continuous, comforting motion, until I emerge from the blackness, gasping and sweating.

  My dad comes in after a while and Wes gets out of my room as dad helps me change the bedclothes and wipe the sweat off my skin, like he used to do when I was five years old and crying for a mommy who would never show up.

  “Are you running a temperature?” he asks, worried, but I’m too scared to check.

  “I don’t feel like I am,” I tell him.

  He makes me eat something and Wes comes back into the room, looking pale.

  “Hey,” he smiles at me.

  “Hey” I say. “Sorry for before.”

  He shakes his head and I scoot to the side of the bed in case he wants to lie down next to me again. He chuckles, his laugh low and sexy.

  “I’d better not,” he says. “It was far too painful before, if you know what I mean?”

  Suddenly I do, and I cover my head with my pillow.r />
  I feel his weight on the mattress as he climbs on top of me, his knees sinking into the mattress on either side of my hips. He pries the pillow away. His green eyes are focused on mine.

  “You know what you do to me,” he says slowly. “That day when you were. . . that day in the hotel, and I came into the shower to help you. . . I could barely stand it in there with you, holding you, touching you. It was. . . I nearly went crazy. And the other day, when you were holding my hand and we were walking in those bloody claustrophobic alleys. . . ”

  “Do you mean the kantounia?”

  “Your whole leg was pressed against me at one point, it was pure torture, I could scarcely breathe.”

  He’s still looking down at me, his eyes never leaving mine. I can’t believe what he’s saying to me. I remember when I first met him, I kept thinking of how he must be used to just having anything he wants, the moment he wants it; how he looks down on everyone as though they’re inferior to him.

  I swallow.

  “Why are you still here?” I ask him.

  “Because you’re here,” he says simply. “Where else would I be?”

  “What about the shoot?”

  “I have today off,” he explains, raising himself off me. “I had an important date with a kick-ass stunt girl—”

  “Which I ruined,” I interrupt him.

  He looks at me, his gaze intense as fire.

  “Except for your pain,” he says slowly, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

  ◊◊◊

  He’s still there when I wake up the next morning, looking all kinds of gorgeous, his hair a disheveled mop, his eyes tired, as though he fell asleep in my chair. He stretches painfully as he gets up, but he smiles at me like he hasn’t seen a more wonderful sight than my serious bed hair.

  “Could you give me two days?” I say quietly, after we have both visited the bathroom.

  He gets what I’m asking him. He looks at me searchingly, and I know he sees right through me. I know he understands that I’m pushing him away for some reason, he just can’t imagine what that might be.

  “No.” He says it with finality in his voice, an authority I’ve never heard before. “No,” he repeats more fiercely. I hate the naked pain in his voice.

  I don’t want you to watch me dying, I tell him silently.

  “Please,” I say aloud.

  “Ari. . . ” he runs a hand through his hair, messing it up even more. “Tell me how I’m supposed to survive two days without you. I can’t. . . I’ll start being the old Wes again if you’re not there.”

  For a moment I say nothing, savoring his words as they wash over me. And then, out of nowhere, the words come out of my mouth.

  “Do you pray?”

  “Like what, to God?” he asks, uncertainly.

  I nod. Where am I going with this? I have no clue.

  “Nope,” he answers.

  “Do you believe in God?” I ask him.

  “I guess I do,” he answers, frowning. “I’ve never really thought about it, actually. But I hear a lot of Greeks are very religious people, so you must. . . ”

  “No,” I tell him. “I’m not like that, I’ve hardly been inside a church my entire life, but. . . ”

  “Yes?”

  “I somehow feel like I need it right now. I feel like I need you to do it for me.”

  “Okay,” he says simply.

  I let out a breath. Won’t he ask for an explanation again? But he doesn’t. He just lifts a hand to my hair, looking down at my lips, his eyes half-closed. “I just. . . I can’t figure you out, you know?” His voice is quiet, as though he’s thinking out loud, and he’s looking at me like I’m a puzzle he wants to solve. “I can’t make out your character.”

  “What?”

  “It’s an Elizabeth Bennet quote. From Pride and Prejudice,” he ducks his head down, smiling ruefully.

  “I am most seriously displeased,” I retort.

  Now it’s his eyes that fly to my face, surprised. “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, it’s the only line I remember. It’s from Lady Catherine. . . ”

  “. . . de Bourgh, yeah,” he finishes for me. “Hold on, you read the entire novel, and that’s the only line you remember?”

  “Yep,” I reply, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “She’s my favorite character, she’s badass, man. I watched all of her scenes twice in the BBC adaptation. At the last scene when she visits that Elizabeth chick and just sits there, looking superior, clutching her cane. . . goals.”

  He throws his head back and laughs. Moments tickle by and he can’t stop, clutching his chest. He falls on the bed, trying to catch his breath, wiping his eyes.

  Finally he looks at me, and the laughter dies from his eyes. The breath leaves his body. “Ari.” He gets up and comes over to stand next to me. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

  Well, wouldn’t we all freaking love to know? My eyes start stinging again. You’re not going to cry anymore today, Ari. I grit my teeth. He looks confused as hell. Poor guy.

  “So you’ll try it?” I persist, not knowing how else to answer him.

  “You mean, what you said before. . . ?”

  “Yes. Pray for me, will you?”

  “I will,” he says quietly. His eyes widen, and I see that he’s beginning to grasp the implications of what I’m asking him. “What’s going. . . ?” his eyes narrow. “You know what, you’ll tell me in your own time. Right now, I’d try to bring you the moon if you asked for it.”

  He laughs in that self-deprecating way of his and lifts a finger to my chin, leaning down to look into my eyes. “I am completely under your spell,” he says, in a tone that’s half mocking, half serious, his voice husky with desire.

  I just stare at him. What do I say in answer to that?

  “So, I’ll try to pray for you, Ari, if that’s what you need,” he goes on. “I don’t know how, but I’ll figure it out.” He kisses me lightly on the cheek, presses his eyes shut and leans for a second against me. Then he’s gone.

  ◊◊◊

  I sleep in for the rest of the day, but surprisingly I don’t get even one phone call by Tim or Matt yelling at me to come back to work. I get about a million calls from Katia though, who sounds, and looks, really worried. I try to reassure her, all the time thinking to myself, great, another person I’m hurting and lying to.

  This can’t go on.

  Dad wakes me when he comes back from school, relieved that I look better. “Dad, we need to talk,” I tell him, trying to breathe beyond the catch of tears in my throat.

  “What is it, honey?” he asks me.

  I take a deep breath and tell him.

  “No,” he says immediately.

  Then he starts crying.

  My heart is in pieces.

  After another nap—I’m like a freaking 90-year-old, I swear—I wake up to find him still sitting beside me, his mouth set, his eyes full of fear and pain.

  He has a thin stubble on his chin, his brown hair, matching mine in shade exactly, messy and wild. “How are you feeling?” he asks me, wary.

  “Like always,” I answer. “Rested, fine. Don’t start with the questions, okay?”

  “What are you going to do?” he asks, nodding.

  I sigh as I get up. “I’m going to wait until the last moment,” I say, looking at him squarely in the eye.

  “Yes, but, honey, is that wise?” he says. “I mean, this operation might save your life, isn’t that what the doctor said? What if you get worse? What if the operation shows that the. . . ” he struggles to pronounce the word, “what if it shows the tumor was not malignant after all?”

  I swallow.

  Is this real? Is it happening?

  It is. It is.

  “What if the operation kills me?” I whisper, and he nods, sobs wracking his body as he lowers his face to his hands.

  truth or dare

  Ok, Binge, you won this round of ‘truth or dare’ fair and square.

  F
irst of all, I would like to go over EXACTLY what happened, so that future generations can see how you TRICKED and MANIPULATED me into this.

  OK.

  (You also said that you want it written on actual paper, so that you can blackmail me. I say fine, I lost fair and square. We’ll see what happens in the next round. I also say you’re an idiot, but I say that ten times a day, so what.)

  Here’s what happened:

  We’re shooting a bromance scene between Will and Binge, and we’re almost done when you, as always bored out of your tiny mind, get it into your stupid head to dare me to scratch my head and cry like Stan Laurel when the cameras started rolling.

  In front of Tim and everyone. You dare me to start crying and scratching my head. Okay. So, naturally, I say no. You get that evil smile on your face and tell me that I’ll hate the penalty, I still say no. I’d have done it though, if I knew what losing would mean.

  Then we drive to a surfing beach in Lefkimi and on the way you announce me the penalty. I’m to shoot a remake of a Laurel and Hardy bit, with you no less, and upload it to YouTube. You also said I get to pick up to ten sketches, write them down, and you’ll decide which one we’ll recreate. Well, how bloody generous of you.

  Don’t think there won’t be retaliation; cause there will. Oh, and since you stupidly decided that we’re in this together, although it was my penalty, and you could have walked away, but you didn’t, I’ll make you suffer as much as possible.

  Right. So here is a list of potential—mind you, potential—Laurel and Hardy sketches that I would be considering to recreate with you.

  Just remember the rules.

  You can choose ONE of them, and you’ll have to participate. Also, I have two vetoes. That’s TWO.

  Oh, and about uploading it on YouTube like you said, yeah. Dream on.

  So, here is my list, and in case you didn’t notice, this is a leaf torn out of a bleeding notebook, it’s hand-written and I don’t have digital back-up. So, for Pete’s sake, DON’T LOSE IT.