“Fell out of a tree earlier this afternoon in Atlanta. Hit her head, right ribs. She threw up the entire flight back.”
The nurse took my pulse, blood pressure, and temperature, then shined a light in my eyes. “Can you tell me your name, kiddo?”
“Um, Schroeder. Kelly.”
“Ok, Kelly, do you know who brought you in?”
“Kelly is her last name,” Eddie interjected. “Her first name is Schroeder. Her parents are weird. We just left them,” he added as way of explanation.
“He's Eddie,” I said, reaching out for his hand.
“And how do you know him?” The nurse moved his finger in front of my eyes, and I blinked to focus and follow it.
“Husband. Co-worker. No, husband.” Which story was I supposed to give?
The nurse looked over at Eddie, who answered that we were married. Oh. Oops.
“Ok, kiddo. We're going to get you in a gown, check out your ribs, then the doctor will be by.” The two of them got me sitting up and changed, and the nurse prodded on the sore ribs until I was on the brink of crying again. He left to get the doctor, and I fell back against the pillow.
“Are you mad at me?” I could barely see past the tears, but Eddie certainly did not look pleased.
“What? No, baby, I'm not mad at you.” He stroked my hair. “Why would you think that? No, I'm not mad at you.”
“I'm sorry,” I sobbed, and felt him kiss my forehead.
“Shh. It's okay.”
A throat was cleared in a feminine manner, but I kept my eyes closed. I let Eddie greet the doctor and explain things again. The doctor did the same neural check as the nurse, and thankfully didn't press as hard on the ribs. I still felt worse than when Eddie brought me in, though.
“It's probably just a mild concussion, but we'll send her up for a head CT just in case. We'll get some films of the ribs too. Sir, you can stay down here, and one of the nurses will take her.”
I was shaking by the time the nurse wheeled me back down, and Eddie put his arms around me after I sat back down on the bed.
“What happened? What's wrong?”
“Nothing. I just don't feel good. Can we go home?”
“Not until the doctor says so, Schroeder.”
The doctor finally came by half an hour later and filled them in. It was a mild concussion, and only bruising on my side. She released me, giving a sheet to Eddie of things to watch for with the concussion. I was glad she handed them to Eddie – my odds of remembering were slim to none.
The meds the doctor gave me helped me sleep again on the drive home, but I woke up when Eddie pulled into the garage. He left the bags in the car, and instead helped me into the house.
I flopped down on my side of the bed, ready to lie down.
“No, let's get you changed and comfortable,” Eddie said firmly, and took off my shirt. I couldn't figure out the bra hooks, and he helped with that too. He pushed me back onto the bed, and undid and removed my jeans. He found some of the flannel pj's and got me dressed, resisting my efforts to grab him and kiss him. “No, sweetheart, it's time for bed.”
“Yeah, with me,” I slurred, the painkillers leaving me loopy.
“I'll be to bed in a bit; you warm the bed up for me, okay?” Eddie kissed me lightly. "Go to sleep."
I reached out and touched his arm before he walked away. "Stay?" His eyes searched my face, then his face gentled.
"Sure."
He climbed in beside me in the large bed, and I turned to cuddle facing him. "No, roll on your other side."
"That'd hurt," I protested.
"Doctor said you should."
"Eddie..."
"You want to cuddle, you get on that side. Otherwise I'll go into the other room," he threatened.
I aboded by his rules since I wanted the closeness, and did find that I was breathing deeper despite the pain. He snuggled in close, holding me tight. I fell asleep in moments.
Eddie's alarm clock woke us for the last time after a night full of neural checks, and I was sprawled across his chest. He reached out a fist and pounded the buzzer into submission. "Babe, get off. I need to take a shower."
I grunted and pulled the covers over me.
"Babe, seriously. I'm meeting with Kinerian this morning. I'm telling them about us."
That got me to toss the covers off, and look up at him bleary eyed. "We haven't talked about that, have we?" I knew my brain felt fuzzy, but I didn't think it was that fuzzy.
"Kinda," he hedged.
I slapped his bare chest. "Eddie!"
"Sorry, I didn't want to ruin your weekend." I twisted a nipple. "Ow! Point taken." He grabbed my fingers before they could do more damage. "How are you feeling?" He asked, changing the subject.
"My side doesn't hurt as much," I said after assessing myself. "My head feels thick, though."
He smirked, and I brought my other hand up towards his nipple. "Hey, none of that." He grabbed both hands this time and rolled over, pinning me underneath him. He stared into my eyes in the dawn-lit room and brought the topic back around. "They are in town today to meet with IDI. I think it would be a good idea for me to tell them that we're married, and let them decide if this is a conflict of interest as far as they are concerned."
There were plenty of valid reasons we shouldn't do this, but I couldn't think of them at the moment. "Hon, I don't think it's a good idea."
"Why not?"
I closed my eyes in frustration. "You're taking advantage of me. I don't know right now."
"We've talked about this. What's the worst that could happen? They get a new consultant."
"No, they could decide that this is the last straw, and pull out of the deal. At the very least we would have to go through everything again."
He made sure my hands were secure. "Well, it's not like you're going to get married to the next consultant, are you?"
I took a deep breath to calm down, and flinched when it hurt.
"I'm sorry," Eddie apologized seeing my anguish, and kissed me on the tip of the nose. "The downsides are a lot worse if we don't tell them. If it comes out afterwards, and it's not like it can be hidden forever, then it could cast doubt on the whole process. That wouldn't be good for anyone. I'll most likely get fired, you might get fired, and the buyout would fall through. I'd probably be sued, too."
I sighed. "I just don't know what to do."
"Just let me handle it."
"I'm not good at that," I admitted.
He released my hands so he could stroke my hair. "I know, sweetheart. We'll work things out." He gave me a long, tender kiss, then headed for the shower.
When he left the bathroom wrapped in a towel, I pushed past him, already naked. "Don't go without me."
"Schroeder, you sure? You should stay home."
I continued to talk as I climbed in the shower. "I've had too many days off recently. Especially with Alan gone, I need to be there. Joseph was generous to give me Thursday and Friday, and I don't want to push my luck. You going to fight me on this, too?"
"No, just take it easy today, okay? Today would be a bad idea to launch a new site. No new programming, either." I considered splashing him with water, but he had already put on a suit, and I didn't remember if he had another one.
I dressed quickly in jeans and a shelf bra tank with a sweater over it. Granted, it was lower on my side that was injured, but the tight band of a bra would be uncomfortable. That's what I was telling myself, at least.
"Mmm, you look sexy," I told Eddie when I finally had a moment to appraise him. The expensive suit was tailored for his body, riding low on his hips. I put my arms around him under the suit coat and gave him a hug, then moved a hand down to squeeze his butt.
His body responded instantly, but his words did not. "Baby, we don't have time. We need to go."
I pulled his face down for a long kiss that he didn't fight. "We could go somewhen. We have all the time in the world." Time traveling was certainly expanding my vocabulary, which made me
happy. So did Eddie pressing up against me.
"I got my ass chewed out by the doctor for letting you fly with a concussion. Uh-uh. No traveling for at least a week."
"Eddie!"
"I have to go to Chicago tomorrow, so it's not like we'd be able to go anyway."
"There's a lot you haven't told me," I told him crossly, leaving his embrace and heading for the door. He sighed and followed after me.
***
When I hit send/receive on my computer, I groaned. Five thousand, two hundred, and sixty five messages. Alan was an asshole. It was his fault, I was sure of it. It took half an hour to delete the male enhancement and graphic porn emails, and ended up with a quite reasonable ninety emails that required my attention. Of course, I muttered obscenities about Alan's heritage the entire time, but I was happy when the last advertisement was gone from my inbox. Then I hit send/receive again, and downloaded another fifty messages.
"Curt, I need a new email account."
"What? No." The sys admin shook his head at me.
"Alan signed me up for spam. Either you give me a new email account, or you get to have fun with email filtering to ensure these messages don't make it to my mailbox."
"Aw, come on, I don't have time for that!" He gestured towards a stack of new computers for the new sales training class starting in three days. "I have to get all of these installed and ready to go. Just hit delete. How bad can they be?"
"Bad enough where I probably would have a case of sexual harassment for being forced to look at the subject lines." I stared him down, certain I would win. Curt glared back, undeterred. I softened. "Look, we're making it public later, but I got married last weekend. You're going to have to give me a new email account anyway."
"Do you have to take his name?" My attempt at appeasement didn't work.
"Alan knows the naming conventions anyway; he'd guess it. Just go with schroeder instead of skelly -- that way you don't have to change it again." Curt grumbled, but created the account anyway. "Thank you."
"Hey Schroeder!" Curt called after me as I headed back to my office. I turned. "Congratulations."
One good thing about not communicating directly with clients was that I had a very small email list that needed to be notified about the change in address. The abrupt stop in spam was a relief.
Now that I could get on with the day, I looked over at my legal pad where I always jotted down my todo list. On the top of the list was “get online backups going”, and I didn't remember putting it there – although with my concussion, I had a hard time remembering much. In fact, Alan had always been completely against the concept. “Oh, but he's not here anymore,” I thought out loud. “I can get that going finally.” Glad that I wrote it down last week before I got the concussion and forgot about it, I sought approval from Joseph for the purchase.
Eddie came into my office without warning, and closed the door. "What--" I barely got out before he came around the desk and kissed me thoroughly.
When he let me up for air, he said, "They're letting me keep the account. Elise -- she's the CEO of Kinerian -- said it was, and I quote, 'cute' and 'sweet'. They said we should tell Joseph and give him the chance to request someone else, but I doubt he'll mind if they don't." He kissed me again. "Ready to go tell him?"
My head spun. "Um, okay."
We closed the door to Joseph's office behind us, and he raised an eyebrow. "Yes?"
"Sir, there's something we need to--"
"We eloped." I interjected abruptly. Joseph blinked, and tried to catch up. I liked Joseph enough to not beat around the bush.
"Ah, congratulations?"
"Thank you, sir," I beamed. Eddie frowned at me.
"Sorry to hit you with this all of a sudden, Mr. Maloberti. But it was rather sudden for us, too."
Joseph got a suspicious look on his face. "Did you know each other prior to Schroeder going to New York?" We shook their heads. "Good trip, then, I take it." I blushed.
"Joseph, it's not like--"
"No, no, it's none of my business." We could see he was insanely curious, though. "You are happy? Good for you kids, then."
"Sir, about me appraising you..."
"Have you told Kinerian?" I nodded. "If they are fine with it, then I am." It was Eddie and my turn to blink. That was rather quick. "Let me tell you a story."
I settled back in my seat, knowing that when Joseph started with that line, I'd be there for a while. Joseph went on to tell us about when he met his wife, and how they were married within a week, and had been happily married for 35 years now. Eddie was looking trapped towards the end, and I thought I'd try to rescue him.
"I'm sorry to cut you off, but I do have to get back to the Simeon project -- they are expecting the site in place by the end of the day." I looked down at Eddie, who was about to jump to his feet as soon as I stood, and remembered him being a jerk earlier in the day. I gave him an evil grin. "But I'm sure Eddie would love to hear the rest."
I was going to pay for that later, I knew, but man that felt good.
Eddie picked me up at the end of the day, but didn't drive straight home.
"There's no food in the house," he explained, pulling into the strip mall that held the nearby grocery store. "I thought we'd stock you up before I go. This way I can do the carrying, and you don't have to with your side."
I had to admit it was a good idea -- otherwise, I'd probably eat take-out each night. There was a Bath & Body Works store right next to the supermarket, and I paused outside it and gave him puppy dog eyes. "Meet you in Kroger's?"
"I can come in with you," he said, amused.
Bath items were one luxury I didn't mind buying. They were having a great sale, and I stocked up on my favorites, tossing them in the bag Eddie held.
"Candles?" Eddie asked, pointing to the display.
I shuddered. "I think I'll avoid flames in my house, thank you very much. That's how I got into this mess in the first place, remember?" He winced, having temporarily forgotten.
"Sorry, sweetheart." He gave me a hug and kissed the top of my head. "Anything else you want from here?"
I spied the salt scrub that I normally didn't splurge on, but decided to go for it this time. "Ooh, there we go," Eddie said, grabbing something else from that display and putting it into the bag. I dove in there to find the bottle.
"Massage oil?" His eyes gleamed, and I suddenly looked forward to using the oil. "We better get two," I said, and grabbed the scent that matched the salt scrub.
I learned more about Eddie's likes and dislikes shopping at Kroger's than I had up until then. He loved orange flavoring, but couldn't stand oranges themselves, and thought orange juice tasted like battery acid. He loved walnuts, but I thought they tasted like poison. Lighthearted teasing was going back and forward nicely until we came to the cheeses.
Eddie grabbed a pack of store brand American slices, and I put them back and got Kraft. "They are the same," he pointed out.
I shook my head. "They taste different. Melt different in grilled cheese, too. I prefer brand names most of the time; they are worth the extra money to me." I thought he would understand, since he had always championed quality.
"And I've always gone with the off-brand. Now we know why I'm a millionaire and you're not."
I turned slowly towards him, not believing what I had just heard. The look on his face showed he regretted it instantly. I threw the Kraft singles into the cart, and turned on my heel and walked away.
"Schroeder! Baby! I'm sorry." He abandoned the cart and came running after me. I looking at the cereal choices, ignoring him. He tried to put his arms around me, but I shrugged him off. "Schroeder, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry. I was only trying to make a joke."
I crossed my arms in front of me, still facing away. "Some of us chose not to make a lot of money. I could have gone into any number of industries that pay a lot more. I know what sort of commission our sales reps get -- yeah, I wish I could make that, especially since without my code, they would have not
hing to sell. But this is what I like to do. I could be working elsewhere for more money. But I like my company, and I like my job. Alan told me when I got hired that the pay would be below industry standard, and that's what happens with a small startup venture. I've earned some stock options in the company, and that'll get activated when the buyout is finished, and that'll make up for it. I'll not be a millionaire by any means, but I could probably pay cash for a small house."
Eddie's face froze. "He said they paid under industry standard?"
"Pay attention," I snapped. "I'm fine financially. I don't have to be a millionaire to live the way I want to live. I don't throw it away; I just choose where to splurge. I don't smoke, drink coffee, and don't go out to bars. I couldn't tell you the last time I saw a movie in the theater. If I want to spend an extra thirty cents on cheese, I'm going to because I can." I grabbed the big box of Lucky Charms and headed back to the cart, Eddie on my heels.
"Schroeder, I've seen the salary list. They don't--"
"Don't you dare," I poked a finger into his chest. "That's none of my business. It wasn't part of the technical documentation I went over with you for a reason. I don't need to know what my coworkers make."
"You do if Alan was lying to you," he answered quietly. I couldn't help an intrigued expression. "All but the lowest person in IT makes enough to be comfortable in New York. Alan makes -- made -- double the junior programmer."
"We don't have a junior programmer."
"Um, he was some kid. Oh, bloody hell!" Eddie kicked the cart, denting it. "I saw the list before I met you. I thought Schroeder was a guy, a new one at that based on his salary. Next time I'm asking for the gender along with the salary report. I'm supposed to be looking at salary parity to be sure they aren't screwing over the old folk and minorities, and I miss seeing that they're discriminating on sex."
"Eddie, I'm sure they aren't--"
"Like hell they aren't!" He exploded, causing heads to turn. "You've been there for five years, and are the backbone of the department. You should be making the most, not twenty-five grand under the rest of them."
"Twenty-five?" I squeaked.
He nodded grimly. "Minimum. Kinerian is going to love this."
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