by Olivia Dade
“How are you feeling?” she wheezed out.
He jerked at the words, and then stiffened everywhere with a bit-off groan.
“Oh, shit.” She rushed to his side. “What can I get you? More ibuprofen? Your muscle relaxants? Water? Or should I take you to the hospital?”
“No hospital.” The words sounded like sandpaper. “Pillow under my knees. Please. Sorry.”
A frantic glance revealed a pillow that had fallen beside the bed. She plucked it from the floor and slid her hand beneath the region of the sheet that seemed most likely to contain his knees.
If she was wrong, this was shortly going to become an extremely awkward moment.
There. The bend of his knee, the flesh there warm and velvety under a few crisp hairs. As gently as possible, she eased the pillow beneath that crook as he breathed harshly. Then the job was done, and he relaxed into the mattress while she attempted to gain control of her heartbeat.
“Thank you.” His breathing slowed. “Don’t worry. I’m wearing gym shorts. Didn’t want to flash Bea accidentally.”
She wasn’t disappointed at the presence of those shorts. Definitely not.
With careful fingertips, she smoothed the hair from his brow. “Do you feel better now? With the pillow there?”
His eyelids lowered. “Yeah.”
“What can I get you? Do you need a drink?” Two pill bottles rested on his nightstand, beside an empty glass. “More pain medicine?”
With seeming effort, he opened his eyes again and glanced at his bedside alarm clock. “Took ibuprofen and muscle relaxants about half an hour ago. Maybe more water?” He shifted, then winced. “Sorry. Shouldn’t have to take care of me. Should take care of myself.”
“You’re fine.” Glass in hand, she strode to the kitchen and searched the cabinets until she found a fresh cup. Cool water dispensed from the refrigerator door, so she filled the cup there and deposited the old glass in his sink. Within moments, she’d returned to his room. “Here you go.”
When he tried to lift his head, she slid more pillows beneath it to support him.
“Thank you,” he murmured. “Again.”
He didn’t seem entirely steady, so she held the cup with him as he drank, their fingers tangling over the slick glass.
Once he’d drained the liquid, she eyed his position. “Do you want me to get rid of the pillows under your head?”
“Leave them.” He attempted a small smile. “Easier to talk that way.”
Another comma of hair had escaped onto his brow, so she nudged it back into place. “You don’t need to talk, Martin. Go back to sleep, and hopefully you’ll feel better when you wake up.”
“Why…” He swallowed. “Why are you here?”
That question could be answered so many ways. But if he wanted her gone, none of the more embarrassing responses mattered.
“Keisha said you were in bad shape and might be out for the rest of the week, so I wanted to check on you. Maybe help, if you needed it.” She took a half-step back from the bed. “I’m sorry. I know this is an intrusion. I can g—”
“No.” He reached out an arm, then clenched his eyes shut and let it fall. “No, Rose. Not a complaint. Definitely not a complaint. A question.”
If she didn’t need to leave, and he no longer required immediate assistance, she wanted to rest her feet for a moment. Before they fell off of their own accord.
She looked around his small room, dominated entirely by the large bed. “Could I sit down somewhere? Is there a chair I could bring in here?”
“Sit.” His hand rose an inch and patted the mattress once. “King. Plenty of room.”
That seemed like a terrible idea. “I’ll jostle you.”
He mumbled something she didn’t quite catch.
“What?” She leaned closer, until a bare inch would have meant kissing him.
His eyes closed again, this time as if in defeat. “Always wanted to have someone sitting next to me. Dad said…weak.”
That asshole better hope she never encountered him, because her pointy-toed shoes were good for more than just fashion. “When you were sick or hurt, you wanted someone beside you?”
He sighed. “Yeah.”
“Of course you did. All kids do.” His features relaxed when she stroked his brow, so she kept doing it. “Did your mom ever keep you company when you didn’t feel good?”
“Sometimes. Until Dad came home.”
“Hmmmm.” Slowly, she eased her weight down onto the mattress at his side. “My dad left before I was born. But when she wasn’t working, my mom would sit next to me whenever I got sick. Bring me juice or flat soda or whatever I needed.”
Most of the time, Rose had stayed home alone when ill. But on the rare occasions when her mother insisted on calling in sick to work or missing class to nurse her daughter, she’d spread a threadbare quilt over the couch and cocoon Rose inside, positioning them so they could both watch cartoons.
In those moments, getting sick had almost felt like luxury. Like grace.
Like shame and despair too, given the likely consequences.
“Sounds… nice.” His breathing had turned slow and steady. “Where does…she live?”
Rose forced her hand to keep moving. “She died while I was in college.”
His hand rose to cover hers on his forehead, his palm warm and dry. “I’m sorry, Rose. So sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
It hadn’t been. Not for a long, long time. But now…yes. Mostly.
His forehead moved back and forth under their hands. “Not okay.”
“Shhhhhhh.” With gingerly movements, she lifted his hand and placed it back by his side. “Sleep, Martin. I’m here.”
She slowly scooted back until she could prop herself against the headrest and stretch her tired legs in front of her. Then she kept stroking his forehead as his brow cleared and his chest rose and fell in the steady rhythm of sleep.
He hadn’t even asked how she’d gotten inside. Hadn’t questioned her right to come. Hadn’t hesitated to fall asleep under her touch.
More trust from him.
Maybe it was about time to return some of it.
Twelve
When Martin woke a couple hours later, he stared at Rose as if she’d risen from the sea in an oversized scallop shell, wonder and confusion battling for supremacy in his expression.
“I thought the muscle relaxants were causing hallucinations, but I guess not.” He frowned, eyes still fixed on her. “Unless this is a hallucination too.”
“The nature of reality is suspect,” she agreed. “But as far as I know, we’re both here. I stopped by my house for a few supplies while you were asleep, which is why I look different.”
“Different…” His voice was husky from sleep, his features softened. “Different doesn’t begin to express how you look right now.”
After she’d gathered what she needed for an overnight stay, she’d changed clothing. Instead of her usual tailored pieces, she’d chosen a pair of soft knit gaucho pants and a slouchy silk tee, along with her favorite ballerina flats. Essentially, they were really expensive pajamas and slippers. All black, of course. All clothing she’d never worn outside her home before.
Before she’d left, she’d also taken down her hair and gathered it into a loose braid, as she often did in the evening. A generous application of makeup remover took care of her usual foundation and blush and everything else that announced her readiness to do fashionable battle on a daily basis.
This was as naked as she ever got, except during actual sex. And Martin, drugged but perceptive soul that he was, appeared to realize it.
His face abruptly creased in concern. “Not that you aren’t beautiful every day, because you are. Obviously. That’s not what I meant at all.”
He’d called her beautiful. Just said it outright, as if it were a given. An immutable fact. As if any suggestion she wasn’t beautiful would offend him.
How had all that sweetness survived his chi
ldhood intact?
She would have said he had a heart of gold, but it must have been stronger than that. Steel. Diamond, maybe.
“I knew what you meant.” Comfortably propped against his headboard once more, she smiled down at him. “Don’t worry.”
She couldn’t help it. She had to brush that stray eyelash from his cheekbone.
His skin heated beneath her lingering touch, and he caught her hand with his. “I don’t have enough functioning brain cells to worry right now.”
Fire sparked beneath her skin as he gently played with her fingers, exploring the valleys between them and the ridges of her knuckles with light strokes of flesh against flesh.
She struggled to keep her tone even. Wry. “I know you too well, Martin. You will always, always have enough functioning brain cells to worry. It’s one of your many charms.”
He tugged her hand to his mouth, and his lips pressed against her palm. “Thank you.”
“For calling you a worrier?” No oxygen again. She was going to have to evolve into a higher life form soon, one that could survive outside Earth’s atmosphere. “My pleasure.”
His lips were soft. So soft.
He spoke into the cup of her palm. “Thank you for caring about me. Thank you for coming to check on me.” His muffled voice turned dry. “Thank you for breaking into my home to do so.”
She tried to jerk her hand away, but he held on. “I didn’t break into your house! Bea told me about your fake rock. Which is a disgrace to fake rock-kind, by the way. Next time, buy a key-holder that approximates something found on the actual ground.”
“Thank you for sitting beside me when I was hurting,” he continued, as if she hadn’t spoken. “Thank you for telling me about your father and your mother.”
Goddammit, she was trembling like some nervous virgin. “I didn’t tell you much.”
“It’s enough.” A tender kiss to the center of her palm, and then he folded her fingers over that spot. “Rose, I—”
His stomach growled. Loudly.
They glanced at it together.
After a slow exhalation, he started again. “Rose, I’d like to—”
Another growl, this one extended and angry.
She wanted to do this. She did. But now wasn’t the right time.
“Let’s get you fed.” Sliding her hand free from his, she levered her weight carefully off of his mattress. “Do you have a tray I can use on the bed?”
His mouth went tight for a moment, but he didn’t protest the interruption. “My back is feeling a bit better, and the doctor says I’m supposed to move as much as I can. We can eat in the kitchen together. Let me just put on my shirt.”
With tiny, halting movements, he removed the sheet and began to ease his way to the edge of the mattress.
Like the rest of him, his bare legs were lean. Strong.
Like the rest of him, she wanted to run her tongue over them.
“Do you need help getting out? Or getting dressed?” She really should offer to leave while he got on more clothing. But…no. Not happening.
His feet touched the floor, and he waited a second to make sure he could stand upright before moving again. “Thank you, but I’ll be fine. I hope.”
She hovered nearby, ready to support his weight if needed. Delighted to, actually, if that meant more contact with his strong shoulders and warm flesh.
He carefully pulled a t-shirt over his head. “God bless modern medicine.”
Apart from their post–dunk booth coffee excursion, she’d never seen him without a button-down shirt, dark pants, and tie. Even on the occasional Fridays when teachers could donate to charity and wear jeans, he simply handed over his money and showed up to school in his usual outfit. She’d begun to believe he might not actually own a single piece of non-work clothing.
Which was fine. Whatever made him comfortable.
But there was something about seeing his surprisingly muscular forearms and legs…
He appeared oddly vulnerable, but also bigger somehow. More a man in his prime.
“You look different too.” Apparently, she wasn’t the only one who lifted weights in her free time. He had biceps. Noticeable ones. “I like that tee.”
“Christmas gift from Bea.” His grin brightened his eyes. “This one is nicer than the Black Death European Tour tee she gave me last year. Although the dates were historically accurate, which I appreciated, the rat on the front kind of freaked people out.”
She snorted. “I’ll have to see that sometime.”
“Be my guest.” He started to make a sweeping gesture toward his closet, then halted with a groan. “Damn you, modern medicine.”
His stomach growled again, and he stared at her pitifully.
She put an arm around his waist to support him—out of sheer altruism, not because she wanted to smell his piney shampoo or feel the press of his body against her side—and guided them toward the kitchen. “Let’s get you fed. I can ransack your closet later.”
His steps slowed. “I’ll take that as a promise.”
“You can take that any way you want.”
They were almost precisely the same height, so when he turned his head, his lips came a hairsbreadth from hers. “Really?”
His lashes were surprisingly long, but they didn’t shield the expression in his eyes. The yearning. The banked heat. The solemnity of a man ready to lay his soul bare.
When she licked her lips again, he followed the movement with his gaze.
Then his stomach protested with a rumble loud enough to wake neighbors.
Rolling his eyes, he sighed. “Dinner. Then we talk.”
Her arm tightened around his waist. “I’ll take that as a promise.”
“Your AP students should be on track as far as the review lessons.” Rose handed Martin the sandwich she’d concocted with the spartan contents of his refrigerator and a crusty baguette she’d brought from her own house. “The sub said the kids in your honors classes did fine too, but I couldn’t determine that for myself, since I had my own classes to teach.”
Sandwich forgotten, he stared at her in horror. “You sacrificed both your planning periods to teach my AP classes? Your only break all day was lunch?”
“I won’t lie.” She took a big bite, chewed, and swallowed. “I’m a bit tired. But I can keep covering for you until you’re ready to come back.”
Now that he’d recovered from the initial gut-punch of seeing Rose entirely unguarded—in both expression and garb—for the first time ever, he could spot the circles beneath those wide-set amber eyes, the lines of tension around her lush mouth.
No teacher had ever covered for him like she had.
In fact, he couldn’t remember another teacher ever covering for anyone like that.
This much gratitude was uncomfortable. Almost unbearable. “I should say no, but I honestly don’t know when I can come back, and my AP kids need a good teacher to help them review.”
“I figured.” She sipped from her can of Diet Coke. “It’s not a problem. You’d do the same for me.”
He would. But oh, God, she was going to exhaust herself every day. For the sake of his students, yes, but mostly for him. He knew that.
The sandwich now tasted like the dirt he’d inadvertently eaten the day before. “Rose, I don’t know whether to apologize for the rest of my life or fall at your feet in thanks.”
As he raised his glass of water to take his next dose of ibuprofen and muscle relaxants, she eyed his careful movements. “I get the sense any falling you’ll be doing for the immediate future will be involuntary.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“Falling is what caused this whole problem, by the way. I tripped over an exposed root while I was hiking yesterday.” He grimaced. “Rookie mistake. Should have been paying attention to my feet. I thought I was fine afterwards, but I woke up with back spasms.”
Her face pinched in a wince. “That’s terrible. Remind me not to appreciate the wonders of nature anytime soon.”
His laugh wrenched his back. “Will do.”
But he hadn’t been appreciating the wonders of nature, at least not in forest form.
Instead, he’d been appreciating the wonders of Rose Owens.
The way her chin tipped high whenever she exited her classroom, her complete self-possession daring onlookers to challenge her. The way those zippered boots she’d worn last week cuddled the curve of her calf, the top edge teasing the backs of her knees. The way fond exasperation tugged at her lips as she watched her former in-laws plummet into decrepitude at a moment’s notice.
So, yeah, he hadn’t been watching his step.
He’d been wondering if he should finally ask her for a date.
“I really do wish I could help with your honors kids too.” Her fingers tightened on her sandwich, squeezing some of the mayo out from the edges. “I don’t know whether I’ve done enough to convince them to enroll in my AP classes next year. And besides, I…”
He let the pause linger, loath to interrupt her thoughts.
Her forehead wrinkled, and she seemed to force the next few words out. “Besides, I, uh, miss them. Miss teaching that class.”
Her initial distress at being stripped of that prep hadn’t simply stemmed from concern about the AP program’s funding, then, or even anger at Dale’s interference. He’d had no idea. None.
And he’d never heard her admit to an ounce—a micron—of emotional distress before.
If he said the wrong thing now, she’d shut down faster than an overheated copier.
He selected the words one by one. Tested them in his own mind, like a man venturing up the stairs of an abandoned home, making sure each step could bear his weight before he proceeded. “You like teaching students that age? Or is it the subject matter you miss?”
Her hands fluttered in agitated movements. They picked up the remaining half of her sandwich. Put it back down. Plucked at the hem of her silky-looking shirt. Played with the ends of her braid.