But he felt less comfortable with the idea of Eliana sleeping on it, or worse, on that air mattress that was little more than a floor covering. Especially when she looked so miserable. She’d been sick for two straight days, but he’d heard her up and moving around in his bedroom this morning, so hopefully that meant she’d turned a corner.
In that time, he’d managed to finish clearing out the dining room and the hallway. It hadn’t been as difficult as he thought it would be to give away his grandpa’s belongings. In fact, in some surprising ways, it felt good to know someone else might get some use out of his things.
The trash was taken care of, too, including the bin of people’s private information. Why had his grandpa had that? He would never know, and Asher was more than happy to put it in the garbage and never think about it again.
He checked his watch and headed out of his office for his next appointment. He had a full afternoon, which he liked. Keeping busy gave his mind less time to wander to thoughts of a certain pretty blond.
“How are you this afternoon, Mary?” Asher said to the octogenarian waiting to see him in one of the kitchenette rooms in the clinic. Her husband, Claude, sat beside her. He’d cared for Mary since her stroke, and the man loved to talk.
“We’re quite well,” Claude responded. “Have you heard the news?”
“I don’t know. What’s going on?” He turned to the kitchenette to prepare a few different types of food to try.
Mary had suffered a stroke two months previous, and they’d been working on her swallowing. She and Claude lived in the bungalows, but he knew they were on a waiting list to get into the assisted-living portion of The Palms where Asher would come straight to their apartment to do these therapies.
Claude lowered his voice, even though the door was closed. “Lorin Smith isn’t sixty-five, like he’s been claiming. He’sseventy-five.”
“Hmmm,” Asher said, noncommittally. He opened a carton of vanilla yogurt and applesauce.
“He’s shaved ten years off his age.” Claude shook his head. “I’ve known the man for five years, and he never gave any hint that we were the same age.”
“People lie about their age all the time,” Mary said. Her words ran together, but she was speaking so much clearer than she had when they’d first started meeting.
“Maybe so. Butten years.” Claude paused. “That means he married someone twenty years younger than him.”
“Unless she lied too,” Mary pointed out.
“True.” Claude retrieved a clean handkerchief from his pocket and placed it on Mary’s lap to protect her pants from any falling food. Asher saw small moments like this every day that made him long for a relationship like theirs, while also realizing the risk they took in loving each other so deeply and carefully. No one lived forever.
All afternoon, people buzzed about poor Lorin Smith and his newly revealed age. It turned out that his wifehadn’tlied about her age, and he had in fact married someone twenty years younger than him.
“Perhaps that’s why he lied,” Fran Miller said to him as he stood beside her husband’s bed in the memory care center, conducting a swallow study. “He was embarrassed to admit he’d married someone so young.”
Asher wanted to tip his head back and let out the exasperated sigh he’d been holding in all afternoon. He couldn’t care less how old someone was, or claimed to be, or what reasons they had for lying.
He knew for a fact that several of his patients lied about their ages. He could name at least three people—from seeing their birth dates in their chart—who claimed they were younger. They didn’t generally subtract an entire decade, but again, what did it matter?
“Did you see Sweetie’s outfit today?” he asked to change the subject. His phone buzzed in his pocket three times in a row, but he didn’t check it when he was with patients.
It worked. “Oh, yes. Ariel. It was quite creative.”
He finished his appointments and went back to the clinic to do his charting. Usually, he liked to stay here as long as possible and take his time, but today, he was impatient to get back to the bungalow and check on Eliana.
He paused.
She’d be mortified to learn he was this eager to see her. She was Eliana Peters—a gorgeous, witty influencer, who’d made a vow of singleness, by the way. And he was Asher Brooks—a long-haired, unconnected speech therapist without a home.
Yep, he was arealcatch.
He shook his head. He wasn’t trying to be caught. He was merely worried about her after how sick she’d been. Like any decent human being would be.
At least he had that going for him.
He shut down his computer and headed for the parking lot. Bear left his vigil by the fountain and bounded over, eternally hopeful to get a belly rub from Asher. But Asher had his walls firmly up. You open the door a crack, and all the animals came pouring in. He dodged Bear and Sweetie, who were immediately enveloped in love by someone’s visiting great-grandchildren, and he was quickly forgotten by the dog and alligator duo.
“Asher! Wait!” Winnie waved at him from the office hallway before speed walking in his direction.
“No rush!” He took long strides to meet her halfway. The last thing he needed was Eliana’s grandma taking a fall while trying to wave him down.
