“I love you, baby,” I say, twisting my hands together, knowing I shouldn’t lean down to give him a kiss. Not when he had to wash with special soap.
“Go ahead,” the tech says, jerking her head in his direction. “They’ll scrub him up again anyway.”
I kiss him on the forehead, and Gus kisses me on the cheek, and I marvel at the bravery of this kid, how he’s laying back, talking to the technician, and waving to me over the top of the cot.
“Oh, shit,” I mutter, when he turns the corner, and tears start to drip down my cheeks.
It’s a routine surgery. Simple. Russell is vouching for Orie. But I can’t help the fact that I still wish it was Russell in there. I can’t help the deep, steady sense of trust I have with him, when it comes to Gus.
“It’s going to be fine,” Russell says, crossing his arms and standing next to me.
More than anything, I want to fold into him like I did outside the taping forToday, Tomorrow, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Not with everything that happened—him leaving me in his condo, him refusing to do the test. It’s like a physical wall between the two of us.
I can’t cross it, and he’s not willing to.
Together, we move to the waiting room, where I turn up the ringer on my phone to get texts about Gus’s progress. Others nervously wait around us, spread out in their own little clusters, tapping their fingers on their knees and flipping through magazines, maybe not even seeing.
An hour passes. I get a notification that the surgery has started.
Every five minutes, I take in a breath and think I’m going to turn to Russell, say something. Ask him to reconsider. Thank him for being here. Anything.
Maybe I should even apologize for swearing in front of his niece and nephew.
But I can’t get the words out.
Another hour passes without another notification, and I start to get antsy. Russell stands, disappears, and returns with two coffees, one of which he hands to me.
“Decaf,” he says, and it breaks the dam in me.
“Russell—”
But before I can say anything, he says, his voice low so only I can hear it, “Calvin found out about our…arrangement.”
It takes me a moment to catch up, but then I get it—his cousin, who wants to close the clinic. Whose girlfriend basically called me fat.
“Shit,” I whisper, momentarily forgetting about the DNA test. Russell looks worse for the wear—this must be why. He’s worried about the clinic.
I ignore the way that makes my chest twinge. I guess there was a small part of me that thought his bedraggled state might have been from what happened between us.
“Shit is right,” he mutters, taking a sip of his coffee. Slowly, he lowers it to his lap and shifts in his seat, some of that cologne drifting over to me and making meacheto touch him. Still without looking at me, he says, “Evony was there, that day in the park. She heard me say our relationship was fake. Clearly, she was still pissed about what happened at the ball, and maybe she’s also jealous of you. Of us. So, she jumped at the first chance to fuck things up for me. With the inheritance. I bet Cal also told her about the clinic.”
I hate to admit it, but even with everything going on, there’s something soothing about the sound of Russell’s voice, even with what he’s telling me. My hands have relaxed.
“Well, that’s just hearsay, right? It’s not like she has a video.”
Russell turns to me, “Jules. It’s not like I expect you to…carry on. After…”
So that’s it? An emotion that I can only describe as sorrow splashes around in my chest, hitting the bottom of my throat and making my eyes tear up again.
I’m furious with him for giving up this easily. On everything. Me, Gus, his inheritance, the clinic.
And so, I tell him. “You didn’t strike me as a coward, Russell.”
His hand tightens around his cup, “There’s a lot you don’t understand, Jules.”
“I understand that you said you were going to invest in me. You asked me to movein with you,Russell.”
Setting my coffee down, no longer interested in it, I twist in my seat and bring a leg up, fully facing him.
