She took a step closer, her eyes narrowed. I loved it when she did that makeup thing with the dark line on her lids. “What’s happening here? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “All good.”
“Why are you…green?” She pressed the inside of her wrist to my forehead. “You’re cool and clammy. What’s that about?”
I dropped my hand on her arm to keep her close a little longer. “Just a stomach bug.”
“Lovely.” She scrunched her nose. “How long has this been going on?”
“Are you diagnosing me?”
“Just trying to prevent another scrub room contamination.” She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped out a message. “Go down to the clinic after rounds. One of the nurse practitioners will get some fluids and an anti-emetic into you.”
“Thanks.” Her gaze didn’t leave her phone. “So. Cossapino.”
“Cossapino.” She gave one brisk nod. “It’s handled. Spoke to Hartshorn. Everything’s fine.”
“I’m sorry it all happened that way.”
“I figured it would. That’s the upside to constantly mining all these worst-case scenarios.” The smile she sent me could’ve burned through steel. “I’m prepared when they happen.”
“I didn’t mean?—”
“Except you did mean it.”
My stomach burbled. “I really didn’t. I love your worst-case scenarios. I love the way your mind works. I love?—”
“Let’s not do that this morning. Conserve your energy. Please. You’re going to need it.”
“Then tell me when I can see you.”
“I need another minute. Okay?” She tucked a few honeyed strands over her ear and I realized how much I missed touching her hair. Just all of her. “I just need one more minute when I’m not in the middle of five different crises.”
“Is everything all right? After what happened with your father? And Brie?”
The elevator doors opened and Whit stepped forward even though it wasn’t her usual floor. “Reference my previous comments on multiple, ongoing crises.”
I shuffled forward. “But are you all right?”
She stared down at her shoes for a moment and I held my hand against the door to keep it from cutting me off from her before I was ready. As if I’d ever be ready.
“I’ll be fine,” she said eventually. “I always am.”
I wanted to rip myself open and tell her everything. Just pour it all out and hope the pieces landed in the right order because I couldn’t hold them in anymore. But I wasn’t going to do that to her. Not here, not now. Not after she’d endured that dickheadCossapino running his mouth and god only knew what she’d had to deal with after him.
I could wait. I’d waited this long, I could wait until my body didn’t sound like a clogged garbage disposal. Until Whit and I weren’t making the rounds as the main characters of the hospital’s gossip machine. Until Mason went home and things cooled down with Brie. Until she had that minute to breathe.
She shot a glance over her shoulder. “Thanks for the cupcake though. It helped.”
Twenty-Eight
Whitney
Rule Number Twenty-Three:
Pack your own protection.
I staredup at the brownstone I called home with a grimace that seemed to pull at every muscle and tendon in my body until my entire being was swallowed into a twisted, snarly pout.
