“Fuck,” I snapped, then dug my phone out of my pocket and glared at it.
Rowen worried too much about everything. He was always the one to bring up cops, too. His mind just went places mine didn’t. I worked on the assumption everything would be all right, and he always seemed.... Okay, sometimes he was justifiably concerned. My heart raced. I never fought with anyone here at the house, not really, but Rowen wasn’t like the other guys. Vail would nag me about things he thought I should do, but a couple of kisses could scatter him off course. Aspen would’ve glared at me and rescheduled the appointment himself. Cillian would’ve laughed about the stuff with Conall—maybe.
I groaned and texted the scheduling line for my doctor’s office to get another appointment, but when I was done, I didn’t tell Rowen out of spite.
He wasn’t the boss of me.
My lips twitched and I smiled.
After a minute, I chuckled. Hopping up off the bed, I tried to remember why I’d been so infuriated in the first place. What did the fight boil down to? I stared around my room and let out a long breath. I wasn’t used to this many people giving a shit about how I lived my life. I’d had my parents telling me what their very specific expectations were, but I’d never had a boyfriend, let alone boyfriends, butt in. And if Rowen and I were getting closer, maybe he did have a right to let me know what he thought about the things I did, even if I didn’t want to hear it.
At the very least, we were friends.
Plus, I’d had his dick in my mouth. Rolling my shoulders to get rid of some tension, I went to my bedroom door and opened it. “Rowen?” I called.
“Aye, what do ye need? Ye all right?” came a slightly grumpy reply from the living room, so I went downstairs. At the bottom step, I stopped and rubbed my arm, sighing. Staring at the gray oak floor and plain white walls, I gathered my courage.
“Um.... I’m sorry?” I said, all at once worried. What if he didn’t accept my apology? Things were so much easier when Vail was here. He would’ve smoothed this all over to begin with, but he hadn’t come home from tutoring a bunch of rich kids with Lor yet. The sound of footsteps marching in my direction had me tensing again.
Rowen stepped out into the hallway, slipping his hands into the pockets of his suit pants as he came over to stand near me. I was a little taller than him this way, and it was strange to be looking down into his eyes, so I stepped to the floor, but he didn’t move back. I inhaled his crisp cologne, something that reminded me of chocolate, and he grinned.
“It was nothing. I don’t even know how it got so out of hand.” He flashed a grin. “Aye, I’m sorry, too. Sorry I badgered ye, it’s only—”
“I know. You want me to take care of myself,” I grumbled.
“Is that such a horrible request?” A furrow formed between his eyebrows, and guilt raged awake inside me again.
It took me a long time to find my balls and speak. “What if I go back to the doctor and he tells me I shouldn’t fight? What if my ribs are okay, but he brings up my diabetes? What if my ribsaren’tokay?” The whispered words came tumbling out of me and I shivered. I hadn’t realized my worst fears were so close to spilling into the open, or I’d have never come down here. I closed my eyes.
Rowen let out a small sound that was half annoyed, the rest comforting, and I didn’t run away when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into a friendly hug. “Are ye afraid to go alone?”
I shrugged and wiped the back of my hand over my nose. “It wouldn’t change the news.”
“Ye think they’re gonna say that bad shite?” He leaned back and the way his hands lingered on my shoulders had my stomach warming. I cracked open my eyes.
“I don’t know. I hope not. My breathing is starting to feel closer to normal.” I took a deep breath to emphasize the point. “It’s only weird now when I’ve been pushing it running or there’s something funky in the air, like dust.”
He hummed. “Ye know, Vail or I would be happy to go with ye.”
Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I flashed the screen at him. “I made another appointment. I wasn’t going to tell you because you pissed me off by being a bossy jerk.”
He snorted and the smile he gave me crinkled the corners of his eyes. “I was beginning to wonder whether or not ye were a true Irishman, but ye got that stubbornness in ye, that’s for certain.” He pushed my hair behind my left ear, and my mouth went dry. All at once, his face flushed pink and he cleared his throat, stepping back.
It seemed like I should say something, but what? I stared at him, and he glanced down at our feet, so I did, too. The silence was awkward, but something about it made me snicker, and before I knew it, he was laughing, too. I stuffed my phone back into my pocket.
“I’ll go with ye.”
I glanced up at him. “You would do that?”
He shrugged. “Won’t hurt. I always have a wee thing or two to do in the city. We could go together, and if the news is good, we celebrate. If it’s bad, we commiserate. Either way, there’s nice restaurants in Midtown we don’t have out here in the Hamptons.”
“Okay,” I murmured, and my face flared hotter than the sun. That sounded like the things he sometimes did with Vail.Dates.My ears were on fire, and I imagined he must be able to see heat lines radiating from me like a cartoon character.
“Want to watch the telly while we wait for Vail to get home? I’ll let ye pick.”
“Really?” I asked, perking up. “Anything I want to watch?”
He nodded and his smile softened. “Aye, it’s part of me apology. Didn’t like that much. I didn’t give ye the chance to say yer piece before I started in on ye. But that stuff about Conall....”
