While I’d been lost in my thoughts, he’d found the movie on a streaming service. He watched me, his finger hovering over the play button.
“Let me get this out of the way.” It seemed silly to protest when he’d gone this far. I set the Gatorade bottle on the nightstand, wishing for a coaster instead of just the folded paper towel from the tray.
When he saw me struggling with the tray, he reached over me, lifting it to his side and setting it on the floor. He leaned on the pillows he’d piled against the headboard and opened his arms to me in invitation. It was the most natural thing in the world to curl into him and rest my hand on his warm chest, my head tucked under his chin. The opening scene filled the screen, and I relaxed deeper into Jake’s arms, loving it when something tickled him, and I felt his laugh rumble under my cheek.
I remembered Jake’s laughter when the heroine introduced the hero to her family and her brothers and cousins tricked him into telling everyone—in Greek of course—that he had three testicles. Then I closed my eyes to rest them for just a minute. I woke up, still wrapped warm and safe in Jake’s arms, as the closing credits played on the screen.
“Welcome back, sleepyhead.” He pressed a kiss to my hair.
I brushed my lips against his chest, before forcing myself to sit up.
“What did you think?” I braced for chick flick comments, but a part of me wanted to know what he really thought.
“It was great. What I could hear over your snoring, anyway.” His hair fell over his forehead in a casual, disheveled way that people spent a lot of money at salons to reproduce, and he hit me with a cocky grin.
“I do not snore.” I had no idea whether I did or not, but there was no way I was claiming it.
“You keep telling yourself that, but I had to turn up the volume to hear the dialogue. Twice.”
“You should probably see a doctor about that.” I crossed my arms over my chest and gave him my best concerned look. “Hearing loss is a side effect of old age. You need to stay on top of those kind of things.”
“Exactly how old do you think I am?”
Honestly, I had no idea. One of the articles I’d read, when I finally bothered to research Jake’s past, said he’d been one of the youngest recipients of the Hopper. That probably put him somewhere in his mid-thirties.
“Not a day over forty-five.” I made my eyes wide and innocent for the two seconds I had before he lunged across the bed at me.
He pinned me underneath him, holding his weight on his arms so he didn’t squish me, but wedging his hips between my thighs to keep me in place. I wasn’t ready for sex. I still felt too unsteady for that, but it didn’t stop my body from springing to life at the feel of him.
“You’re lucky. If you weren’t still recovering, there would be tickling, and I can be merciless.”
I remembered the spanking and being bent over his desk at his mercy. Some of what I was thinking must have shown in my eyes because his nostrils flared and he pressed his hips forward, rubbing against my sex before rolling off me.
“Dangerous woman.” He shook his head and reached across me to grab the bottle of Gatorade. “Drink this so you can get your strength back.”
18
Iwas telling the truth when I told Elena I liked taking care of her. It was a completely new experience for me but one I wouldn’t mind repeating. Without her having to get sick of course. I’d spent so many years with people watching out for me. First my mom and dad while I struggled my way through school, and then later by a few exceptional professors who overlooked my inability to stick to a timeline and prioritize tasks, choosing to focus on my way of thinking instead of the deficits.
It took years for me to learn the skills that let me work with my brain’s natural strengths and figure out how to accommodate the perceived weaknesses. I still relied on Anna to make sure my home worked the way I needed it to and that I had clean clothes to wear. Even Elena had gone out of her way to fill in some of the gaps for me. But sick Elena needed me to step up. I had to take care of her because she depended on me. It was heady stuff and something I was determined to be good at.
Which meant, no matter what my traitorous body thought, we were not doing anything sexual. Not this time.
Mark said I needed to keep her from getting dehydrated, so that’s where I’d start. Leaving her with the remnants of her lukewarm Gatorade, I picked up the tray and headed to the kitchen to replenish supplies.
It had been a while since she’d thrown up, which I hoped meant the worst of it was over. She’d made a dent in her chicken noodle soup. Maybe she was up for something more solid. I dropped four pieces of bread in the toaster and went to the refrigerator for butter and strawberry jam. While I was there, I grabbed the bottle of ginger ale and filled two tall glasses with crushed ice. My mom gave me ginger ale and toast when I’d gotten sick as a kid. I tried to remember if there was anything else special about it.
The toast popped, and I fixed them the way I remembered my mom doing it. Not too much butter and a thin smear of jam. Since I wasn’t the sick one, I added a thicker layer of jam to my pieces. Placing the icy glasses of ginger ale and plates of toast on the tray, I glanced around to see if I was missing anything.
Elena’s phone sat next to her purse on the table by the door. She’d only been with me for about twenty-four hours, but I imagined someone was missing her. Friends or work. Maybe someone else. We’d never talked about being exclusive. I knew she dated other people. I hadn’t been looking for a relationship, and she hadn’t been looking for a relationship with someone like me. She’d want someone who could take her out and show her off. Someone who liked being out with people. Not someone who lost themselves in bits of code.
None of that mattered to me. Until now.
If I took her the phone, it would bring the rest of the world into the bedroom space that had become just ours. If I didn’t take it to her, she might get up and look for it herself, which would literally take her out of the bedroom.
Not certain which was the better choice and sure I didn’t like either, I dropped the phone on the tray and headed back to my room and the woman waiting in my bed.
She’d propped herself up on pillows and was scrolling through the options on the TV. I hoped that meant she wasn’t ina hurry to leave. She seemed well enough to be on her own, but I liked having her here with me. Laughing and watching movies. Trusting me enough to fall asleep in my arms.
