A loud yell tore from my throat as I rushed towards my father, shaking his lifeless frame.
33
I hadn’t slept wellsince we’d come back. Trying to get stuff done when you have a beehive in the centre of your chest turned out to be more difficult than I thought. I was filled with nervous energy that swarmed through my veins and nothing seemed to shake it out. I’d even taken up running again to see if that helped. Apart from giving me a pulled muscle in my calf, it did zilch.
After the weekend that, despite its ups and downs, had turned out to be the most fun I’d had in a long time, it had taken a while to slip back into my usual routine. Fallon and Oliver had hit the ground running with their house hunt. Every day, they had at least three houses they were going to inspect, much to Fallon’s chagrin.
Technically, I still had the week off, but the thought of going home and doing nothing for the next five days had sent me into a mental spiral, so Monday morning, I packed up Roxy, dropped her off at Mum’s and headed to work. The second I stepped through the door, I was immediately met with Lawrence sitting behind the reception desk. He looked up from where he’d been showing Jean something on thecomputer, and stood up so quickly he sent the chair he was perched on toppling over. His face contorted into one of utter exasperation.
‘Absolutely not, go away. You’re not working. Shoo.’ He waved his hands at me, causing the few patients sitting and waiting to all peer over at us.
‘Are you seriously shooing me?’ I said, swatting his hands that were trying to shunt me back out the door. He put zero weight behind it, so I slipped past him effortlessly.
His glare followed me across the room. ‘You need a holiday, Rosie. For God’s sake, you’re going to get an ulcer the way you carry on.’ He blew out a breath, placing his hands on his hips. The loose button-down shirt he wore tucked into his black jeans was rolled at the elbow. Making him look the picture of a disgruntled boss.
‘I’m bored. And I looked at the schedule and saw you were fully booked.’
‘That’s why I employ people other than you. This place won’t sink if you take a week off.’
I propped my elbow on the counter, wearing a wry smile. Jean chuckled beside me, telling me I wasn’t the only one enjoying Lawrence’s display.
‘I’m getting the feeling you didn’t miss me.’ I placed a hand over my chest in mock hurt.
His glower that I’d seen cause the new interns to scurry away terrified made my smile widen.
‘I’m not paying you,’ he tossed out.
‘Technically, she’s already on paid leave, so you’d be paying her either way, boss.’ Alistair came out of an exam room, a tiny kitten cradled in his arms.
His cocky smirk grew when Lawrence growled. That nugget of information registered, and Lawrence’s shoulders sagged in defeat. He threw his hands up in the air.
‘I give up. Work yourself to the ground, see if I care.’
Seeing him so worked up shouldn’t have eased some of the anxiety in my chest. But it was the fact that he cared about me so much, he hated seeing me work myself to the ground. I didn’t bother to tell him that work wasn’t really work to me, not in the way most people see it. Coming to the clinic gave me a sense of fulfilment I struggled to find anywhere else.
I skirted around the reception desk and wrapped my arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. ‘Thanks for worrying about me.’
The sincerity in my tone stunned him into speechlessness. He cleared his throat, patting me awkwardly on the back before pulling away and stalking back to his office without a word. A flush steadily worked its way up his throat.
Monday slipped easily into Tuesday. Each morning, I grabbed my phone to see the good morning text George had taken to sending. And every night after my shift , I slipped into bed and spent the next hour convincing myself not to call or message him. I failed every time.
Hearing his rough gravelly voice as I nestled under the duvet, was turning me into a giddy teenager. Sometimes he’d tell me about his day, explaining how he was still trying to figure out a way to fix his cash-flow issues. Every time I brought up his brother, he’d clam up. Eventually, I stopped suggesting it. Most of the time, when his voice came through the receiver, we barely made it through the standard small talk before he was asking me if I was wet. The answer: always when he was involved.
By Wednesday, I was getting antsy. I wanted to see him. Calls and texts weren’t enough. He’d been scrambling to get meetings with other banks and catching up on deliveries, so we hadn’t set up another date. My worry for him reached new heights every time he told me about his day.
Lawrence might joke about me getting an ulcer for how much I worked, but George was doing the jobs of two people. He couldn’t keep it up forever, but after the third time of him shutting down my suggestion of talking to his brother, I let it lie. Knowing better than anyone that you couldn’t force someone to accept help, no matter how much they needed it.
By the time I crawled into bed on Wednesday night, I could barely keep my eyes open. Roxy shifted on the mattress beside me, snuggling up. Despite the exhaustion weighing heavy on my eyelids, I called George.
The line kept ringing.
‘Hi, this is George Blake. Leave your number and I’ll get back to you.’
I pulled the phone away from my ear with a frown.
It was possible he was asleep—I glanced at the time on my phone—at eleven o’clock at night? I’d called him at two in the morning before now, not realising how late it had was and he’d still answered. That rough, raspy voice he had when he just woke up was so fucking sexy, making me wish he was right beside me. Roxy huffed out a sigh, pressing her head into the crook of my arm as if to sayI’m not good enough for you?
I ran a hand down her back.
