Then she stared down at her hands which were tangled together. “How did you know to look for an EpiPen?” she asked.
“Cole knew that you had a peanut allergy,” Kellan told her in a strange-sounding voice.
She snuck a glance up at him, then away.
“No.”
“No?” she asked in surprise.
“Don’t look away from me. I want your eyes.”
She closed her eyes for a moment, not sure that she could do that.
“Eyes on me so I know that you are well. Because when you started to have breathing problems . . . when I saw you collapse . . .”
Oh.
Why hadn’t she thought about how this affected him? She was so inconsiderate! She should have asked how he was doing.
“I’m so sorry,” she said as Eli walked into the small area.
“Sorry for what?” Eli asked as he came over and took her hand in his.
Uh, wait. Nope. He was checking her pulse not holding her hand.
She shot him a look, but he just gave her a stern one back. “I’m checking your pulse. I’ll probably do it often or until my heart stops racing. You nearly died. If Cole hadn’t known about your peanut allergy . . . fuck, you nearly could have.”
“We would have checked her wrist for a bracelet,” Kellan murmured.
Eli shot his gaze to his brother. “Would we? Are you sure about that? Because I was in a fucking panic.” He turned his gaze back to her. “I never panic and I was ready to throw up when I saw you struggling to breathe, swelling up, and then when you collapsed into Kellan’s arms . . . it took years off my life.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I didn’t mean to upset you guys.”
Eli gave her a stern look. “Don’t do it again.”
Was he serious right now? She’d expected him to placate her. To tell her that it wasn’t her fault and she couldn’t have known they’d be so upset
“Don’t do it again?”
“Yeah, that’s what I said. Don’t. Do. It. Again. Or you’re going to be in big trouble.”
She glanced over at Kellan to see what he thought of his brother’s statement. Was he losing his mind? Who told someone not to nearly die again? Did he think she wanted to come close to death again? That she liked ending up in the hospital and feeling like crap?
That she enjoyed knowing her dog was with her ex-fiancé and his girlfriend and boyfriend?
“I didn’t do it on purpose!”
“I didn’t say that you did,” Eli replied calmly. “Just that you’re not to do it again. Because I couldn’t take it if anything happened to you. So nothing will.”
That statement hit her hard.
Maybe because no one had ever really protected her. Pop-Pop tried his best but he’d been older and fragile when she’d come to live with him during college. And she’d ended up looking after him.
Her father had never really cared about her. The fact that this man who she barely knew wanted to keep her safe because he was worried that something might happen to her blew her mind.
And she wanted that sort of protection. She wanted someone to take care of her almost more than anything.
But she shouldn’t let herself believe in what they were saying. Why would they care about her that much? Why would it upset them? Wasn’t that odd?
