You’d think, with how many strangers recognise me from my time on the Wyvern Warriors, I’d have grown used to it.
I lower my lips to hover just above her ear, my cheeks flaming with embarrassment. “I can see how this would look bad?—”
She grips the strap of her bag and stands, moving to leave, but the Tube halts abruptly, sending her flying backwards into my lap. Instinctively, I grip her hips to steady her, and she slaps my hands away, making a high-pitched sound of distress as she scrambles off me.
“Adhira, please, wait! I’m so bloody sorry, I?—”
She swings her gaze around before narrowing it on me. “You have from now until we get to my stop to convince me not to kick you out. Now hurry up,” she barks out.
I scramble after her, taking a seat beside her in a carriage where children are screaming and adults are chattering, oblivious to our situation.
“Talk,” she instructs as soon as my bum hits the hard blue plastic.
“I—Coach thinks you’re pregnant.” I blurt the words and internally cringe.Jesus Christ.
Her brows raise. “What are you on about?”
I scratch the back of my neck, eyes darting around for anywhere to look but her. “That day at my game. You’d been sick, throwing up at home, and right before that, I thought I saw a bandage on your chest after you’d been gone for a few hours. When I told Coach I needed to find you because you’d been throwing up, he asked if I’d gotten you pregnant.” My cheeks flame, and she cocks a disbelieving brow.
“Well, that would be rather hard to do, seeing as you’ve never put your dick in me.”
“Jesus,” I murmur, shaking my head. “Anyway, I?—”
“You’re getting on my last damn nerve. Spit it out already. You've got less than two minutes before we reach my stop.”
I look up at the sky as if asking for some higher power for help, but none is provided, and I continue to flounder through this whole conversation. And like the bastard that I am, I speak the words I’ve been fearing all night.
“Adhira, do you have cancer?”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
My skin feelssticky with perspiration, my throat growing thick.
“I don’t see how that would be any of your business.” My grip tightens on my strap as I prepare to fling myself from the Tube the moment the doors open.
He releases a heavy sigh and drops his head into his palms. “You’re right. It’s not, but—Fuck, Adhira. I want to know. Ineedto know. To understand and”—his voice cracks—“to help you…if you’ll let me.”
Shame erupts inside me at the sight of his glassy eyes as he peers at me.
Elijah has been nothing but kind and patient with me. He’s left in the middle of a match to hold my hair while I emptied my guts, taken the time to learn about orcas and share his own fun, albeit disturbing, facts about them with me each night in thenotes we share. He even got me a blanket that I haven’t thanked him for yet, and my heart aches with the loneliness I feel. And more than that, with the guilt of how bloody lonelyhemust feel after spending a month sharing a flat with someone so afraid to share anything about herself for fear of being a burden that she’s created what some might consider a hostile living environment.
He deserves better than the crumbs I’ve given him, and when the Tube comes to a stop and the doors slide open, it’s that guilt that has me breathing my next words. “Come with me, and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
His eyes widen in surprise, but he nods frantically, rushing out after me and onto the pavement.
We continue down the busy pavement until we approach the brick-sided building of the cancer treatment centre.
Having to get labs drawn before every infusion is a nuisance, and if I were a better person, I’d consider it positive that I have a reason to leave my flat. I’m not, so I don’t, but good for the optimistic fuckers out there who always find a way to “look on the bright side.”
Eejits.
My feet feel glued to the pavement, but as I take my first step, pulling my foot from the ground as if it’s held there by molasses, Elijah calling my name reminds me that I’m not alone. He’s here, and I have a lot of explaining to do.
I clench my eyes shut, hoping to blink him away. Maybe this is just a dream, and he’s not really here. A sharp tension coils in response, as if my heart is bracing for impact.
“Adhira, please talk to me.” Elijah’s voice rumbles through the air like velvet laced with gravel. It’s a baritone that slides over my skin, warm and commanding, drawing me in with every word as he grows nearer, my body stuck to the spot beneath my trainers.
