I shrugged.
“You’re a real celebrity now,” she laughed. “On the balcony, overseeing your lands, with a drip.”
She was teasing me now.
“It’s magnesium and B12. It’s meant to hydrate my skin so I look like a god.”
“You already do,” she said and kissed my forehead as she bent to pull out something from her ever-present tote bag.
A blanket.
My mind flashed to the picnic blanket.
Nope.
She wrapped it around my shoulders and patted my arm. “There.”
“You don’t need to baby me,” I said.
She smiled softly. “And you don’t need to lie to me about the drip.”
Normally, I booked them for her book nights or monthly trips to Cape Verde for her to see her sisters. She still needed gentle encouragement to attend those with multiple reminders that I was fine.
But with the‘party’tomorrow, there was no way to reschedule them.
Whatever she thought would be better than the truth.
They were a new experimental drug to help with my chronic migraines. If she thoughtthiswas excessive, she should’ve seen the rest of my schedule. Needle therapy. My monthly self-injection. My vestibular rehabilitationtherapy.
All scheduled to perfection by my brother, so that she didn’t have to know.
Because we didn’t trust anyone else.
Or want to scare anyone else.
She sat and dropped her head onto my shoulder.
When my phone dinged, a very angry bird told me I had to complete my lesson for the day.
“You’re learning a language?”
“Improving my English.”
“Don’t put Zsófia out of the job,” she warned, brows high. “That wouldn’t be kind.”
“Have no intention to,” I said. Even if I had to pretend‘hello’was no longer in my vocabulary. She was staying by my side.
“I’m so excited to meet her!”She jumped up, tote bag over her shoulder. “I should stop procrastinating and sort out the last few details.”
I nodded as if I didn’t care, and she left me to my angry bird.
Some English I knew well — but they were learned phrases I used on women or for racing, but when it came to emotions or nouns… I was useless.
And there was a woman to impress.
A woman who kept distracting me.
Because she wasn’t replying to my last text.
