“Feet up, Julian. I’m not playing.”
I lifted my feet onto the ottoman and she sat next to me, staring.
“Are you sure your chest doesn’t hurt?”
“My chest doesn’t hurt.”
“Numbness in your arm?”
“No.”
“Jaw pain?”
“No. Lyss. I told you I’m okay. It was nothing.”
“Okay.Okay.I am — I am still going to give you an aspirin. Just to be safe. Aspirin doesn’t hurt anyone. Right? It’s just a precaution. Is that okay? Can you take aspirin? Are you on any blood thinners I don’t — wait, you take that allergy medicine, does that interact with?—”
“Alyssa.”
She pulled out her phone, “I’m gonna pull up the interactions.”
“Alyssa. Look at me.”
She looked up from her phone.
“I am not having a heart attack. My pulse is fine. My chest is fine. I have feeling in both arms. I’m drinking the water. I’m fine.”
“You should call your doctor. Tell him what happened and let him decide whether you come in, not you, because you’re the patient and patients don’t get to make that call about themselves.”
I could tell she was scared. Panicked, actually. And watching her, it dawned on me that maybe she was navigating the same feeling I’d had. The fear of losing a person you love.She just might love me too. Probably.
“Alyssa. Calm down. Come here.” I pulled her onto my lap. She wasworried down to the deep line between her eyebrows. I put my hand on the side of her face.
“I overdid it and my blood sugar probably dropped. It happens. I am vigilant about my health. I’d tell you if it was more than that.”
“You’d tell me.”
“Yes, I’d tell you.”
She relaxed slightly and surrendered as much as she was capable of surrendering. “Okay. But you’re not getting up. Rest here, and I’m going to make you a quick smoothie, then a full breakfast, or I guess brunch, and you better eat it all. Understand?”
“I understand.” I smiled at her.
She tried to stand up, but I held her on my lap, pulling her in for a kiss. I kissed her lips, both cheeks, then back to her lips, parting them with my tongue, kissing her passionately as I caressed her back and thigh.
“Mmph,” she pulled back, catching her breath. “Don’t try it, Julian. You are not gonna seduce me right now.” She stood up and threw the throw blanket over me. “Rest…old man.”
I chuckled. “Why I gotta be an old man?”
“’Cause you scared me half to death over some low blood sugar.” The worry had finally come off her face, and she leaned down to kiss me once before she went to the kitchen.
I satunder the blanket watching her move around the kitchen, thinking about how I’d been giving her keys to this house, one room at a time for months. The kitchen, the drawers, the bathroom, the shelf where some of her clothes lived, the cabinets she knew the plates were in because she’d been in here enough to know where I kept everything. She’d been taking the keys and making herself at home, and I’d let every bit of it happen one increment at a time so I never had to look at the size of what I was handing over.
When she came back with an actual tray of food, she sat down close against my side and watched me eat. She watched every bite go down, and every sip go in, and somewhere in the middle of chewing another thought crept in: I wanted her doing this when I was truly an old man. I wanted to be doing it for her in our eighties. Feeding her and watching her eat so I’d know she was alright. I was picturing the rest of my life with her in it, and it didn’t come apart when I looked straight at it.
I finished eating, and when she leaned in to clear the tray, I caught her wrist.
“Leave it. Come here.”
