Page 2 of George’s Big Day

“Do me a favor and have your friends over, all right? It’ll be fine. You work really hard. You deserve a nice night.”

“First off, they’re our friends, not—what was that for?”

“What?”

“Don’t do that,” he warned me. “You said your friends, and I was correcting you, and you made a face.”

“That’s because they’re yours. I bleed with mine.”

His groan was loud.

“Now look who’s making a face,” I deadpanned.

“All my friends think you’re amazing by yourself and for me, so knock it off. You just need to spend more time with them. Never in my life have I seen a group of people more interested in getting to know someone.”

I grunted.

“It’s true.” He was adamant. “And for your information, I’m already going to have a nice night, a great one, actually, now that you’re home and I don’t—” He stopped abruptly, pressing his lush lips together.

“You don’t what?”

He shook his head.

I grinned at him. “I know, yeah? So you should probably just g’head and say it.”

Long exhale. “I worry when you’re gone. I can’t help it. And I know you’re terribly capable, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“Okay,” I husked.

“It’s not like I can change how I feel.”

“I’m aware.”

After a moment, he tipped his head as he continued to look at me. “I appreciate you not asking me a stupid question like if this is what I want my life to be.”

I shrugged. “You’re a smart man. You knew who I was when you brought me home the first time. If I were different, you might not have wanted me.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “This is what I signed up for.”

“But you’re still going to worry, aren’t you.”

He nodded. “Yes. And I can’t help that, and I refuse to try and change that any more than I would ask you to change for me.”

There was no arguing with that. “Okay, then,” I said with a smile.

“I love you dearly.”

It was so easy for him to speak from his heart. I had not mastered that quite yet. “So then, you’re not looking to cut me loose.”

“No,” he husked. “I’m keeping you.”

It was good to hear.

The food was the best thing I’d had in two months—he made me a fruit salad too—and then he sent me upstairs while he cleaned, promising he was right behind me with a garbage bag and painter’s tape.

“Kinky,” I teased him.

He shook his head. “I want to keep the cast dry.”