Page 28 of Her Player

I pulled her closer and let her feel it instead of saying it, pressing my nose into the top of her head.

I couldn’t help how I inhaled her scent.

“I just… I’m just not… not good without my… my routine,” she said, her voice becoming choppier as her emotions ran away with her.

My eyes darted along the room, scrambling for purchase on anything that might help distract her. And that’s when I realized there was a mounted television on the other side of the room. I scooped her back up into my arms. I tucked her into the bed. I fluffed some of the silky pillows up, propping them behind her before I walked over to our food. I cracked open her soda and poured it over a glass of ice. I took great care in handing her the food I brought for us, so that she could nourish herself if she wanted.

And after I got her secured in bed, I went in pursuit of the remote.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice sounding a bit drier than before.

“A-ha!” I exclaimed softly as I thrust the remote into the air. “Found it.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Found what?”

I turned toward the television, aiming the remote at it, and turned it on. Victoria gasped as if she didn’t even realize the damned thing was in her room. How disoriented had she been all day? It was a smart television, thank fuck, so I knew how to navigate it. And the second I pulled up Hulu, Victoria made the cutest little sound.

Almost like a squeal, but punctuated with snicker. “Please tell me you’re putting on Golden Girls again.”

I grinned as I scrolled right to the show and picked a random episode. “How did you know?”

I brought the remote back to the side of the bed I crawled into. I kept my distance, making sure she had plenty of space in between us. After all, I wanted to help her get through this, not overwhelm her during the process. I pulled my food into my lap. Poured my drink over ice. And as Victoria’s sniffling turned to giggling, my heart felt lighter than it had since this shit slammed into our laps that very morning.

But as we ate alongside one another and watched television, I noticed that she played more with her food than actually eating it.

“Just a few bites, yeah?” I asked as I took another large mouthful of the vegetable alfredo.

She groaned as if I asked her to eat a fucking cockroach, but she did as I asked. She took small bites of just the vegetables in the alfredo. It led to her eating a few noodles. Which led to her poking around with her salad.

I cleared my plate and downed my drink before she barely got halfway through her meal.

“I don’t think I can eat anymore, Rhett,” she muttered as she pushed her plate off her lap a bit.

“Hey, not a problem with that,” I said as I slipped out of bed and gathered her half-eaten dishes. “I’m just glad you got something into your system.”

I silently gathered our dirty dishes and placed them on the tray on the bedside table. I crawled back into bed and slipped beneath the sheet. I shifted a bit closer to Victoria, watching to make sure she didn’t shift away from me. And when she didn’t, I settled against her, my clothed thigh against the outside of her nightgown.

Even without our skin touching, I felt her overwhelming warmth.

I wanted to blanket myself in it.

Somehow, by the grace of some god I didn’t pray to, I managed to focus on the Golden Girls episode in front of us. It was one of my favorites. The one where Blanche is proposed to, but ultimately turns the man down because she knows she deserves better. I always enjoyed the confidence she built up in herself over the course of the episode.

But instead of laughter, Victoria started crying next to me again.

Soft, barely-there sniffles that gave way to those hiccupped sobs.

“Aaaaaaall right,” I murmured as I raised my arm and slipped it around her waist. “Come here.”

She didn’t even fight me, and that’s how I knew her mind was spiraling. She leaned her head on my shoulder, drenching it with tears, and my attention was no longer on the Golden Girls episode. Her body shivered. Her sniffles broke my heart. I gathered her into my arms, pulling her into my lap as I spread my legs a bit, making room for her so that she could curl up and rest her cheek against my shoulder.

I felt her breaking down.

I knew her grief was pulling her under.

And I was desperate to do anything to help.

“What do you need?” I asked as I peered down at her, taking in her blotchy red face. “What do you need from this moment right now?”