CHAPTER SEVEN
Jasmeen
My entire body tensed.
I watched him carefully as he ate, waiting for him to go back in time. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, go back there. To an us that existed, not when I had to come back to a reality where that would never be true.
I hoped he didn’t keep doing that.
I finished my food and wiped my hands off on a thin brown napkin. Even broken and wounded, he was stupid sexy. He looked so rumpled and hard, the edges of his face sharp and beautiful. His brown eyes had been on fire for days, and the ring of amber was doing things to my heart.
I had to remind my heart, and fast, that though he looked the same, we weren’t the same. We could not, would not, reopen those wounds.
Plus, we weren’t here for that. I was here to take care of him. Both Gavin and I needed to remember that.
I walked on eggshells around him for the next week. Turning the TV on loud and shutting down any and all conversations. The doctor came in every day, and on the days a therapist showed up, I made myself scarce. I couldn’t get attached to his emotional wellbeing. That was all kinds of dangerous.
I returned from a food run—there was a Taco Bell and Starbucks down the street; the hospital food had overstayed its welcome—to find a doctor I hadn’t met working on Gavin’s leg. The old cast was off, and his leg was on display. The jagged cuts from surgery and the break made me gasp. His leg was swollen and black from bruising. His foot looked purple too.
Doctor Gather was overseeing the orthopedic surgeon as he worked on Gavin, and he smiled when I came in. “He can eat. Maybe it will keep his mind off the pain.”
On cue, Gavin hissed. “Shit, Doc. Easy.”
I started setting his food out. “Taco’s,” I said, like tacos fixed everything.
He glared at me. “I don’t want any fucking tacos,” he snapped, flinching so hard I heard his small gasp. “Hurry up,” he barked, turning his glare on the doctor.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized on his behalf. “He’s a Neanderthal beneath the perfect bone structure. Just bops us over the head and drags us to his cave.”
Gavin seethed. “I don’t have a cave. I have a penthouse in Manhattan. And I don’t have to bop them. They beg to come in.”
“Listen, ass, I know you’re in pain, but you don’t have to be one in front of everyone.”
He slung his head back and breathed through his teeth. But he heard me, keeping quiet as his new cast went on. The doctor spoke to him about healing time, and staying off his leg, no matter what. He mentioned something about a nursing staff, but he never looked at me once, and I got the impression that the doctor wasn’t including me in his aftercare plan because he didn’t think I’d still be around. Something about that hurt, beyond reason, beyond even common sense.
When the doctor had left, Gavin sagged back on his bed and I saw his jaw tensing. Sweat dripped down his temples and his biceps were tightened. The nurses gave him sponge baths as best they could, wiping him down where he lay. When he had to use the bathroom, I made myself scarce and ignored the brutal shade of pain that had moved into his eyes.
“What did he mean, nursing staff?” I asked him, taking a drink of my caramel latte.
“He won’t let me out of here until he confirms I have an at home nursing staff waiting for me.”
“But you don’t.”
He shrugged. “I’ll let him set them up, and fire them when I get home.”
I frowned. “Gavin, if the doctor thinks you need a nursing staff, he does so for a good reason. You can’t go home to an empty house.”
His head snapped back, and his eyes found mine. “I won’t be going back to an empty house. I’ll be going with you.” When I hesitated, his face drained of color. “Jas, come on, baby. The only reason I can even fathom getting out of this hospital is because of you. Don’t take that away from me. I need you.”
I need you, three words I needed to hear years ago. Today they were counterproductive now, like filling a bucket full of holes. The contents seeped out when you turned your back every single time.
“Gavin,” I begged, my tone desperate. “I can’t just uproot my life.”
He closed his eyes and breathed through his nose. He was a cornered animal, and cornered animals snapped and lashed out. When he opened his eyes, he appeared much calmer, but appearances weren’t always true. “I’ll pay you to take care of me.”
“Listen to you,” I huffed. He couldn’t pay me off like everyone else in his life.
He ran his free hand through his untidy, sweaty locks. “Damn it, Jas. I’m asking you to help me. I can’t ask people I don’t know. Who even says I can trust them? I need you to do this. Please,” he begged.
A soft vulnerability entered his eyes I hadn’t seen since he was a sad ten-year-old boy. I fell for that openness first; the lust came much later. There was something alluring then about a boy willing to put his emotions into words for me, after growing up with parents who’d never shown me any. And like a proper addict, I couldn’t look my vice in the eye and say no, any more than I could lie to myself. Something I had been doing since I got here.
“I need some rules and parameters put in place first,” I wagered.
“Anything,” he allowed, watching me intently.
“I am there to help you. No more trips down memory lane.”
Something tightened his eyes, and it looked a lot like regret. Why did he want to go back to us, when he was the one who left us to begin with? He gave me a stiff nod. “Fine.”
“No talking about our personal lives?”
“My lips are sealed,” he lied, right to my face. I saw the deeper tightening of his eyes, the curiosity about my personal life.
How dare he think I was drowning in loneliness? How dare he see my ugly truth so easily? “How long will I be here?”
He thought about it. “Until I run ten miles nonstop.”
I blanched. “That could take months, Gavin.”
He didn’t seem to mind whatsoever. He looked smug, but there was still that soft edge to his eyes my young heart melted pathetically for. He sighed before speaking. “You’ll need the income. I’ll pay you well, Jas. It’ll be a vacation. Living in Manhattan for a few months.”
I didn’t think he understood the depth of his injuries. It wasn’t a three-month healing process. Even if he pushed himself, three months not using his leg would take another three just to get it strong again to even think about running one mile, let alone running ten. There was a part of me who wanted to see him do it, though. Shed his cast and his fears and run again. But I wasn’t disillusioned like him, and knew six months with him could be detrimental to my wellbeing.
Maybe he wanted that. To torture me after shattering me. I had one option, and that was to play it cool. Keep my emotions locked up, no matter how hard he tried to drag them into the light.
My love for him belonged in the dark.
Along with all my other disappointments.