I stir my eggs nonchalantly when Kyle walks in the door after his thirty-six-hour shift. He must be exhausted and wanting to sleep, but he doesn’t get two feet into the kitchen before he stops dead in his tracks.
I pretend like I don’t notice his reaction. Like I don’t see his eyes take in my legs—legs that are bare from thigh to toe because I still have on nothing but my sleeping shirt—the one that barely covers my ass cheeks.
I pretend like I don’t notice how he’s checking out my new hair—hair that I let Skylar’s stylist return to my natural brown color. Hair that isn’t as short as when I was laid up in the hospital. It’s grown out from chin-length into longer, flowing waves.
I love my naturally wavy hair. Always have. But Grant insisted I keep it super long and stick-straight, like one of those high-priced runway models. I’m pretty sure I’ll never own a flat-iron again. My hand instinctively runs along the inner flesh of my right forearm as I remember how he once punished me with the hot appliance.
I shake off the memory and go about popping some bread into the toaster as if Kyle is not devouring me with his eyes.
“Oh, hi, Kyle,” I say, as if I’m just now realizing he’s standing there. “Would you like some breakfast?”
He finally tears his eyes from me. “No, thanks. I grabbed a bagel at the hospital.” Then he laughs. “You’ll never guess who I treated today,” he says.
“Let me guess,” I say. “POTUS?”
He looks at me in question.
“The President of the United States,” I clarify.
“Oh,” he says, with a chuckle. “No, not POTUS.”
“The Pope?” I ask. “Oh, wait! Was it Liam Hemsworth? I heard he was in town.”
He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “Nope. I treated Elizabeth Smith.”
“Really?” I look over at him, amused.
“She was very old,” he says. “While I was treating her, she told me that at one point, her name was the most common name for a woman in America, with both Elizabeth and Smith topping the charts.”
“She’s right. Elizabeth battles with Mary, Patricia, and Barbara for the top spot depending on the year.”
“That’s why you chose it,” he says knowingly. “A common name that couldn’t be traced.”
I nod.
“Smart move,” he says. “Some women would have chosen differently. A unique name that maybe they wanted as a child, or some heroine they read about in a book.”
“I wanted to be invisible,” I tell him.
“You could never be invisible, Lexi,” he says, with a conflicted look on his face.
I walk back over to the stove to check on the eggs when I feel him come up behind me. He touches a lock of my hair, and even though hair doesn’t have nerve endings, I swear I can feel it all the way to my toes.
“You shouldn’t leave the apartment,” he says, concern lacing the deep cadence of his voice. “Not until we have a plan in place for your safety.”
I turn around, putting our chests inches from each other. I look up at him. “I didn’t leave. Skylar’s hair stylist came here to the apartment.”
“Good,” he says, looking relieved. He brushes a stray hair out of my eyes, but then pulls his finger away like touching me has burned him. He takes a step back, putting distance between us.
I reach over and grab a slip of paper off the counter. It’s the fortune from the other night that reads ‘Everything happens for a reason.’ The one he tried to throw away. “Here,” I say, handing it to him. “You dropped this the other day on your way out. It’s bad luck to throw away a good fortune.”
He silently reads it to himself, then he looks at me. I know we’re both thinking of one of the first conversations we ever had.
I point to the fortune. “I asked you once if you thought everything we go through is a way of getting us where we need to be. Do you remember?”
He nods.
“Do you remember your answer?” I ask him.
He nods again, slipping the fortune into his pocket before he walks away. “I’m going to hit the sack. I’ll probably sleep most of the day. I had a busy few nights.”
“I’ll try to keep quiet,” I tell him, guiltily looking over at Ellie, who is banging a toy on her highchair.
He laughs, walking over to her. “Don’t worry about it. I can pretty much sleep through anything.” Then he leans down and gives my daughter a kiss on the top of her head.
I’m jealous. I’m jealous of my own child. I want to be the recipient of his kisses.
He walks through the living room towards his bedroom as I pull my eggs off the stove and slide them onto a plate. When I turn back around to join Ellie at the kitchen table, I see Kyle standing in his doorway, staring at me again.
“I like the brown,” he says. “You looked good as a blonde. You even pulled off the red, which not many women can do. But brown is definitely your color.”
I smile as I place my plate on the table. And before he closes his door, I could swear I hear him let out a big sigh as he quietly says, “And mine.”