Chapter 16 #2
Should I mark this occasion down for future analysis?
Instead, I consider his words carefully.
He’s not himself at work? He has to be different?
Does the CEO position at Abbot Industries come with an asshole clause?
I want to ask him, but my brain hurts. I’ll dig into it.
Later. For now, he’ll get abuse from me, alright.
“Your hair isn’t nearly as perfect as it should be for the time you probably spend on it.”
His gray-blue eyes widen.
“You’re so pale that sometimes I lose you in the room because you’ve faded into the background.”
His mouth tips down.
“I question your fashion sense.”
He puts a hand to his chest and staggers back a step.
I’m forcing my mouth into a sneer. “Can’t take it, big boy?”
“I can. Circle back to the part where I’m big.”
“You left out boy.”
“Did I? I must not have heard it beyond your adoration of my largeness.”
My mouth drops open. “Don’t try to make me laugh. I’m mad, and you are delusional.”
“No, I am big.”
“Argh. That’s—not—” I groan. The size of Luke Abbot’s ego is gargantuan and therefore unassailable without concentrated effort, which I currently lack the energy for, which is why I settle for a scathing summary: “I have not changed my mind. You are the very worst.”
“I’m the worst? Do people know this side of you? You’ve insulted an outrageously good-looking man who is always well-presented.”
His reaction is so excessive that I forget myself and laugh. The movement shakes my shoulders and dislodges most of the jacket from my face.
“You’re flushed,” says Luke, suddenly inclining forward. “I noticed some of it earlier, but I assumed it was a sign of your embarrassment, especially since I’ve caught you wearing what you are wearing.”
I examine my thick, full-sleeved, and full-legged cotton pajamas, and the oversized beige hooded sherpa jacket now coiled around my shoulders. “Hey, it’s not that bad.”
“Initially, I thought you were a pile of rags. Then you let out a snore.”
“I don’t snore.”
“Don’t worry, it’s a mostly delicate noise.”
“I don’t trust you for shit. ”
“Good. You shouldn’t. Now, explain to me why you’ve dressed like this and why your face looks like this.”
Does he actually not realize I am sick? Does Luke think I commonly have a lay in past normal waking hours, and that I remain bundled up in bed for no reason? Perhaps he believes his firing has affected me so deeply that I have spiraled into a deep depression.
So if I tell him about being sick…
The truth will send him fleeing. Maybe if I cough in his face, he’ll scram, terrified of becoming sick again himself. Actually, I hate how well he looks right now, obviously having recovered in record time. Luke Abbot is scarily efficient, even when it comes to fighting off the flu.
He inches even closer. “It was hard to tell when you had your neck and half of your face covered with that ratty jacket, but now it’s very obvious you don’t look well.”
Before I can defend how Sherpa is supposed to have its unique texture, he puts a hand on my head.
I remember the night in the bar before we got caught in the rain.
Everyone who saw him dance with Sophie can bear witness to the skill of his hands and how deftly they lead, choreograph, and maneuver another body.
With utmost unfairness, he’s got wide palms and long fingers worthy of a musician.
As annoyed as I was that night watching him show off his masculine wiles, I had reassured myself that a man as spoiled and sheltered as Luke must have butter hands. Too soft, too pliant, too moisturized.
Unfortunately, having his hand against my forehead now, covering that area in complete warmth, it bothers me greatly to learn that I was wrong. There are numerous calluses.
Luke tests my forehead in a few spots, and mutters a rather terse, “Fuck.”
“It’s much better than it was last night.”
“Why haven’t you called someone?” he asks, his voice losing all casualness.
“I’m not going to worry my friends and family.”
“Look at your living conditions. Even if you were the picture of complete health, you should be worrying people.”
“ Excuse me? You are the one who got me sick, you heathen. This is all your fault!”
I wait for his return jibe, but it doesn’t come.
“Oh, stop looking so stressed,” I say. “I’m not about to die in front of you. Don’t worry, I know how much you hate complications, so I’ve got no plans to croak in your presence.”
“That’s not. I’m not—” He pauses, and draws in a deliberate breath.
“Then what are you worried about? I’ve already seen the doctor about this. He said all I need to do is take medicine—which I have—and drink loads of fluids. If you want proof, look at my chair. You’ll see the big water glass I’m drinking from.”
Luke deigns to give the half-filled vessel half a second of his attention.
“Come back to my place,” he demands.
“Why? Are you incapable of making your own smoothies?”
“Smoothies? What smoothies? I don’t care about that. I have a private doctor on call. I’ll send for him to meet us at my place, and once we get you settled in there, he can continue monitoring you.”
The thought of being weak, vulnerable, not at home, and at the mercy of Luke’s doctor…
“No.” I slouch deeper into the bed and throw an arm over my face. To my surprise, Luke says nothing, and that only makes me more nervous and increasingly curious. Finally, I lift my arm and peek out from under it.
“Oh, just say it,” I tell him. “I can see you are itching to launch into a manner of different arguments, some of them likely bribes veiled as threats, and some of it outright bullying to get what you want. Don’t hold back on account of my condition.”
“Rita, don’t punish me by punishing you.”
“What? How would that even work?”
“It will.”
I wait for the punchline. And keep waiting. It doesn’t arrive.
“You are giving me that look of yours and it needs to stop,” I warn.
“What look?”
My pulse thuds unnaturally. “Like whatever is happening is a personal affront to the core of your being. And that you will direct all your focus—by which I mean all your manipulation and power—to correct this mistake. Stop looking at me like I’m all that matters right now.
Because it would be very confusing if I didn’t recognize it as one of your usual psychological business strategies. ”
He grits his teeth. “You are unwell, alone, and in a place like this. Who wouldn’t be bothered by that?”
“For the record, I will recover after some more rest and?—”
It’s not like we’re even friends is what I don’t say out loud. Even in my mind, something about that hurts. “Don’t stare. It’s rude,” I inform him, deflecting my thoughts.
“I’m staring because your circumstances are unnecessarily tragic.”
The whiff of insult coming off his words makes me illogically more comfortable. That’s more like it. Him being concerned about me is more disturbing, I decide.
“And is it you,” I ask, “who is going to save me from my failing condition? How noble of you.”
“It’s not. It’s all about your smoothies. Come back and make them for me. I’ve become…addicted.”
“Because I slip in pharmaceuticals in them.”
“Good. Add as much as you like.”
“It’s to make you more agreeable.”
“And does it work?”
“Not really.”
We look at each other some more, and unless I’m mistaken, there is a twinkle of something deeper than amusement in his gaze.
Perhaps a speck that becomes consumed and lost after he lifts his eyes to stare at my forehead again.
It must be accursedly pale or momentously flushed or screaming at him some signs of my sickness for he stiffens. “Rita, you?—”
I have no idea what he is about to say because Janice Dorian pops her head into the room.
No. Not her. Not now.
Sludge crawls into my stomach.
“You’re not supposed to be home today, Ms. Singh,” says Janice in her sweet sing-song voice.
“And you weren’t supposed to be home yesterday, but a little birdie has told me you’ve not been leaving the flat.
By chance, have you lied to me about these holidays you’ve been offered at work?
Maybe they don’t want you. Maybe you’ve been fired. ”
The palms of my hands begin to sweat.
“She hasn’t been fired. Ms. Singh is recovering from her fever at home.”
Janice turns to Luke, as if for the first time, recognizing there is a third person in the room.
“You don’t belong here,” she says. “Who are you?”
“Her employer, Luke Abbot. And you are? ”
“The building manager, Janice Dorian.”
I watch a change come over Janice the more details she notices about Luke; her eyes consume his immaculate tailoring, how the strength of his posture reeks of aristocracy, and the vitality of his posh hair and skin.
A wide smile creases her mouth as she walks forward.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Abbot,” she says.
“Especially since it is so rare to meet another person who shares the same obligations as I do.”
There is a theatrical pause, perhaps intended to give the next statement a feeling of maximum sincerity and importance.
“Managing and caring for those underneath us.”
Luke’s eyes rake over the room. “I’ve seen quite a bit of evidence of your care already.”
Janice laughs, loudly and falsely. There is agitation in her hands before they clasp together.
“I’m afraid you must have, and for that, I am very sorry.
It also pains me to see how much this building is falling apart.
If only the owners of this place cared enough about us to invest in renovations, but that is the world we live in.
We must do the best we can, and that is what I do.
That is why I’m like a mother to all my tenants. ”
As the three of us are crowded in an impossibly small room, all Janice has to do is lean her arm over and she is able to reach me on the bed and grasp my shoulder. The back of Janice’s other hand is dragged over my forehead.