8. CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 8
C lara checked her phone again and sighed. It was four in the morning, and she felt like she had barely slept. She had severely underestimated how uncomfortable the sofa would be and had finally given up and made herself a nest on the floor to sleep on. And now, her back ached, her shoulders ached, and her head ached from lack of sleep.
She put her phone down again and rolled over, trying to find a more comfortable spot. Then she flipped the other way, huffing when that was no better. She tried her back again, which sent pain shooting down into her legs. She groaned in frustration.
“Clara,” Taylor whispered in the darkness.
Clara froze. She hadn’t heard him come into the living room above the huffing and puffing she was making to get comfortable. She lay there for a minute, pretending to be asleep.
“Clara, I know you’re awake.” Taylor turned his phone’s torch on and pointed it at her. “Why are you on the floor?”
Clara bit her lip, not wanting to admit she had been wrong about her idea of sleeping on the sofa, and kept on pretending to be asleep. But she knew he was still there as she could hear him breathing.
Finally, she opened her eyes and peered at him, squinting in the light that shone at her. She could only make out his shadowy figure and nothing else.
She grumbled to herself before she muttered, “The sofa is worse than trying to sleep on bricks. I hoped the floor would be better.”
“And was it?” His voice sounded amused.
“No, it wasn’t.”
“I can sleep on the floor. It’s not a problem,” he offered.
“No, you can’t,” she mumbled and squeezed her eyes closed, unable to believe what she was about to suggest. “We should just share my bed.”
She held her breath, waiting for him to object and tell her what a stupid idea that was.
“Yeah, good plan,” he agreed. “Come on.”
Taylor padded across the living room and held his hand out to her.
Clara wished she didn’t have to take it, but her back was screaming in pain, and she knew it would be a struggle to get up, so she took hold of it and let him drag her to her feet.
He kept hold of her hand and began to tow her down the corridor towards her bedroom. Clara stiffened in his grip as it felt too intimate and strange to be led to her bedroom by a movie star.
Taylor picked up on her change in body language and dropped her hand.
He whispered to her, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m just exhausted,” she replied before a yawn cracked her face.
“I assumed your side is the right, as all your chargers were there?” Taylor indicated to the bed, and it was clear he had politely slept on the left side.
“It is,” Clara confirmed and fell face-first onto the mattress, groaning in happiness as she felt some of the aches and pains begin to recede.
She then yanked the duvet from under her and snuggled into it. Her exhaustion overtook her so quickly that she was only dimly aware of the other side of the bed dipping and Taylor climbing into it.
Clara woke up to her alarm blaring. She reached over to turn it off and snuggled back into the warm arms encircling her. Her eyes immediately closed again, and she drifted back to sleep.
The next time the alarm went off, there was a grumble of complaint from the warm body holding her, and she stuck her arm out again, snoozing her alarm once more. Then she snuggled back into the warm embrace.
The person holding her stiffened slightly, which dragged Clara’s mind out of its deep sleep.
“Taylor?” she whispered.
“Yeah?” His sleepy voice rumbled back, and she could feel the vibrations in his chest where it pressed against her back.
“Are we spooning?” Clara asked, knowing it was a stupid question.
She knew they definitely were, as she was quite obviously tucked against him, with his left arm thrown over her and around her waist and his right arm under her shoulder, reaching down to her hand where their fingers were entwined.
“Yeah,” Taylor whispered back.
“Thought so.” She lay there, her eyes staring at the far wall. But she made no attempt to move. “Is your arm numb?”
She felt the laughter that welled up in Taylor before she heard him chuckle.
“Absolutely no feeling in it whatsoever.”
Clara began to chuckle as well, the tension broken. “Sorry about that.”
She sat up to free his arm and realised that his hand was still on her stomach—her normal, non-Hollywood, non-flat stomach. She also became aware that not only was his hand on her stomach, but in his sleep, he had put it under her pyjama top, and it was sitting on her bare skin.
Heat flooded through her, and she turned so she was facing him. This was a mistake, as now not only was his hand on her bare skin, she was also faced with his matinee idol good looks, which were not diminished by being rumpled from sleep.
Her eyes widened fractionally when she noticed he wasn’t wearing a shirt, and she had a close-up view of his perfectly chiselled chest.
Taylor quickly removed his hand from her stomach and shook his other arm, obviously trying to get the feeling back into it.
Clara stared dry-mouthed as the muscles in his torso contracted and flexed as he moved. She was dumbstruck, never having been that close to someone in such peak physical condition. It made her feel even worse about her own slightly soft middle.
Clara cleared her throat a couple of times before she could get any words out. “Do you remember that happening?”
Taylor ran his hands through his hair and wiped his eyes. “No, sorry. I was so tired I passed out again as soon as I got you.”
“Yeah, me either,” she breathed, gazing at his face, trying to keep her eyes away from his unclad muscles. “We can approach this one of two ways.” Clara was ever practical and had already thought about how to move forward.
Taylor nodded slowly. “I’m listening.”
“We can either act super embarrassed and avoid each other, which won’t be hard as you only have this week in the hospital, and I can find someone else for you to spend the days with. Or, we can ignore it and behave like the grown-up I would one day like to become and move on exactly as we would have if it hadn’t happened.” Clara turned her head away slightly as she spoke and surreptitiously wiped the corner of her mouth to make sure there wasn’t any drool.
Taylor barely let her finish before he blurted, “Definitely option two.”
Clara froze. A small part of her was insulted that he had been so quick to want to wipe the events out, but the rational part of her mind soon shouted at that ridiculous corner of her brain, and she said, “Excellent. I agree. Option two is the better one. I’ll go and get showered and dressed in the bathroom. Then, by the time you’re ready, I’ll have some coffee made for both of us.”
Clara strode off into the bathroom, purposefully not looking back at the large man lying sprawled in her bed. But the skin on her back crawled, and she was very aware that he was watching her.
She closed the door quietly and took a deep, steadying breath, which, despite her best intentions, was shaky.
Walking over to the mirror, she examined her reflection, taking in the crease marks from the pillow on her face, the slight crusting around the corner of her mouth and her eyes.
Averting her eyes from her own image, she ran some water into the sink and splashed it over her face.
She strained her ears to hear any movement in her bedroom. Maybe he would get up? Maybe he would leave before she had to face him?
Then she remembered the reason he had slept in her bed in the first place, and she froze in horror. There was not only a Hollywood actor in her room—her brain shied away from the fact he was in her bed—there was also a junior doctor in her spare room.
There was no way that she could explain to someone she worked with why Taylor was in her room without becoming subject to hospital gossip.
Clara went from dragging her feet to dressing at hyperspeed. When she vigorously yanked open the bathroom door, Taylor’s eyes swung to her, surprise in his expression.
“Are you okay?” His voice was full of concern.
Clara shushed him and dashed through her room and out the door, hissing over her shoulder, “Keep your voice down and do not come out until I tell you the coast is clear.”
“Right, Okay. Um, sure,” he whispered, looking truly baffled.
Clara rushed into the kitchen and found Melanie, the junior doctor who had stayed overnight.
“Hi, Boss,” Melanie greeted Clara from next to the kitchen counter, where she waited as the coffee brewed. “Coffee?”
Clara’s eyes darted between the young doctor standing in front of her and her kitchen door, hoping that a Hollywood star wouldn’t come walking through it. This thought had her grinning at the ridiculousness of her current problem, which was an upgrade on her normal issues of what to eat for lunch or how to pay her bills.
“Yes, please,” Clara mumbled, taking a furtive glance at the kitchen door.
“Thanks for letting me stay over. I was way too tired to drive home.” Melanie poured the first cup of coffee and handed it to Clara before she took a cup for herself.
“That’s no problem,” Clara said, but her stomach was churning with anxiety about the situation, and despite her bleary head begging her for coffee, she wasn’t yet ready to subject her churning digestive system to it. “What are you up to today?” She blew across the top of her cup to give herself something to do, flinching at every sound in the house.
“I’m in emergency theatre.” Melanie picked up her phone to check the time. “In fact, I’d better go. I need to find a park and don’t want to be late. I hate it when I’m on the night shift and the day guys are late. I’ve stripped the bed, chucked the sheets in the washing machine, and set them going.”
“Thanks, Melanie. You didn’t need to do that,” Clara said gratefully.
Some of the juniors treated her house like a hotel and left a mess. The polite ones, who were respectful and appreciative, were the reason she kept allowing everyone to stay.
Melanie finished her coffee before replying, “It’s not a problem. And now I’ve got to go.” She put her cup in the dishwasher and grabbed her work bag off the floor before heading for the front door. “See you later,” the younger woman called and shut the door after her.
Clara stood frozen in the kitchen, breathing deeply and letting her agitation settle.
“Has she gone?” A deep male voice whispered close to her ear.
Clara let out a scream and jumped, spilling her coffee down her front. She stared down in disbelief. What was it about Taylor that kept making her pour drinks all over herself? When for many, many years, she had managed to only drink her coffee. Not wear it.
“Are you alright?” Taylor gazed wide-eyed down at her.
“Yeah. I’ll be back in a minute. Help yourself to coffee and food,” Clara whimpered, then yanked her hot, wet t-shirt away from her front and went sprinting down the corridor to her bedroom.
As she dashed through her room, despite the burning, she couldn’t help but glance at the rumpled bed, a bed that, for the first time in a long time, two people had slept in.
She hesitated, staring at it as a small part of her wished it was real. That she had someone and wasn’t alone all the time. The rational part of her mind shouted at her, that one, that person would never be Taylor. And two, her chest burned, and she needed to get in the shower and cool it off.
Once she had washed and changed into the second set of clothes of the day, Clara went back into the kitchen. As soon as she walked in the door Taylor thrust a plate into her hand.
Looking down in bewilderment, Clara examined the two pieces of toast sitting on the plate.
“It’s toast,” Taylor said helpfully.
“Yes, I see that,” she replied dryly, her gaze moving from the toast to the man standing in front of her.
“You need to eat before you go to work. It was all I could find. Unless you wanted leftover Thai for breakfast?” Taylor took a step towards the fridge.
“No, the toast is great. Thanks,” Clara said quickly, stopping him before she slowly lifted a slice of bread off her plate and bit into it, while she stared at Taylor.
He brought his hand up to his face, rubbing at his cheek. “Do I have something on my face?”
Clara’s eyes snapped away. It was hard to get used to the fact that he was a real man standing in her kitchen and not an image on a screen that she could stare at for as long as she wanted.
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and she silently ate her food, ignoring his question until she had finished the first slice.
“You realise how ridiculous this all is?” Clara finally broke the silence, which hadn’t become uncomfortable despite having gone on for some time.
“What?” Taylor paused his coffee halfway to his lips, a puzzled expression on his face.
“This,” Clara gestured at him, then around her kitchen. When Taylor still looked bewildered, she clarified, “You, being here. Standing in my crappy old kitchen. In my shitty old house. To you, this is just another Wednesday, doing some research for your movie. For me, I have Superman standing in the middle of my kitchen. Making me toast and giving me coffee.” She glared at him. “By the way, that was a hint. Can I have a coffee? I spilt my last one.”
Taylor saluted and turned to put another cup into the coffee machine he was standing in front of. Clara tried not to watch the muscles in his forearm ripple under his skin but failed dismally, taking the opportunity to stare at him while his attention wasn’t on her.
When he turned back around with a cup held out to her, she quickly moved her eyes to the coffee machine, pretending she had been watching that all along, not him.
Taking a sip of coffee, Clara sighed in relief.
“I like being here,” Taylor said simply.
Clara’s gaze flew back to his, unsure if she had heard him correctly. Had Taylor Anderson just said he liked being in her very shabby house?
“Umm, what now?”
“Let me ask you a question. What do you want from me?” Taylor stared straight into her eyes.
Clara couldn’t look away from him as she thought about the question before finally answering, “A coffee. I’d like another coffee.” She held her cup out to him, shaking it to show it was empty.
A burst of laughter erupted from Taylor, and he leaned over to grab hold of the cup, his fingers brushing hers as he took it.
Clara nearly flinched at the tingle that shot up her arm but managed to keep a mask on her face, not letting him see how much he affected her.
Taylor was silent as he waited for the machine to produce another coffee. When he handed it over, their hands touched again, and Clara felt another tingle. She mentally berated herself. At this rate, the next thing she was going to do would be to start giggling and simpering like an idiot.
But she definitely didn’t giggle. In fact, one complaint Jack had levelled towards her near the end of their relationship was that her laugh was too loud, that she snorted, that she looked unattractive while she laughed, and that she needed to make her laugh more ladylike.
Clara had been puzzled by that one; how could her laugh be such a problem? It hadn’t mattered anyway, as life wasn’t that funny when you had to constantly walk on eggshells, waiting for what would make the other person explode. So she barely laughed. She barely smiled. She had forgotten what it was like to laugh so hard that tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Where did you just go?” Taylor reached over and touched her arm.
Clara snapped back to reality, pushing the memories of the past back down. “Sorry?”
“The look on your face was so bleak. You looked like you were remembering something terrible,” he murmured, rubbing her arm, sending more electricity shooting through her body.
“Sorry. Bad memories. They catch me occasionally,” she apologised, shaking herself. “Anyway, what were you asking me? What I wanted from you?” Her eyebrows rose in question.
Clara glanced down at his large, warm hand and knew she should step back out of his grip, that all she was doing was deluding herself. Instead, she stood there, revelling in the comfort and warmth of another human’s touch.
“Did you want to talk about it?” Taylor squeezed her arm.
“No.” Clara shook her head, and despite her brief words, her voice was warm.
She strangely did want to tell him about it. Tell him about what a shit Jack had been to her. Instead, like she always did, she put her walls back up and carried on like nothing was wrong.
“Okay.” Taylor nodded. “I asked, what did you want from me? And you answered?”
Taylor still hadn’t taken his hand off her arm, and Clara was sure he had just stepped fractionally closer to her.
“Coffee,” she said, holding up her mug to him.
“Exactly. It’s been years since I’ve spent time with someone who doesn’t want anything at all from me. My agent, they want me to work, to succeed. My personal assistant, they want a good salary and the perks that come from travelling with me.
“Old schoolmates come out of the woodwork. They want money loaned, entry to the newest clubs, or to travel with me to exotic locations. Women I meet want to date an A-lister, either for the money, social status, or the introductions to important people in the industry that I can provide. And yet, you want nothing. A coffee, but only because I was standing nearest.” Taylor pulled his hand off her arm, running his fingers through his hair.
Clara stared at him open-mouthed, a small part of her sad that she had lost the warmth of his hand. She pushed that part down and shoved it into a little box, slamming the door behind it.
“That’s a lot,” she said dryly.
“Yeah,” he agreed and put his hand behind his neck, rubbing the back of his head. “It is. It’s just been a long time since I met someone new who doesn’t have any agenda around me.”
Clara opened her mouth to interject, but he beat her to it.
“Except for coffee.”
She grinned broadly at him. “You hang out with the wrong crowd of people.”
“Maybe I do,” he chuckled, smiling back at her, catching her eyes and holding them until Clara cleared her throat nervously and looked away.
“Thanks for the toast and coffee. I’ve got to get to work. I’m in theatre five this morning. Do the same as yesterday: turn up when the medical students usually do, which is about eight-thirty. That’ll give you plenty of time to shower. Use any products you want. I’m not precious. The spare towels are in the same place we got the bedding from. Help yourself. And chuck your dirty one in the laundry basket in my bathroom.” Clara paused, blushing bright red.
She had just spoken to him like they were a couple and that he would go back into her room and use her en-suite when the logical thing to do would be to go into the main bathroom.
“Thanks.”
“Right. I need to run. See you later.” Clara blurted, and waved as she weaved around him to grab her work bag and head out the door.
Shaking herself as she had almost stopped and kissed him on the cheek. It felt so easy and domestic to be with Taylor.