Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
DREW
Something is wrong. Really fucking wrong.
Aidan is chattering away to Mia and she’s laughing back, neither of them the least bit concerned about the way Caitlin just shot out of here with barely a word.
They didn’t notice the sudden tightness around her eyes, the way her hands clenched into fists.
The sweat beading on her forehead and the way her shoulders hunched so high they were practically at her ears.
The fear and panic that raced across her face.
I’m here in this room, but I’m not really here. Worry gnaws at my stomach and my brain cycles one single thought.
Find Caitlin.
I’m a football player trained over decades to size up people and situations in a single second. A person who learned young how to read the room. I’m primed for action. To react. And every instinct I have is screaming at me that Caitlin is not okay.
I could spend a minute considering why I care so much and where and how my overwhelming need to help her began. But every minute I sit here in this room is one more minute Caitlin is sitting alone with whatever is happening to her, and her being alone for any amount of time is unacceptable to me.
I get the sense Caitlin spends far too much time alone, and that’s about to change.
Now.
I stand from my chair so quickly it hits the wall, Mia and Aidan both turning at the noise. “Sorry,” I say with a forced smile, pulling my phone out of my pocket and making a show of looking at it. “I have to take this. I’ll be right back.”
“We’ll be here!” Mia says cheerfully. Then, without a backwards glance, I head straight to the door, closing it behind me and shoving my phone back in my pocket.
The second I’m in the hall, I look right, then left, seeing no sign of Caitlin and wondering where she might have gone.
When I spy the bathroom a few doors down, I head there, and I’m two steps away when I hear the retching inside.
“Caitlin,” I call, tapping on the door, my heart hammering in my chest. “Are you in there?”
The answering cough and the sound of someone throwing up filters through the door, and before my brain even engages, concern has me turning the handle.
I push open the unlocked door and immediately see Caitlin kneeling on the floor, wearing only her suit pants and a pink lace bra as she leans over the toilet, back heaving.
What I can see of her body is covered in sweat, damp hair obscuring her face.
“Fuck,” I mutter, slamming the door shut and locking it before dropping to my knees next to her, gathering her hair in my hand to hold it back.
Worry tightens my gut at her pale face, the way her body clenches as another wave rocks her and she lets out a low groan.
“I’ve got you,” I murmur, my free hand rubbing circles over the bare skin of her back. “Get it all out, Catie.”
Caitlin gives a weak laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “There is no all,” she mutters. “It’ll never be all. This is my fucking life.”
I wonder what she means by that but before I can ask, her entire body tightens as she throws up again.
Spying a hair tie on her wrist, I lift her hand and gently take it off, pulling her hair into a ponytail and securing it with the tie.
With two hands free, I take a few paper towels from the dispenser and reach up to wet them with cool water from the sink, using them to mop her damp face.
When I see a water bottle in the bag spilled open on the ground, I grab that too, and when Caitlin pushes up a little, hands braced on the toilet seat as if she’s waiting for the next wave to come, I flip open the top and lean around her, holding it to her lips.
“Drink, baby.”
The endearment I’ve never used before spills out of me, and my only thought is I like the way it sounds. That when it’s me saying it, the word should belong to her.
I feel an outsized sense of satisfaction when Caitlin wraps her lips around the straw and drinks, my pressing need to care for her overwhelming in its enormity.
She takes a couple sips then pushes the bottle away and leans over the toilet again, sucking in a breath as if she’s bracing for another storm.
When it doesn’t come, her entire body collapses in what looks almost like relief before immediately tightening again.
But this time she curls in on herself, both arms wrapped firmly around her abdomen, the noise she makes a painful sort of groan.
My chest aches at the sound and I’m behind her before I even realize I’m moving, wrapping my arms around hers and pulling her body into mine.
“What do you need?” I ask, knowing if it’s in my power to give it to her I will, and if it’s not, I’ll figure out a way to do it anyway.
To give her anything. “Should I get a doctor? You look like you need one, and we’re in the right place for it. ”
She shakes her head, gasping a little and curling herself into a tighter ball, her head dropping down to rest on her knees. “I don’t need one,” she manages, her voice a raspy whisper. “I don’t need you either. I don’t need anyone. Seriously, Drew, you can go. I’m fine.”
“The fuck you are,” I say, stroking my thumb over her tightly clenched hand.
The loneliness in her voice at her I don’t need anyone—the lie in those words—tattoos itself on my brain, and I suddenly, urgently want to be exactly what she needs, even though I have no idea if I can.
If I’m the kind of person who can be that for anyone.
But I think, for her, I really want to try.
“Whatever is happening here is the opposite of fine. We’re in a hospital full of doctors right now. Let me get one of them for you.”
She scoffs, or as much of a scoff as it can be when her body is trembling, her skin clammy with drying sweat. Unwinding myself from her, I yank off my hoodie and guide her up gently, tugging the sweatshirt over her head.
She turns to look at me, the sudden horror in her eyes a stark contrast to the mask of pain she’s been wearing since I found her in here. “I wasn’t wearing a shirt.”
I chuckle, holding out the sleeves of the sweatshirt so she can push her arms through, thinking even with tears drying on her cheeks and makeup under her eyes, she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.
And the way she looks wearing my sweatshirt?
Fuck. I’ll be revisiting that in my dreams. Reaching up, I wipe the leftover tears from her face with my thumbs.
“You sure weren’t. I didn’t take you for a pink lace girl but…
” I trail off, letting out a low whistle. “Hot, Princess. So fucking hot.”
She rolls her eyes. “Fuck off. I took off my shirt so I didn’t sweat through it or throw up all over it. There’s not a single thing about this that’s even the least bit hot.”
I grin at her sharp tone, tucking a hair that came loose from her ponytail back behind her ear. “I beg to differ. Now, can we discuss the doctor? We’re in a hospital full of them. I’m sure there’s at least one who can help.”
Caitlin sucks in a breath, her body tightening again and her forehead dropping back down to her knees. “I don’t need a doctor for fucking period cramps. They’ll pass in a few hours, and until then I just have to deal. You can go. This isn’t anything I haven’t dealt with a thousand times before.”
This is period cramps? I catch myself before I say the words out loud, and thank god because I prefer my balls right where they are.
I didn’t have a mom for most of my life, didn’t know Avery when she was a teenager, and I’ve never been in any kind of relationship, so I don’t know what’s normal but this can’t possibly be it.
“What about medicine? I can go find you some ibuprofen. That might help, right?”
She shakes her head, face still buried in her knees. “It won’t help. It’s too late for that.” Her voice is muffled, but I hear her clearly. “The time to take it would have been before all this started, but I missed the signs so I missed the window and now I just have to tough it out.”
I consider my next move. Leaving her here is a nonstarter, and she’s not exactly a lets others help kind of girl, but I decide to take my chances.
“If it’ll be like this for a few hours, you’ll probably be more comfortable at home, don’t you think?”
Caitlin lifts her head and turns to look at me, her eyes saying more clearly than words ever could, How stupid could you possibly be?
Her bite and the color coming slowly back into her cheeks after this latest wave has relief pouring through me.
“Yes, Drew, home would be better than a hospital bathroom floor, but unfortunately, driving isn’t really something I can do right n—” She cuts herself off with a sharp gasp, curling back in on herself as her body shakes, and when she tips backwards, leaning heavily against me, my heart clenches at the dual feelings of helplessness at seeing her in so much pain and appreciation for the fact that this woman, who leans on no one, is leaning on me.
It occurs to me I would rather be sitting on this bathroom floor with her than be doing anything, anywhere, with anyone else, and without warning, I feel myself start to fall.
It’s an unfamiliar feeling, but I recognize it all the same, accepting Caitlin and me as a kind of inevitability—a sum certain—even as the idea fills me with a complicated sort of fear.
Fear I’m not enough. That I don’t know how to have something as important as this.
That she’ll leave like everyone else. That I won’t know how to stay.
I push that away and wrap my arms tightly around Caitlin, bringing my lips to her ear. “I have an idea. What if I steal a wheelchair to bust you out of here? I’m parked right in front of the hospital, and I can take you home.”
She sighs and lifts her head again. When she rolls her eyes, the little bit of attitude has unexpected warmth flooding my chest. “You can’t steal a wheelchair from a children’s hospital, Pretty Boy.”
I scoff. “Such a rule follower. Catie, I’m a famous football player, which means people let me do any damn thing I want, and what I want to do is make sure you don’t have to spend the next few hours on this bathroom floor.”
“I’m fine,” she mutters. “You can seriously go. Like I said, I’ve dealt with this a million times before. It looks worse than it is.”
I can see the lie all over her face, pain still swimming in her eyes. “No way, baby. Athletes never let the team down. I walked in on you heaving your guts up while kneeling on a bathroom floor, which means we’re teammates now. Bonded like glue. You’re stuck with me.”
“How delightful for me,” she says dryly, voice dripping with sarcasm, but I can see something like relief in her eyes at the knowledge she won’t be alone, and I swear to god she won’t be. Not as long as she’ll let me be with her.
That, at least, is a promise I can try to make.
“So, it’s settled. I’ll pilfer a wheelchair from the nurses’ station and whisk you out of here like we’re fleeing a heist. You can wear my hat if you want to go incognito, and I’ll have you behind the tinted windows of my truck before you even realize we’re on the move.”
Caitlin rolls her eyes again even as she winces at another wave of pain. “It’s not pilfering if it’s something of actual monetary value. What you’re planning on doing is legit stealing. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania frowns on that.”
I sigh dramatically. “Talk more smart lawyer to me. That’s hotter than the pink lace.”
“Erase that from your memory,” she orders. “As a matter of fact, erase this entire interlude from your memory. No one has ever—” She cuts herself off, slamming her mouth shut, but I hear the words she doesn’t say.
No one has ever seen me like this.
I understand without her having to say it.
No one knows this is what she deals with, month after month.
I wonder how she’s kept it from all the women in her life.
From her twin brother, knowing how close they all are.
How much it must have taken from her to face this alone for all these years.
Looking at Caitlin’s still slightly pale face, the dimness shrouding her gray eyes, the way her body hunches slightly in on itself, like she’s waiting for the pain she knows is still hovering in the distance, just waiting to strike, the need to make sure she’s never alone again is overwhelming.
It’s a sacred thing, I realize, to be let into this guarded woman’s inner world, even if it was just by accident and I know for certain she would prefer to bounce me right out of there if she could.
I make a silent promise to do whatever I can to make myself worthy of that gift.
Pasting a smirk on my face, I lean in and press a kiss to her forehead, smiling against her skin when she stiffens and then relaxes as I linger there, somehow unable to make myself pull away.
Being this close to her reminds me of the other kiss we shared and how much I want my lips on hers again.
Soon. “Never. I’m going to remember that pink lace until the day I die.
” Easing back, I catch her gaze and then slowly, deliberately run my knuckles down her cheek, keeping her eyes on me with a hand under her chin.
“Your secret is safe with me. Any of your secrets. All of them. I’ll keep every one of them safe. ”
That same relief flashes in her eyes, and for the briefest of seconds—so brief I would miss it but for the fact that I can’t tear my eyes away from her—she leans into my touch, and for reasons unknown, that feels just the tiniest bit miraculous.
“So what do you say? You ready to bust out of here?”
Caitlin blows out a sharp breath, the relief in her eyes replaced by a haze of pain. “I’m not sure if this is such a good idea,” she says, uncertainty in her tone. “This can all be a little unpredictable. I can’t guarantee I won’t throw up in your car.”
I shrug, unbothered. “During Tyler’s rookie year after his first NFL win, Cam and I took him out and he drank so much we had to carry him back to the car Weekend at Bernie’s style.
He threw up all over the backseat for the entire fifteen minutes it took to get from the club to my house, and it took six detailing appointments to get the whole thing cleaned.
My truck has seen some things. Come on, Catie. Let me take you home.”
“Can you go back and get the paperwork I left in the room? Maybe tell them I’ll have to reschedule?”
The fact that she thinks of the paperwork despite being in so much pain feels exactly in character for her, and maybe it’s a small thing, but it feels monumental she would ask for help with it. I nod. “Of course. Anything.”
She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly, studying me intently like she’s seeing me for the first time. And when she nods and says, simply, “Okay,” it feels like I’ve won the most important prize in the world.