Chapter 16 Riley #2
“I’m a doctor.” He was already heading for the door. “And you both have that look.”
He left with a curt nod to me and a muttered comment to Caelan that made him flush. I caught the word “dramatic” and possibly “embarrassing” and “you’ve completely lost your mind.”
I liked Aedan.
But as I settled back against my pillows, a question nagged at me. The way Aedan said “humans get them.” The way he’d said “your species.” The way Caelan had reacted to it, almost nervous.
The phrasing was odd. He’d talked about humans the way someone might talk about a species they weren’t part of. An observation from the outside looking in.
Which was weird. Obviously humans got colds. He was a human. Caelan was a human. Everyone in this room was a human.
Right?
I filed it away for later, too tired and stuffed up to examine it closely.
***
The rest of the day unfolded in a blur of aggressive caretaking.
Caelan refused to leave my side, not for a second. When I got up to use the bathroom, he was there, arm around my waist, guiding me.
“I can walk,” I protested.
“You’re unsteady.”
“I’m fine.”
“You swayed.”
“I didn’t...”
He scooped me up without warning, carrying me the remaining five feet to the bathroom door. His arms were steel around me, his expression brooking no argument.
“This is ridiculous,” I said, but I wasn’t really fighting it. There was a thrill to being manhandled by him, even for a task as mundane as bathroom access, that made my stomach flip.
“Call for me when you’re done,” he ordered.
“Caelan...”
“Call. For. Me.”
I called for him when I was done. He carried me back to bed.
When I lay down to nap, I opened my eyes twenty minutes later to find him sitting in a chair he’d dragged to my bedside, watching me with that intense, unwavering focus I’d come to associate with him.
“You’re watching me sleep,” I observed.
“Yes.”
“That’s...”
“I’m making sure you’re breathing properly. Your congestion is concerning.” He said it matter-of-factly. Normal. Standard sick-day protocol.
He tried to make me food himself at some point. I heard clattering in the kitchen, some cursing, what might be a small fire alarm. He emerged triumphantly with a bowl of soup.
“I made this one myself,” he announced, setting it on my lap with the air of a man presenting a conquest.
It was terrible.
It was so salty my eyes watered. The vegetables were somehow both overcooked and underdone. There was a texture situation I didn’t want to examine too closely.
“It’s good,” I lied, forcing down another spoonful.
“You’re lying.” His eyes narrowed. “Your face did a thing.”
“My face didn’t do a thing.”
“You’re a terrible liar.” But he was almost smiling. “Eat it anyway.”
“Because you made it?”
“Because I made it and I’ll be deeply offended if you don’t.”
I ate the whole bowl because of the way he watched me. Possessive, satisfied, pleased with himself for providing for me even if the provision was objectively horrible. My sodium intake for the day was probably through the roof, but the way his eyes tracked every spoonful made it worth it.
“More?” he asked when I was done.
“God, no.” I caught myself. “I mean, I’m full. Very full. From your delicious soup.”
“Liar.” But he took the bowl with affection in his eyes.
He brought me things constantly, commanding me. “Drink this.” “Take these.” “You need another blanket.”
Tea, more soup from the store-bought collection, crackers, tissues, books, my laptop, extra pillows, a blanket from his apartment that he retrieved specifically because it was “warmer than yours,” my phone charger, a glass of water, another glass of water because the first one “sat too long,” and at one point, inexplicably, a stuffed animal.
“Where did this come from?” I held up the plush wolf. It was gray and soft and had amber eyes that seemed to sparkle.
“I had it delivered.”
“You had a stuffed animal delivered while I was napping?”
“You needed a thing to hold.” His jaw set stubbornly. “You kept reaching for me when I got up. This will suffice when I’m unavailable.”
The casual possessiveness of it. The assumption that I needed him, that a substitute should replace him when he was gone. It made my breath catch.
I tucked the wolf against my chest.
“Thank you,” I said, and meant it.
***
By evening, I was feeling marginally better. Enough to sit up without wanting to die, at least.
Caelan had procured my favorite snacks, set up my laptop on a pillow fort he’d constructed, and queued up a movie.
“What are we watching?” I asked, settling against him on the bed. He was warm and solid and I fit perfectly in the curve of his arm.
“27 Dresses.” He said it with the gravity of announcing a military operation. “It has good ratings.”
“You researched romantic comedies?”
“I wanted to choose correctly.”
The movie was exactly the kind of predictable, heartwarming nonsense I loved. Katherine Heigl collecting bridesmaid dresses. James Marsden being charming. The inevitable conflict and reconciliation.
Caelan had opinions.
“Why doesn’t he just tell him?” he demanded twenty minutes in. “He clearly has feelings. This is inefficient.”
“That’s not how it works.”
“Why not?”
“Because then there wouldn’t be a movie.”
“But he’s wasting time. They could be together right now if he just said what he felt.”
“Caelan. Suspension of disbelief.”
He grumbled but kept watching. When the sister drama unfolded, the betrayal and the hurt, he actually looked distressed.
“Family shouldn’t treat each other that way,” he said quietly.
“No. They shouldn’t.”
During the wedding scenes, all those dresses, all that hope, he turned to me with an expression I couldn’t quite read.
“Do you want this?” he asked.
“Want what?”
“Marriage.” He gestured at the screen. “The dresses, the ceremony, the... all of it. Is this what you wish for?”
The question caught me off guard. No one had ever asked me that. Not seriously, like they actually cared about the answer.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I used to think so. When I was younger. Before...”
Before Damien. Before I learned that loving someone could mean losing yourself.
“And now?”
“Now I think it depends on the person.” I looked at him. “With the right one, yes. I’d want all of it. But only if it was real. Only if it mattered.”
He was quiet for a moment, his eyes searching my face.
“It would matter,” he said finally. “With the right person. It would mean everything.”
There was weight in his words. Promise. The kind that made my heart race.
The movie continued. The inevitable “dark moment” happened, the misunderstanding that tore the couple apart, and Caelan looked genuinely upset.
“She’s going to forgive him,” I assured him. “It’s a romcom.”
“But he lied to her.”
“He had reasons.”
“Lies are still lies.” His voice was strange, weighted. “Even with reasons.”
I glanced at him, but his expression was carefully neutral, focused on the screen.
“She’ll forgive him,” I repeated. “That’s how these stories work. The hero makes mistakes, but he proves he’s worthy of forgiveness in the end.”
“And if he can’t? If his mistakes are too big?”
“Then he grovels. A lot. Until she believes he’s sorry.” I nudged him with my elbow. “Why? Got a secret you’re planning to spring on me?”
He didn’t laugh or joke back. His jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Would you?” he asked quietly. “Forgive someone who kept things from you? If they had reasons?”
The question hung between us. There was a weight underneath it, a heaviness I didn’t understand but could feel pressing against my chest.
“Depends on the secret,” I said finally. “And the reason.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then he kissed the top of my head and said, “Watch your movie, little menace.”
I let it go. For now. The movie ended happily, as promised. The hero groveled, the heroine forgave, they kissed.
“See?” I said. “Happy ending.”
“Happy ending,” Caelan agreed, but his smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.
“Don’t you have work to do?” I asked, changing the subject. “Or somewhere to be? You’ve been here all day.”
“No.”
“You’ll get sick if you keep hovering.”
“I don’t get sick.”
“That’s not how immune systems work... you know what, we’ve had this conversation.”
“I’m not leaving.” He pulled me closer, chin resting on top of my head. “You need someone to bring you soup and watch terrible movies with you.”
“The movie wasn’t terrible!”
“It was predictable.”
“You cried at the end.”
“I did not.”
“Your eyes were wet.”
“Allergies.”
“You said you don’t get sick.”
“Allergies aren’t sickness.”
We bickered for another ten minutes, the easy joy of it catching me off guard. No one had ever done this for me.
“Stay,” I said finally, when the argument fizzled out. “Not because I need you to. Because I want you to.”
His arms tightened around me.
“Always,” he said. “I’ll always stay.”
I fell asleep against his chest for the second night straight, the stuffed wolf tucked under my arm, feeling safer than I had in years.
A shift was happening between us, a big, permanent change. And for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t afraid of what came next.