17. Too Weak to Fight
Too Weak to Fight
ELLIE
Ididn’t faint. Not exactly.
Okay, kind of exactly. But I only blacked out a second before I saw Sam, flying over the fence between Mrs. Oxford’s place and mine.
I startled as he thudded to the ground beside me.
“Ellie!” Sam hovered over me, his relief visible as he saw me blink. “I’ve got her,” he yelled. To Conrad, I think. “She’s conscious.”
“Tools down?” Conrad yelled.
“TBD,” Sam called.
I’d never heard him so sure and confident. Or speaking in this weird shorthand.
“Hey, Ellie,” Sam said, his voice only for me. His hand slipped behind my crown, cradling my skull. It felt really good.
“I’m just going to make sure you didn’t hurt yourself too badly.” He gently angled my head left and right, his fingers probing my scalp. I made an embarrassing noise of contentment. Okay, this felt amazing. And to be fair, it was the first time I’d been able to relax all day.
“I don’t feel any lacerations. Can you move? Wiggle your toes?”
I wiggled all the things. “I’m fine.” I attempted to get up.
Sam dropped his arm behind my back, helping me to a sitting position.
“We good for sure?” Conrad called.
“Are we?” Sam asked me.
“Yes.” I tried to swallow, but my mouth felt like a desert.
Sam stood up. “Bubbly?”
A moment later, a can came sailing over the fence. Sam caught it in one hand, dipping his arm so it didn’t smack against his palm, then cracked it open. It didn’t overflow one bit.
“So talented,” I croaked.
Sam held it to my lips. “I did pick up a few things in my short time in college.”
I smiled shakily, then took a sip. I’d never tasted something so tasteless and somehow so delicious.
“What did tools down mean?” I asked after I swallowed.
“Con was going to call an ambulance.”
“Do you think I need an ambulance?”
His lips turned up. “I’m no doctor. But you look okay to me. Unless you have any underlying conditions I should know about?”
“You said you weren’t a doctor.”
“I trained as a medic.”
“You never told me that.”
“You never told me you liked to take spontaneous naps on your back deck.”
I laughed softly, but that made me feel a little woozy.
“No laughing, pillow princess.”
That only made me laugh again.
Together we managed to get me to my feet, though I was fully leaning on Sam.
“I’m too heavy,” I said.
“You’re just right.”
Why did that sound so good? And why did I care when I’d literally passed out just now? God, this was embarrassing.
“I can’t believe I fainted.”
“When’s the last time you ate?”
I had to think about it. “This morning,” I said. Sort of. I’d had a coffee and a half a banana that Henry hadn’t finished. I was going to pick something up on the way to work, but I decided I’d be good for lunch. But that never happened either.
“I needed to finish my job,” I said. Which I did. “To get Henry, then go to Greenville, to get Tommy. I was okay on the way home—”My stomach seized thinking about what could have happened if my body hadn’t waited until I got home to pass out. I’d had both my boys in the car with me.
“Hey,” Sam said, pulling my arm over my shoulder. “Don’t think about what-ifs. The body knows what to do.”
He’d been reading my mind.
“So it dropped me on the back deck?”
“It kept you safe until you got home. Until you weren’t holding Henry.”
Until I saw you.
Sam wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me against him. He felt solid and safe. I think that’s what I’d seen across the fences, too. When he’d straightened up and given me that bashful look.
“Let’s get you inside,” he said, his voice low. He helped me over the lip of the patio door, which took him lifting me a little.
“I think I’m okay,” I said.
“Really? You want me to let go?”
I swallowed. My knees still felt wobbly. “No,” I said meekly. To be honest, it was nice not to hold myself up for once.
Sam tightened his arm around me, pulling me just a little more snugly against his side as we made our way down the hallway. “I won’t let go, Ellie.”
Warmth bloomed in my chest at his words.
We’d reached the door to my room. “I’m going to put you in here, okay?” Sam said. “Just to rest up a bit.”
It was a little messy: a shirt hung over the chair in the corner and a basket of laundry was overflowing next to it. I’d barely thrown my duvet over the sheets in the rush to leave this morning. But it was better than him trying to haul me up the stairs.
“Yes,” I said. “Okay.”
After we decided we were going to be friends, I’d gotten much more strict about interrupting any attempts my brain made at revisiting the night we met.
Some times were harder than others. Like seeing him shirtless, holding our baby.
But as Sam gently lowered me onto the bed, my body still not quite back to my own, I relapsed.
Bad.
I think it was him hovering over me, his scent in my nostrils. Or was it his hands on my body, holding me almost reverently? Or seeing all of it in the full length mirrored doors of the closet next to the bed?
Whatever it was, I was flooded with the memory of our naked bodies together just like this. And I was too weak to fight it.
So I didn’t. Just this time, I swore, I let myself fall into him.
For a moment I couldn’t breathe. Then I could, and I breathed greedily. I inhaled him like an animal sniffing a mate. I felt my hips lifting, searching for contact.
“Ellie?” Sam’s breath was warm against my cheek, making it so much worse.
Sam pulled back, just enough to see my face.
That was enough to still my body. But I knew I had to keep my eyes shut. Because if I saw those eyes up close, I was loopy enough to do something much worse than pretending.
“Hey,” Sam said, mistaking whatever was going on with me as worry. Or fear. “You’re okay.”
The words rippled over me like warm honey.
I needed him out of here. He was too close. This would be too easy.
His heat was a physical thing against me. His arms were like steel. His hands, still cupped around my waist, were so warm and firm and strong. He could slide them right down, tilt my hips just the way he needed to—
My eyelids began to flutter. No. I clamored for the one thought that would stop me.
My kids.
“The boys,” I managed. “Can you check on them? I asked Tommy to get Henry a bottle…”
“Of course,” Sam said. “I’ll just—” he paused. “I’ll need you to let go of me, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. My brain misfired. My insides melted.
“Sorry,” he husked. “That just… slipped out.”
I’d repeated it out loud. But instead of being embarrassed, I clung to the way his voice sounded. Like he was maybe, possibly, a little bit as affected as me.
“It’s fine,” I whispered. I love it. Too much. Then I registered the other thing he’d said. Keeping my gaze tilted downward, I dared myself to open my eyes.
I was clinging to him, my hands bunching against the sleeves of his T-shirt.
Embarrassment ripped through me. I let go.
The moment I did, he was up, backing away. Then he was gone.
With Sam out of the room, I breathed hard, panting like I’d just run a mile. Why had I been so stupid? Why couldn’t I have packed a lunch like a normal person?
I didn’t know the answer to the first question. But I did the second. We’d run out of bread, and I’d had to help Tommy stick some chicken strips in the air fryer for his lunch. And then Henry had wet a new diaper and we were running late and—
I grabbed the bubbly water Sam had left on the bedside table, guzzling down half of it.
Nothing out of the ordinary was happening here, if I thought about it. Sam was taking care of me like he would with anyone else. He’d been a medic, at some point. Did he call all his charges sweetheart? Probably. Maybe. I didn’t know.
But for a moment, still feeling permissive in this state, I went back and hung onto that word. I held it like a pearl. A precious thing gifted just to me.