Chapter 20
20
EVE CASSIDY
‘Tonight, we have to change that shoulder and wrist bandage, which means you get to take a shower without half of your body taped inside a garbage bag,’ I inform him, tossing the dishtowel over my shoulder and leaning against my counter. ‘What a time to be alive, eh?’
He laughs. ‘Yeah. Hashtag, blessed.’
‘Hashtag, dork,’ I tease.
‘Hey, since it’s shower night, and since I’ve been doing pretty good with my walking, why don’t we go outside? You live on the riverfront, which is designed for exercise. Maybe I could break a sweat? It’s been weeks since I did anything physical and I’m starting to feel absolutely ick. I want that shower after a good sweat feeling. Plus, look at that…’ He nods at the windows overlooking the river below us. ‘I haven’t seen a good sunset in ages.’
He doesn’t even need to use the ‘please can we go for a walk’ puppy dog eyes he’s currently wearing. That face alone could get me to say yes to a lot of things I’d regret right now. Walking with him outside is easy.
‘I’d be a terrible nurse if I said no to this.’
‘You would,’ he agrees.
‘And a good sunset is enticing. I’d actually forgotten that about you,’ I say, thinking back to the time when he told me he breaks for sunsets. He’s got charm, that’s for sure.
He looks confused.
‘That you love sunsets. Sure, let’s walk outside tonight.’
We step into the cool, early fall evening air wrapping around us like a comforting embrace. The sky is painted in hues of pink and orange as the sun dips below the horizon in a brilliant display of nature’s beauty. Foster walks beside me, coming to a stop at the riverside railing along the paved sidewalk across the street from my building entrance. I walk this street daily in my normal life, and not once did I expect to be walking it with him again.
‘Isn’t it incredible how something as simple as a sunset can make you forget all your worries?’ Foster muses, his voice soft in the fading light.
‘We are just a drop in the bucket of life, for sure.’
He continues walking beside me, without his cane, his good hand on the railing for balance and he’s making pretty good time. His breathing rate is up a bit, but his skin is suddenly glowing in the fading daylight. Never in all the time we spent together did I watch this man lie around his apartment like a slug. This has got to be hard for him. Not only is he hurt but his whole world just got flipped upside down.
I steal glances at him as we walk, his profile sharp against the vibrant sky. He catches me once, flashing me a cute smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes and within them, there’s a flicker of something I’ve seen before, a vulnerability that he usually keeps hidden beneath his confident facade.
‘Are you ogling me?’ he asks, nudging me gently with his slinged elbow.
‘I am. I installed a bidet for you and gave up my bed. I’ve got to get something in return,’ I joke.
‘Oh!’ he laughs. ‘Flirting while we’re off property hard. I’m game. Fancy meeting a gorgeous girl like you down by the river. Come here often?’ he asks, his voice low, twinged with a southern accent and flirty.
‘Truthfully, I came down here a lot after we broke up when I needed to clear my head,’ I murmur. ‘The way you always “stopped for sunsets” made me think maybe they could help me too.’
‘I thought you’d forgotten that part of me?’
I cock my head. ‘Well, eventually I’d forced myself to bury everything “you” deep on “Please Forget Island” – also known as my heart – but you know how that goes.’
He frowns but then walks around me and sneakily grasps my hand in his, holding it to his chest as we walk.
‘Did they help?’
Holding hands feels like tiptoeing into the flirtatious deep end. I’m not sure we’re ready or have thought it through, but having his hand wrapped around mine brings me some kind of comfort I’ve missed.
‘They did.’
‘Tell me why?’ he asks, stopping and turning to face the sunset. He drops our hands to our sides, his thumb stroking the back of mine.
‘Watching the sun bid farewell to another day is peaceful. Whether it was the best or worst day you’ve ever had, you’ll never repeat it. Ever. And that made me realize that no matter what happens, life goes on.’
Foster nods thoughtfully, his gaze never leaving the sky. As the last remnants of daylight fade away, he turns to me with a small smile playing on his lips.
‘Do you want to hear how smart I think you are, or something ridiculously marshmallowy and over-the-top flirtatious?’
‘I’ll take marshmallows, please.’
He looks shocked.
‘They always made me smile.’
‘I remember,’ he says. ‘Good. Here goes: I always thought of you as my sunset. That’s part of why I fell in love with them the way I have.’ He squeezes my hand gently in his.
‘That was so cheesy,’ I say with a laugh.
‘It was.’
‘Really, though?’
He nods. ‘One thousand per cent, Evie. Sunsets are breathtakingly beautiful and sadly fleeting, but each one leaves a lasting impression on me – just like you.’
My heart skips a beat at his words, causing me to let out a gasp as a rush of emotions floods through me. This is why I face-planted into a dirt racetrack for this man. Because he’s sweet, and goofy, and charming, and handsome, and so many adjectives that I could go on for days. Most importantly though, he is beautiful inside and out, and so many people have only ever been interested in the out.
‘I think sometimes sunsets help you see someone in a new light too,’ I say, noticing the colors of dusk painting Foster’s background in a dreamlike haze. Why didn’t I get this guy for the last five years like I was supposed to?
‘Do you ever wonder if maybe we were always meant to find our way back to each other?’ Foster muses. ‘Like two ships passing in the night, destined to collide again and again because fate decided a long time ago they were meant to be.’
I heave a sigh at the thought of fate. It hasn’t done me any favors. But what if he’s right and I just haven’t seen them yet?
‘Maybe we needed to lose ourselves before we could truly find each other?’
Foster’s smile widens, a glimmer of hope and love shining in his eyes. ‘Maybe. Of course, I didn’t expect losing myself nearly meant death .’
‘Neither did I,’ I chuckle. ‘Look at you now though, without even realizing it, we’ve walked six blocks and you haven’t groaned even once. That’s huge progress!’
He turns, his face scrunching like he’s trying to see something a mile away. ‘Six blocks, huh?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘We’ve got six blocks back and I’m ready for a nap now .’
He’s tired. And here I thought he was doing so well. ‘And a nap you will get as soon as we get back, after we change those shoulder and wrist bandages, and after you get that deep cleansing shower you wanted.’
‘Oooh, the shower. Race ya back?’ he asks, pretending to take off in a sprint but not getting very far in the skip, hop, walk he’s doing.
It takes us a bit longer to get back to my building than it did to walk six blocks and by the time we’re climbing the stairs, Foster is moving much more slowly.
‘What did you get?’ he asks, looking at the package in my hand that I grabbed from my mailbox on our way through the lobby.
‘You’re going to love it,’ I say as I unlock my door and push it open, allowing him through first. He beelines right for my couch and drops onto it with a moan it sounds like he’s been holding in all night.
I open the box and display the two purple- and green-colored containers. ‘These are pill organizers. You take meds so often that I had to buy two. In the coming days, I’m going to have to go back to work and I thought if we get started with these now, then while I’m gone you won’t forget when your meds are due.’
‘You need a nursing award,’ he says. ‘The fact that I need a pill organizer makes me feel a tad elderly.’
‘Considering you’re nearly scientifically middle-aged, I’m not surprised. Did you know that the average death rate in America is in your seventies?’
He bellows a laugh. ‘Mid-thirties are now middle-aged?’
‘Double thirty-five, and you’ve got seventy. You think with your career, you’ll live past that?’
‘Yes,’ he insists. ‘I’m not even the oldest in the industry, Evie. Jeff’s in his forties.’
One by one I separate his bottles of pills into the organizers while we talk.
‘I’ve watched Jeff slam energy drinks like a chain-smoker, before and after performances, so I won’t be surprised when his heart explodes on the track at age forty-five,’ I remind him.
‘He is playing a dangerous game,’ Foster remarks, shaking his head as if he doesn’t do the same thing. It’s hard not to, considering Red Bull and Monster are some of the biggest advertisers of the sport.
‘I’m going to focus more on not dying sooner than average. No more accidents, and I definitely gotta quit the energy drink slamming.’
I laugh. ‘I’ll cross my fingers for you. Now let’s take a look at that arm.’
Once I get the sling off, his shirt delicately peeled over his head and the bandages removed, I have to grab us both water. He’s sweating, and I’m just remembering how incredibly beautiful he is shirtless. I have to force myself not to kiss his glistening chest because my mind was telling me to go there.
I force him into the shower, insisting he keep the shower chair in with him, mostly because my knees were weak at the sight of him partly unclothed and maybe his are too? That’s stupid. I divert my eyes as he walks out of the bathroom, in a pair of lovely black and white checked yoga pants that really accentuate his ass, much to my demise.
‘How’s it look, doc?’ he asks once he’s back on my bed.
I down half a bottle of water while unintentionally staring at him. My eyes just won’t look away!
Do not jump his bones, Eve. He’s injured. What if you hurt him worse by crawling on top of him to seduce the guy?
‘Evie?’
‘Yeah?’ I ask between sips, then remember he asked how it looks. ‘Looks really, really good.’
He laughs under his breath. ‘You’re daydreaming about that sponge bath I asked about right now, aren’t you?’
‘No…’ I lie. ‘I’m thinking my shower will be cold later because I’m having a hot flash.’
He lifts a single eyebrow. ‘Menopausal in your late twenties is rough.’
I groan, pretending it’s completely plausible – which medically, it is. But there is no getting away from the fact that I’m overheating from my panties up.
‘Fine, I’ll admit it, there’s no denial on my part that you’re handsome and things. Obviously I’m attracted to you, I married you.’
‘True,’ he says. ‘But “handsome and things”? What kind of “things”?’
I bite my lip, holding back a growing smile. Don’t answer that question.
‘No flirting, mister,’ I say, grabbing the bin full of medical supplies the hospital sent home with us from the top of my dresser, and sitting at his side near his injured arm. ‘Not within the apartment walls.’
‘Fine,’ he says, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as I clean the surgical sites and rebandage him. With him not looking, my gaze can go anywhere it wants and it pauses on his tattoos. His skin is sun-kissed, and soft enough to lick. No, Eve. Do not lick him.
‘It’s healing great,’ I say, hoping words will distract my screaming libido.
‘Good,’ he says, glancing down at the freshly bandaged shoulder and wrist. ‘You think maybe I could sleep without the straightjacket tonight? It’s so uncomfortable.’
‘Will you promise me you won’t sleep wild like a tornado?’ I ask, standing and placing the medical supplies back in their place.
‘Sure, but I’m not sure my subconscious will pull through.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I tell him. ‘The morphine will. You pretty much sleep still all night, just a rustle of snoring is all I hear.’
‘I snore?’ he asks, as if he didn’t know.
‘Take these,’ I say, handing him a handful of pills.
He swallows them down and relaxes into my bed. I’m sure he’d be more comfortable if I were in there next to him, but intrusive thoughts be damned.
‘The sling off feels so much better. Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. Goodnight, Fost,’ I say, leaning down and flipping off the naughty boy lamp.
‘Goodnight, Jellybean.’
I wonder what he’ll relive tonight? I hope it’s something good. The best part of us. And I don’t even understand why the thought is crossing my mind at all.