13. Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Thirteen
Colter
W hen I close the bathroom door behind me, I rest the back of my head against the wooden frame and shut my eyes. My body slides down the wall until I hit the floor, willing the adrenaline that’s been racing through my veins to fizzle.
I listen to the soft thumps of her clothing as each piece hits the floor and the gentle swish of the water as she tests the temperature before climbing in. I imagine the bubbles washing over her perfectly toned body, and my dick threatens to twitch in my pants.
My head falls into my hands as I force the sexual thoughts away and remind myself that the girl nearly died today. Because of me. Because of the pressure her father put on me to do this to her. It’s all so fucked up I can barely wrap my mind around it.
Why didn’t Richard tell me? In a way, I understand that she didn’t tell me herself. Our relationship has only recently turned the corner from sterile professionalism to friendship. My feelings about her are a hell of a lot stronger than I’ve ever felt for a friend, but there’s no way I could ever let us be more than that. Maybe I was foolish to think that I had reigned in my asshole attitude enough that she felt somewhat comfortable around me. The fact that she was so sure I’d see her diabetes as a weakness that she hid such an important part of herself has my stomach in knots.
When I hear her turn on the TV that’s in the corner wall, I smile to myself. She must be feeling slightly better if she’s making herself at home, which gives me a sense of relief. I push myself back up to standing and make my way down the hall to my room.
I strip off my scrubs and toss them in a heap by the shower door. Flipping the handle, I stand outside the door as the steam rises and stare at the water pellets beating along the tile. I’m mesmerized by the motion, and now that the stressful part of the evening is over, I feel the adrenaline melting from my body and exhaustion settling in.
I step in the shower, letting the hot water spray over my neck and shoulders as I lean forward to rest my palms on the tile. I quickly go through the motions of washing my hair and body before I reach for the handle, ready for the dreaded ice-cold shower.
But Annaliese’s words echo through my mind. “Life is too short to take cold showers.”
Yes, there are health benefits to cold plunges. But I have the cold plunge system in the gym. I can’t remember the last time I let myself decompress in a hot shower after a stressful day. It’s always felt like a reward I didn’t earn. Another way to punish myself for the minute mistakes that are so often made.
My eyes fall to my left forearm and the series of horizontal scars that line it, a constant reminder of my teenage years. I run my palm over the marks, thankful that time has mostly faded them into faint white lines. But the memory is still there. The memory of a kid who felt like he had to punish himself for piddly mistakes and awkward comments.
I release my grip on the handle and let my hand fall to my side. I twist around, letting the water massage my back as I bask in its warmth, wondering if maybe I’ve done enough, if maybe I’m too old to be beating myself up for simple mistakes.
***
Annaliese is still in the bathroom when I’ve showered and dressed.
I lingered outside the door for a few minutes to make sure I could hear her moving around in the water before I ventured into the kitchen.
She’s still in there when I’ve heated up the leek ravioli and when I’m rinsing my dishes to place in the dishwasher.
She’s still in there when I turn on the TV to catch up on sports highlights, and when the commercial breaks, I start to worry that something happened to her.
It’s then that I hear her faint voice call out for me, and I’m up. I scramble off the couch, practically racing down the hall to the bathroom.
I knock twice with my hand on the knob as I call out to ask if she’s okay. I pause, listening, giving her only a few seconds to respond before I burst through the door.
When she doesn’t answer, I knock once more, my hand already twisting the door knob as I ask if she’s okay.
When I open the door, a billow of steam slaps me in the face. I squint against the heat and my eyes immediately find her hunched over, seated on the closed toilet seat. The white, fluffy towel is wrapped around her, and she’s curled in on herself with her arms gripping her stomach.
I rush to her, falling to my knees and reaching a hand up to rub her back. She jolts at my touch, but then her head tilts to me, those perfect chocolate eyes meeting mine. “You with me, Sparky?”
She nods, but when she sits up, she wobbles for a moment, and I reach my arms out to steady her. “I’m so dizzy. I think I overdid it.”
“Let me help you.” I unzip her duffle, rifling through to find the clothes she tossed in earlier. I pull out a T-shirt and gather the fabric by the neck, ushering for her to lean forward.
She sits up straight, and I slip the soft material over her head. Wordlessly, we work together, putting her arms through the sleeves and letting it fall to her waist before I reach for her pajama pants. I kneel at her feet, helping her slip her right leg, and then her left inside. My thumbs graze along her smooth skin, still warm and damp from her bath as I bring the waistband to her knees, and usher her to stand.
With my hands surrounding her for balance, she stands on two shaking legs, like a baby fawn finding its footing for the first time. She pulls the bottoms up, and lets the towel fall from her waist. I keep my eyes glued to the ceiling, knowing that if I see even an inch of her naked form I’m a goner.
“My offer for a piggyback still stands,” I whisper, and she huffs out a laugh.
“If I don’t lay down soon, I just might take you up on that.”
I lead her out of the steaming bathroom and to the living room, moving the pillows to allow for her to lie down on the sectional. Once she’s safely on the sofa, I bring her a glass of water from the kitchen and set it in front of her.
I perch on the end of the ottoman, facing her. “What do you need? Can I get you something to eat? What is your glucose at?” I reach to tap the screen of her watch, noting she’s still running high.
“I don’t have an appetite right now. I just want to rest.”
“What do we need to do for your sugars?”
She rolls her wrist over, tapping the face of her watch to check her numbers. “I’m still a little high, but I gave myself a small dose of insulin.” She must catch the worried expression on my face, because she tilts her head, smiling. “I promise I’ll eat something soon, okay?”
With a heavy sigh, I move to the cabinet under the TV and pull out a few throw blankets, bringing the softest one over to drape it across her. She pulls it up to her neck, burrowing down underneath.
Her eyes close, and I watch her for a moment, not wanting to let her out of my sight with how fragile she’s feeling right now.
I must watch her for a moment too long, because she peeks one eye open to squint at me. “Are you going to stare at me all night long?”
I run a hand over the back of my head, lightly ruffling my still damp hair. “Annaliese, I … God, I’m so sorry.” I can’t seem to shake this frustration, this murderous feeling of guilt for what happened to her today.
She rolls to her back, sitting up and propping the pillows behind her. “I thought we talked about this.”
I nod. “We did, but it still doesn’t change how I’m feeling.”
“Do you always beat yourself up when situations are out of your control?”
Her words are a gut punch, and I’m too exhausted to pretend they aren’t. The look on my face must give me away, because her gaze softens, and she reaches an arm out to rest on my knee. “Colt, I swear it’s okay. I’ll be fine. It’s not your fault I have diabetes.”
It’s not, but it is my fault that she worked so hard. It’s my fault she didn’t get to take a proper lunch break or even get a snack to keep her sugars stable. The schedule I’ve had her on for the last few months would wreak havoc on the system of someone who is impeccably healthy, let alone someone who has to work harder to stay balanced.
“If you want to help, you can take my mind off of it.”
My mind goes to a thousand ways I want to distract her, and I clear my throat roughly. “And how do I do that?”
She pulls her hand off my knee, and I immediately miss her warmth. She tucks her arm back under the blankets and gazes at me with her beautiful chocolate eyes. “Tell me why you have the most gorgeous soaker tub known to man, yet you’ve never used it.”
I chuckle as I move to sit on the other end of the sectional to face her. I prop my feet up, and our toes nearly touch. “I like to have nice things.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” She gestures around to my condo. “You have every state-of-the-art anything that anyone could ask for.”
I look around the room, nodding in agreement, but wondering to myself why it still feels like I need more. Why it never feels like it’s enough. Never complete. “It’s alright, I guess. I have plans to make this place even better than it is.”
She scoffs. “What else could you possibly need?”
I tell her to hold on, and I leave the couch to jog to my office, my bare feet padding along the heated floors. I rifle through my cabinets, pulling out the most updated blueprint. I twist off the rubber band and unfold the prints the closer I get to the living room.
She’s sitting up with the blanket draped over her legs, watching me as I return; her brows pull together when she sees the prints in my hands.
I lay them out on the ottoman in front of her, and she glances over. “What am I looking at?”
I raise an arm over my shoulder and point to the corner of the living room where the wall to wall windows end. “Imagine a sweeping spiral staircase in that corner that leads upstairs.”
“You own the upstairs, too?”
“Not yet. But the tenant who’s living directly above me will sell within the next year. I’ve already made plans to buy it. ”
Her eyes bulge at the plans in front of me. They volley back and forth between the blueprints in front of her and my face, likely counting the number of rooms that will make up my two-story penthouse. “What are you going to do with all of this?”
“I think the upstairs will be the master bedroom and guest rooms. Maybe my office. Then the downstairs part I’ll expand on what I currently have. My kitchen, for one, it—”
“Your kitchen?” she squawks. “You’re looking to expand the kitchen? The one with the literal walk-in fridge and that you probably don’t even cook in?”
I laugh at her shock, carefully rolling up the blueprints and fastening with the band. “Work hard, play hard. Money is meant to be spent, Sparky.”
“Yeah, but why do you need two giant condos for one person? Why don’t you go on lavish vacations or find a mistress like all of the other surgeons you work with do?”
“I’ve been to California a few times for conferences. Once in Punta Cana. It was fine, not really my thing I guess.” I shrug as I casually avoid the mistress comment.
“If you’ve been to a tropical resort and think it’s not your thing, then you were doing it all wrong. Let me take you somewhere warm, and I’ll show you how it’s done.”
An image flashes in my mind of Annaliese lying on a white sunchair with a margarita in one hand and a smutty book in the other. The sun beams down on us, warming my skin just as the wind kicks up, and she lifts a hand to hold onto her sunhat, smiling at me in the process.
”How do you afford all of this?” she asks, drawing me back to the present. “It’s probably rude to ask about money, but you nearly killed me today so you owe me.”
“I invest most of my salary. After basic living expenses, I have some money in real estate, even a few rental properties.”
“Ahh, that explains the exciting books on property tax.”
She reaches for the blueprints, and I roll them open again, handing her the top one to study. I watch her trace the lines that will soon be the walls of my master bedroom, noting that the ensuite alone will be larger than her entire studio apartment that I saw earlier.
“How did you learn all of this stuff anyways? Unless things have changed since you were in school, med classes didn’t mention anything about real estate.” Once satisfied with her look, she hands the blueprints back to me, and I roll them together again before carefully applying the band.
I stand, tapping the rolled end against my palm a few times. “Everything I know, I’ve learned from your dad.” And that’s in regards to my medical, business, and personal life.
“Ahh, gotcha.” She reaches for her glass of water from the side table, taking a long, awkward sip. “At least he raised one of us.”
I puff my cheeks and exhale. “He really is a good guy, Annaliese.” At least, that’s what I used to think. “I know you two have your differences, but he’s trying to fix that.”
“He has a really weird way of showing it.”
Maybe tonight isn’t the night to hash out their relationship. Not after the stressful evening, and not when she’s feeling so shitty. I crouch over her, leaning over to tap a finger on the tip of her nose. “You’ll see the truth someday, Princess.”
Her entire demeanor changes. Her playful expression falls flat, and she reaches a petite hand up to shove my arm away. “Nevermind. I don’t expect you to see who my dad really is.” She lies back down on the couch, curling up with the blankets and fidgeting to get comfortable. And just when I think she’s ready to fall asleep, she huffs, rolls over, and sits up to face me head on. “And if you really feel bad about today, if you want to do anything to make it right, you can do me a favor and stop calling me Princess. I fucking hate that nickname.”