Chapter Eleven
Appa
I’ve always had the worst periods. So bad that I started birth control when I was fourteen for relief.
Against my Christian mother’s wishes.
She thought it meant I’d have a reason to have sex earlier, but a decade later, she couldn’t have been more wrong.
I’ve been to multiple doctors, and they have said the same thing: It’s just bad luck.
Some changed my birth control, but it never mattered.
I always went back to the combo pill and endured cramps so sharp I saw spots.
Having so much pain each month was debilitating, and I’m lucky to have a work-from-home type of job.
Every month when I knew my period was coming up, I’d pre-film and even take stories to upload throughout the week just in case I wasn’t up to it.
Most months, I spent the first two days in bed with a heating pad and all the Midol in the world, suffering in silence while my friends did normal girl things. Some months weren’t that bad, but others were straight from hell. And I feared this month would be bad.
I haven’t seen Rook since the night he kissed me for the first time, and then we had our strange conversation over messaging the next day.
I crave his lips now, but my current state is killing that fantasy.
As much as I want a do-over of the other night with Rook, I’m also content eating mac and cheese with my water bottle nearby.
I’m anemic on top of everything else, so if I don’t stay hydrated during my period, I get lightheaded and have passed out before.
Oh, the joys of being a girl!
For the first time, I had a sense of relief that my period showed.
Rook left part of him in me both nights, and a small part of me was nervous that it would turn into something more permanent.
My period this month is proof the birth control is doing its job, so I’m watching trash TV in the comfort of my bed while eating junk food.
The lower half of my body is aching, like my uterus could just cramp its way out of my body.
I don’t think I’d mind it if it did.
They could take my reproductive organs for all I care, and I’d send them a thank-you card.
Of course, I want to have a baby someday, but a surrogate would be so much easier.
My quality of life would be restored if I didn’t have these parts, but no doctor wants to do a hysterectomy on a girl in her twenties.
I set the empty bowl on my nightstand and reach for my phone.
Nothing new.
Rook and I rarely messaged, and he certainly never sent me a ‘thinking of you’ or ‘on the way’ message. Maybe it’s the hormones in me hoping he’d have a bigger presence now that we’ve had sex.
And I’m thinking like a clingy girlfriend.
No one wants that. Mama made that very clear to me growing up. Her voice still echoes in my mind.
“Feed him well, let him watch his sports, and he’ll never leave.”
But she left out the part about putting out and getting pregnant before marriage. I wasn’t waiting for marriage but just the right one.
I lay the heating pad over my lower abdomen again as its warmth contrasts intoxicatingly against my cool skin. I soak up the cramp relief as much as it can dull them and turn the TV off. I doom-scroll videos on my phone instead, ignoring any video of Rook the algorithm pushes to my feed.
My head sinks into the pillow, and I wait for my eyelids to get heavy.
I should use this time to reply to comments, DMs, and even emails, but I just want to watch videos of puppies and dollhouses.
I particularly love videos of mini-kitchens with mini-ingredients and dishes where they make real food with those things.
It itches my brain in a good way hearing the doll-sized dishes clink.
Just then, my phone vibrates in my hand with a notification from my front camera. And then the doorbell camera.
Oh, no… Not tonight.
Did I manifest him by thinking about how I wished he were in my life more? I sit up and hear the front door shut downstairs. My throat clenches up, and I’m hyperaware of my breathing and pulse.
His big silhouette shows in the doorway to my room, filling most of it with his tall and broad frame. A tear falls from my eye immediately. I don’t even have pepper spray nearby—not that I could stop him if I tried.
“I’m sorry, Rook, I can’t. Not tonight,” I start to beg. He hasn’t cared about what I’ve been up to, just takes without regard for me. Not that I’ve minded, but this is different. “No, really, I’m on my period, and it’s…it’s awful.” I watch as he enters the room.
He can’t be serious.
“Oh, Apps,” he whispers.
A nickname?
I can’t read his tone, and my eyes widen in horror as he pulls his shirt over his head. It’s too dark to make out his face as usual, but I can tell what he’s doing well enough. His jeans make a soft thud on the floor. I gasp, standing up.
I really can’t do this.
I feel a gush between my legs from the gravity, followed by a cramp that slices through my lower abdomen, and I double over at the edge of the bed. The bed shifts, and I hear a quiet creak of the box springs. Rook lies down on the opposite, always vacant side. “Come here.”
“Why? What are you…?”
“Just trust me, for fuck’s sake.” His voice is always a whisper. Like he’s afraid of letting me hear his full voice.
I hesitantly lie back next to him, and he pulls me right into his arms. He’s warm-skinned, just as I remember.
His firm abdomen heats mine, probably better than my stupid heating pad would.
He gently sets his hand at the back of my head, holding me tenderly to his chest. I breathe in his musky scent, but he smells faintly like something herbaceous, too.
There’s something cool on his chest, and I cautiously reach up to run my fingertips over it.
A smooth cross with beveled edges on a sturdy chain.
Rook’s a man of faith?
I wrap my arm around his torso, tracing my fingers down the contours of his back.
His chin presses on the top of my head. His heartbeat rings loudly in my ear, pressed against his chest, and I’m completely trapped in the unexpected domestic comfort of his grasp.
He only comes around for one thing, and this is far from it.
He’s still in his briefs, and that’s reassurance enough that nothing further will happen tonight.
I allow my body to relax and press my ear to his chest. The sound of his heartbeat thudding in his chest makes me realize he’s a person.
Of course he’s a real person, but this could be someone who wants to love me, too.
His groin hardens, pressing into my thigh, and I look up at him even if I can’t make out his expression.
“Don’t worry about that,” he whispers into my hair, making my cheek, pressed against his chest, vibrate. He adds a soft chuckle as if he’s slightly embarrassed.
How could he still want me when I’m bleeding, bloated, not cute, and my hair’s a mess?
After a few silent moments, I clear my throat.
“You’re warm,” I mumble. His fingers graze over my wild hair, smoothing out my frizzy curls to no avail as they spring back, and I should feel content with Rook’s soft side present in my bed.
But my stomach flips instead, and I desperately try to break free from his arms. He drops them as soon as I try to pull back, and I stumble but try to rush to my en suite bathroom with a hand over my mouth.
By some miracle, I make it to the toilet and hurl until nothing is left, leaving an acidic sting in the back of my mouth. The cold tile against my legs makes my knees ache, and I press my forehead into my palm and wait to see if my stomach will flip again.
Ugh, why me? When Rook is here?
When I’m certain my stomach is okay for now, I stand up, stretching my legs before washing my hands and rinsing with mouthwash that burns the inside of my cheeks. I brace myself for the possibility that Rook could be gone because there’s no way he wants to deal with a puking girl.
This has to be too much drama for him.
I flick the bathroom light off, opening the bathroom door slowly.
I almost don’t want to look to see if he’s still here.
But in the dark, I can see Rook’s silhouette where I left him.
Shock that I didn’t scare him off sparks through me, and I nearly tiptoe back over to the bed as if he’ll run off now.
But as soon as I lie down, he tugs me back into his orbit like I never stepped away.
“Are you okay?” he asks quietly.
My eyes tear as I bury my face in his bare chest. “No, I’m anemic,” I whimper.
“I got you,” I think I hear him say in my hair.
I drift to sleep in the safety of his warm arms, and when I wake hours later, my room is bright with the morning light.
I blink my sleepy eyes and realize I’m lying on my side again.
I prop myself up on my elbow and frown when the other side is vacant without a trace that he was ever here. I look around my bedroom.
“Rook?” I call out.
He’s made it abundantly clear that he doesn’t want me seeing him in the daylight. I run my hand down my face and roll over to my side to check my phone on my nightstand. Next to it stands a wine cork.
Despite my aching torso, I rush over to it. “Ow,” I groan. I desperately need to head to the bathroom, but I have to inspect this first.
I hold the soft cork and roll it around in my fingers. It’s slightly tinged red, like it was in a bottle of wine and left to dry out.
Could Rook be a wine drinker? How random.
I squint at the logo embossed on the side.
Tenuta Valenti.
I pick up my phone, and the first thing I see is a DM from Rook from earlier this morning.
@Rook: You saw it. But do you see me yet?
A tremor runs up my spine. I instinctively scan my bedroom again. Do I see him yet? Physically? Or is it deeper than that?
My guess…deeper.
I check my notifications. According to the cameras, he left around one in the morning, meaning he stayed for a few hours, including waiting for me to fall asleep and continuing to comfort me after I did.
I glance at the cork, resting on my nightstand again, and I notice how clear the surface of my nightstand is.
I had an empty bowl on it when he showed up. I know I did.
He took my dishes to the kitchen?
That feels like boyfriend behavior that Rook would never allow.
Now freshened up, I’m eager to research my little clue.
I type Tenuta Valenti into the search bar and even use the camera tool to search the exact logo.
It just points me in the direction of a privately owned vineyard and winery in Napa, California.
I glance at their website, looking for staff or names to go on, but no one listed seems like a lead.
The owners are just a group of Italian brothers; none young enough to be Rook.
Is Rook Italian?
On the winery’s website, there’s a picture of an Italian family that looks like it was taken decades ago, but these people couldn’t be Rook.
I must be looking too far into it. He probably just bought their wine and left the cork to be cryptic.
Rook can’t be some winemaker in Napa if he lives in Los Angeles, and I’m not about to road trip up to Napa to find out.
I toss the cork and my phone onto my bed and glance at the side Rook lay on last night. My stomach growls.
Might as well get some coffee and breakfast delivered.
My phone pings as I reach back for it.
@Rook: I’ll be back in a few days. Feel better.
I nibble the edge of my bottom lip. How did he know I was up? Was he watching me?
Oh, yeah, read receipt.
I’m wound up about this guy…and for good reason. He held me last night, wore a heavy cross around his neck, cleaned up after me, and left a cryptic memento with a promise to return when my period is over.
What is this becoming?