Chapter 14 #3
“Thank you.” I hoped he heard my sincerity. “For bringing all of this. There’s enough to get me through the next three illnesses I have in the future,” I joked weakly.
Beau ignored me, reaching toward the hotel phone.
He pressed buttons, waiting as he held it to his ear. “Yes, I would like some chicken soup, clear broth, a cheeseburger, and fries. Thank you.” His voice was low, rumbly, but also the politest I’d ever heard it.
I didn’t see the value of informing him that I could’ve picked up the phone myself, something I had been planning to do before he arrived.
“The broth is a good call, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stomach a cheeseburger,” I told him.
Beau turned to me. “The cheeseburger is for me. I’m fucking starving.”
I stared at him, barking out a weak laugh. “Beau Shaw, the pillar of organic, no sugar, no dyes, no fun is ordering a cheeseburger?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Fancy hotels make good cheeseburgers.” He then walked out of the room, into the bedroom.
I didn’t bother asking what he was doing. I didn’t even have the energy to feel any kind of thrill over him going in there. I laid my head back on the pillow of the sofa, counting down how long it would be before the pills kicked in.
Beau emerged from the bedroom with a plush throw and a large pillow.
“Up,” he ordered.
I sat up quickly because he was coming at a fast pace. Even through the throbbing anvil in my head and the congestion in my nose, I smelled pine and ocean and Beau. As he fussed with the pillow, my muscles relaxed at his nearness.
“Lay back,” he muttered.
I dutifully did as I was told, looking up at him, hovering so close I could feel his breath on my face. Warm. Pleasing.
“Your bedside manner needs improving,” I rasped.
He carefully placed the throw over my body. Once done, he didn’t move; he hovered there, above me.
With painstaking slowness and tenderness, Beau reached forward and brushed the hair from my face.
I couldn’t see his mouth, but his eyes were soft at the edges, reverent. I could barely catch my breath, staring at him.
He stayed like that, suspended in time for too long. Not long enough. My body was not equipped to fight off both an illness and the growing attraction I had to Beau.
The spell broke when Beau shook himself, straightening. He didn’t dally for long, finding the remote and turning on the TV. He switched channels quickly, eyes flipping from one movie to the next, briefly pausing on a news segment before settling on a reality show.
I expected him to situate himself on the armchair away from me, stay true to the distance he’d been forcing between us since that horrible night.
It had been both a relief and a resentment, the distance.
As much as Beau was growing on me—by that I meant invading both my dreams and daily thoughts—it was too complicated.
I hadn’t even entirely extracted myself from Waylon yet.
And I hadn’t entirely forgiven Beau for his poor treatment of me.
I didn’t know why he treated me so poorly.
And I could never catch my breath around him, could never decide if he liked me, desired me, hated me.
My lesson should’ve been well and truly learned by now.
Then Beau sat at the end of the sofa, lifting up my legs and placing them in his lap. His fingers trailed across my sock-laden feet.
I couldn’t speak because I was too stricken by shock, by the unexpected pleasure of the contact. Beau’s large fingers deftly massaged my feet as his eyes trailed over the TV.
He was acting as if this were normal. As if we sat on the sofa every night touching like this. Casual and intimate at the same time.
I wanted to set boundaries. Wanted to protect myself. Demand answers as to the cause of his rapid change, his sudden attentiveness. But it felt too good. And I was tired, the painkillers still hadn’t kicked in.
Instead, I looked from the TV to Beau. “I didn’t take you as a Housewives kind of guy,” I remarked dryly.
“You like it,” was his response.
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“You watch it sometimes, after Clara goes to bed.”
I knew he watched me. But I’d been under the impression that it was to find things I was doing wrong. To ensure I was following his rules.
I’d never considered that he was watching me just to … watch me.
It was all too confusing for my throbbing head. So I didn’t say anything. I just watched grown women scream at each other in a restaurant on the TV while I got the best foot massage of my life.
Beau stayed to eat his cheeseburger. I informed him that removing his mask to eat defeated the purpose of his mask, and I again weakly tried to get him to leave.
He didn’t listen to me, merely told me that Elliot had just done a temperature check of Clara, and it was normal. She seemed well.
For the time being.
I couldn’t relax. At the back of my mind, terror lurked that she’d contract what I had, that she wouldn’t survive it, being taken from us all by an everyday flu.
The shadows in Beau’s gaze told me that his thoughts mirrored mine.
“You should go to her,” I attempted again as he cleared the plates, stacking them neatly on the room service tray.
“Clara,” I pressed. “She needs you. And I don’t want to get you sick.” The painkillers had kicked in, and the soup had been heavenly, so I felt slightly better.
Beau ignored me again. I was about to try to speak more forcefully, but then my stomach lurched, my mouth went dry, and I summoned the energy to leap off the sofa to run to the bathroom.
I made it to the toilet in time to empty my stomach. Thankfully, it was only the broth that came back up. But that was bad enough when I heard footfalls behind me, followed by running water.
Beau was there. In the bathroom. As I vomited.
There was a boundary that I was more than happy to hold.
“Go away,” I said into the toilet bowl. “This is where we part, Beau. Allow me some remaining dignity.”
Again, he didn’t speak. Instead, I heard more footsteps then felt a cool towel on the back of my neck. I couldn’t even argue; the sensation was so refreshing.
“Why are you here?” I moaned. “You hate me.”
The heaving had stopped, and I was reasonably sure I was done vomiting.
I tried to wipe my face, but Beau used a damp washcloth to do that for me. If I had enough energy to feel embarrassed, I would have. But all my strength was going to keeping my eyes open, keeping my heart beating, and keeping my brain circuits firing.
While trying to figure out how I was going to make it from the floor to the bed, I decided that the cold tile floor was as good a bed as any. I’d never stayed at a hotel this nice. The bathroom floor was probably more hygienic than the bedroom I grew up in.
Beau’s presence was a problem, of course. Now that he was being a caring human being to me, I doubted he’d leave me alone huddled on the floor.
Before I could try to form words, I was in the air.
Beau had scooped me up off the floor. I didn’t realize what was happening until we were halfway between the bathroom and the bedroom. It wasn’t an entirely short distance either since the size of the bathroom was as large as the trailer I was raised in.
Beau was carrying me. Like a bride over the threshold. Like I weighed nothing. And I didn’t. Even with what felt like thirty pounds of sweat that was attached to my skin.
“I think we can stop that farce now,” Beau grumbled, carefully setting me on the bed before fluffing pillows and fussing with the blanket.
“What farce?” I asked, taking the water he offered me on instinct.
“The one where you tell yourself that I don’t like you. The same thing I tell myself,” he replied quietly, brushing damp hair from my forehead.
I blinked rapidly to try to force details into sharp perspective. I couldn’t. My head had its own heartbeat. He was nothing but a large, fuzzy, attractive shape.
But his presence pulsed almost as violently as my headache.
“You’ve been telling yourself you hate me?” I asked, vowels melting together, voice slow and almost slurred.
My body was aching for rest, for the sweet welcome of unconsciousness. But I fought it.
“I’ve been telling myself that you don’t matter to me,” Beau corrected quietly.
I forced my eyes open, but Beau was just a blur. I felt the soft brush of a callused finger against my cheek. Or maybe I imagined that.
“Why?” I managed to ask, wondering if I was lapsing into a dream.
“Because otherwise, I’d have to face the truth.” Beau’s voice came from far away.
I fought against the pull of sleep, desperate to hear more from Beau. “What’s the truth?” I managed.
“That you…”
The rest of his response was swallowed by a dream.
Or maybe it had all been a dream.
When I woke, I was no longer burning with fever. My head still throbbed, my mouth full of cotton wool. I felt lousy, but not entirely terrible.
And I was wrapped in something warm, hard, lying on the hotel’s incredibly comfortable mattress.
I didn’t remember falling asleep.
But I did remember the muted rumble of his voice, recalled my body tensing in anticipation of hearing him tell me something. But whatever that something was had been buried by pills, a plugged head, and throwing up in front of Beau in the bathroom. Had he … carried me to the bed?
I hoped that I’d managed to brush my teeth but was unable to recall.
My throat ached with the need for hydration, and my bladder alerted me to my baser needs, but I didn’t move. I figured this was the only time in my life when I would be lying in bed, pressed up to Beau Shaw, his arm possessively thrown over my body.
I wanted to revel in it, just a little.
He was still wearing all of his clothes, on top of the covers while I was tangled up in them.
I was still wearing the sweats I’d changed into last night.
Nothing was untoward or remotely sexual about the situation.
There had been vomit involved last night.
I was covered in sweat and illness, meaning it had been impossible for anything sexual to occur.
But it had been intimate. The boundaries of our relationship had been decimated. When exactly did that happen? It hadn’t started last night, when he barged into the room. Was it when he rubbed my feet or held my hair back as I vomited?
Yes, that was when it became most devastatingly clear that the lines between us had been destroyed, that our relationship was nowhere near being strictly professional. Maybe it had never been.
“How are you feeling?”
Beau’s rumbly voice vibrated over my sensitive skin, his arm slowly moving from where it was draped across my body. He didn’t scurry away from me, didn’t turn cold or cruel. He simply stretched behind me, body still warm against mine for a handful of seconds.
He was acting as if this were normal. Or at least something he didn’t instantly regret upon waking.
When his heat left my body, I pushed myself up to rest my back against the headboard, feeling self-conscious. I stared at his long, muscled body. His bearded jaw, chocolate threaded with silver. His hair was rumpled with sleep, his cheeks flushed.
“You’re sleeping in bed with me,” I stated the obvious.
Beau pushed off the bed, separating us. I suppose that was prudent, but I was immensely disappointed at the loss of his nearness. I was coming to understand how starved I was for human contact. For comfort. For Beau.
Sure, the deep and dreamless sleep I’d enjoyed could’ve been down to pure exhaustion and some pharmaceutical help, but I had a sneaking suspicion the sense of safety came from Beau.
I hadn’t realized how much I craved affection. Contact. Him.
Beau cracked his neck. “You had a bad dream, and you requested, or, uh, demanded, my presence.” To my surprise, his voice was not distant. It was almost warm.
I rubbed my eyes, questioning whether my sleep really had been dreamless. Flashes of images were coming back to me.
I’d woken, reaching for the man who had been cradling my face as I slept. Yet he hadn’t been there. I’d been clutched with panic that I’d imagined him. That I’d imagined everything, and I was back in a lumpy bed in a cold trailer, about to wake up to a horrible man.
I’d called Beau’s name like a prayer.
One he’d answered.
Heat filled my cheeks at calling out to him like I was a helpless child.
“Sorry,” I quickly said, overcome with guilt. He’d spent years caring for a literally sick child. I’d turned him into a caretaker once more. “You didn’t have to.”
His canine snagged his plump bottom lip as he regarded me.
I wanted to squirm under his gaze—it was that probing.
Yet there was also a softness there, in the way he looked at me, his posture relaxed.
“You were sick and scared and asked for me, Hannah.” He shrugged, speaking quietly. “I did have to.”
I struggled to swallow, my thumping head battling for dominance against my thundering heart.
Beau walked around the bed to my side. I watched in silence as he grasped a bottle of water, shook two pills into his palm, then presented them to me.
I took them wordlessly, both because I needed them and because I didn’t have the words to try to explore this new territory. Nor did I have the strength.
“I’ll order you breakfast,” he informed me, watching me take the pills. “Any requests?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t have named a breakfast item right then if I tried. I barely remembered my own name.
Beau nodded and walked out of the room.
I sank my head back into the pillows, looking at the ceiling. I felt crummy, for sure, but nowhere near as bad as last night. Not the flu. Probably just a nasty cold.
Pulling back the covers, I placed my feet into slippers that were considerately positioned at the side of the bed. Had Beau put them there?
Smiling, I walked to the living room where I could hear Beau’s rumbling voice.
How could I feel terribly wretched and pleased at the same time?
I knew how…because I’d slept in bed with Beau Shaw’s arms around me last night.
Because Beau Shaw took care of me without hesitation.
Because, maybe, maybe I was going to get something sweet from him.
Maybe, just maybe, I’d get everything I ever dreamed of from him.
When I entered the living room, his back was turned to me, phone to his ear. My stomach pitched, seeing the tension in his shoulders that hadn’t been there moments ago.
“I’ll be right there.” His tone was curt. Cold once again.
He turned to me, and my smile froze on my face.
Because his face was painted with fear.
“Clara’s sick.”