Round Thirty-Six
ROSE
Is this what death feels like? Am I in hell?
I breathe through my mouth because my nose is blocked, and choke on a pained groan as it rolls along my aching throat and over a dirty, dry tongue.
Water.
I would do unspeakable things for a glass of water.
I close my mouth and attempt to swallow. Something. Anything. But as the taste of barf registers in my sluggish brain, I exhale again and whimper.
God. What did I do to deserve this?
My head pounds just as viciously as it did in the early days after I woke in the hospital, and even with my eyes closed, light spears in through my bedroom window and hammers against the side of my face.
Do I have a fresh new head injury? Did Barbara mow me down in the street?
“There’s water and ibuprofen on your bedside table.”
I startle and snort, jerking up to my elbows and swinging my barely-open eyes across to the door. I glare at Oliver effing Darling in all his perfect, showered, non-barfy glory, and when I draw my focus up to stop on his playful smirk, I drop to my belly and groan. “Go away.”
He chuckles and pushes away from the door frame, wandering across the room. “Not going away.”
“What’s that thing people sign?” I shakily grab my blankets and drag them up. Higher. If I wasn’t afraid of the stench of my own breath, I would pull them clear over my head. “The one where they don’t want to be saved.”
“A DNR?” He stops beside my bed and lowers into a crouch. “Do not resuscitate.”
“Yeah. That one.” I gulp the filthy flavor of vomit and phlegm. “You keep saving me, and every time you do, I wake up wishing you hadn’t. No more.” I moan. “I’m done.”
He presses his fingers to the side of my face, startling me so my entire body jerks. But then he strokes hair off my cheek, so my groan turns to a purr.
“First time wasn’t your fault. Second time was. You don’t know how to manage your alcohol, Rosaline?”
“I don’t know.” I scrub my palm over my face, huffing and nauseating myself. I can smell me. Which means he can definitely smell me. “I’m in my room.”
“I wasn’t leaving you at Tommy’s. Here.” He taps my cheek, smiling in my peripheral when I drag my eyelid open just a tiny fraction of an inch. “Water. Meds. It’ll make you feel better.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever feel better.” I roll to my side, peeling my sweaty, disgusting skin from the sheets.
Then I land on my back and clamp down on a fresh new surge of puke as it tickles the base of my throat.
Grunting, I look Ollie up and down, from his muscular forearm to his broad shoulders, visible even under a slate gray sweater.
He pinches pills between his fingers, while behind those, his obnoxiously sexy lips quirk into a taunting smirk.
“You put me in my room?”
“Yes. Because you would’ve slept in the snow if given half the chance. Focus.” He places the pills on my tongue and his hand behind my back, then he helps me lift and holds the water while I sip.
Swallow.
Choke.
Sip some more.
“They go down?”
I close my eyes. My mouth. If I could manage it, I would close the valves feeding my heart with blood, and if I could be sure it wouldn’t hurt, I’d simply wait for death to find me.
“Rose?”
“Yes.” I lay down again and turn to my side, hugging my pillow the way I hugged him yesterday. And because it’s a stupid pillow, I harrumph. “Guess you’re embarrassed, huh?”
“Me?” He sets the glass back on my bedside table and rests with his elbows on my mattress. “No, I’m good. I wasn’t the one duking it out with a child last night.”
“I…” Stunned, I peel my eyes wider and search his dancing gaze. Then I scowl and close them again. “You’re punishing me for making an idiot of myself.”
“Punishing you how?” He trails his fingertips through my hair. “By giving you water and medicine to help you feel better?”
“You’re mad! Because I was drunk and stupid, and you couldn’t bear to even look at me anymore. Yesterday, we were… you and I… we…” My brain is too slow, and with every thought I try to think, my headache pounds more savage in the back of my skull. “You liked me! But now you don’t.”
“Says who?”
“Says you! You put me in my bed and walked away.”
“Wait. You’re mad because I…”
In the silence, I peel my eyes open.
“Put you to bed?”
“I’m not mad. You’re mad.”
“And you’re so hungover, it’s affecting an intelligent woman’s ability to use her brain.
I’m not mad, Rose. Why the hell would I be?
I mean…” Finally, his perfect mask of calm kindness slips.
They always do. “Except for the fact that I was fucking terrified when I couldn’t find you.
But I figure that’s a different conversation for a different time. ”
“You put me in my bed.” I flop onto my back—ouch—and then I push up and shuffle along the mattress to lean against the wall. “Alone. It’s punishment for what I did.”
“You think I—I—” He sputters. Finally! “You were unconscious and sick, Rose!”
“Which is why you’re mad.”
“I’m not mad!”
“So why didn’t you bring me to your bed? Yesterday, before I was bad, you would have. You seemed to like me enough to—”
“Oh, sweet summer child.” He surges up and sits on the mattress beside my thigh. “You think I would punish you because you had fun with my friends? And you think punishment is not bringing you to my bed when you were clearly fucking incapable of consenting to that?”
“You…” My brain hurts. My eyes hurt. My life hurts. “What?”
“We’ve never spent the night in my bed, Rose, and me being in yours is new. You were unconscious when I brought you home, and sick to your stomach every time you started to wake up again.”
“So you left me?” My lips drop forward into a pathetic pout, trembling because I’m an idiot. “That feels like punishment.”
“Aw.” Chuckling, he leans forward and lays a soft, dry kiss on my lips.
“You get sulky when you’re hungover, huh?
I wanted to take you to my bed so we’d have room to stretch out, but if you woke up in an unfamiliar place and panicked, I would’ve felt like a dick.
I wanted to crawl into this bed with you, but it’s small, and our Titanic theory won’t work, since I don’t fuck unconscious, non-consenting women. ”
He said fuck.
Warmth fills my cheeks and sends tingles into my belly.
“But no matter where I sleep, or where you sleep…” He cups my face, tilting my head back and forcing me to meet his eyes.
“I’m not in the habit of punishing women.
Ever. You’re grown and beautiful and smart and living your own life.
If you want to get drunk in the middle of the day, then that’s your prerogative.
I still like you, Rose. So fucking much that I didn’t sleep in my bed last night either. ”
My jaw wobbles. I’m such a baby! “You didn’t?”
“I slept in here.” He looks to the floor.
“Close enough, I could still be with you, but not so close you’d feel smothered if you woke in the middle of the night.
Now it’s…” He glances across the room and snickers.
“Nearly ten o’clock, and my body is accustomed to waking at stupid o’clock.
Believe it or not, but you were asleep by seven, which means I got a full twelve hours and still had time to get up and have a shower, and forage for meds.
And call Tommy’s place to check in on my sisters.
And call Janine, because she was worried about you last night, too. ”
“Janine?”
“Which brings me to the one and only thing I was mad about last night.” He drags my blankets down my legs, with slow movements and a soft smile, then he takes my hands and carefully tugs me out of bed.
He wraps one arm across my back, anchoring his hand to my hip and pulling me in close to support most of my weight.
Then he leads me across the room, through the door, and into the hall where the air is clean.
Oh God. How humiliating.
“I got home last night after work and you weren’t here.”
I gulp. Groan. Whimper. “Which made you angry.”
“Scared the piss out of me.” He leads me into the kitchen and all the way across to my stool. Helping me sit, he moves to the other side and rests on his elbows, forcing his bright blue stare into my line of sight. “Scared me more than I’ve ever been scared before in my life.”
“I’m sorry—”
“You don’t have to be sorry,” he sighs. “You did nothing wrong. You don’t need my permission to go places, Rose.
You don’t need my blessing to hang out with friends or wander into town or get stupid drunk on a workday—although the latter, on a consistent basis, would be something I, as your treating physician, would advise against.” His lips curl gently up on one side.
But his joke falls flat when his smile fails to reach his eyes.
“You’re supposed to just be a guest. I’d convinced myself I was helping you out until you’d decided on your next steps.
That staying here was a temporary stop before whatever comes after.
But when I got home and you weren’t here, I was scared.
Terrified to my fucking bones.” He lays his hand over mine, squeezing tight.
“When I couldn’t find you, all I knew in my head and my heart was that you’re not just a guest, and I’m not ready for you to go.
More importantly, I didn’t know if you were okay, and that…
” He shakes his head. “That terrified me.” He reaches across the counter and places his hand on a small white box.
“I didn’t know where you were or if you were hurt.
But I knew you had no way of calling me for help.
You had no map to get home and no money to buy food while you were out.
If you were injured, you couldn’t contact me.
If someone was harassing you, you had no plan for a safe exit. ”