14. Harry
— ? —
Harry
The cast has been swapped for a walking boot.
I’ve spent two weeks watching Jules struggle through physical therapy, and two weeks biting my tongue while she snaps at me for hovering.
I’ve spent fourteen nights in the armchair outside her open door, because she can’t sleep with it closed anymore and I need to be close enough to hear if she has a nightmare.
Her ribs have stopped hurting when she laughs, not that she laughs at anything I say.
She video calls her mother and her sister most evenings with the guest room door open. She tells them she’s fine, and I don’t think any of us believe her.
Her hands have healed. The bandages are gone, replaced by fading pink scars that she rubs absently when she’s thinking. She’s on crutches now, moving through the house with grim determination and refusing help unless she absolutely has to accept it.
This morning, I hand the biggest deal on my desk to my number two.
“You’re sure about this?” he asks on the phone. “You’ve been working on this one for most of a year.”
“I’m sure.”
“People are going to have questions.”
“Then answer them. Tell them I have a family emergency and I’m stepping back until further notice.”
There’s a long pause. Telling him to handle the fallout from the fire was one thing. Handing him a deal I built myself, for good, is another, and we both know it. I have never trusted anyone else to close for me.
“Yes, sir,” he says after a second. “I’ll handle it.”
I hang up, set the phone down on my desk and turn around.
Jules is standing in the study doorway, leaning on her crutches, and I can’t read her face.
“Was that the deal you’ve been chasing since last year?” she asks.
“Yes.”
“The overseas one.”
“Yes.”
“You gave it away.”
“I handed it off.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not the same thing. He’ll close it. The company won’t lose anything.”
“Except your fingerprints.”
I don’t respond, because she’s right. That deal was most of a year of work, two hundred meetings and fourteen trips overseas, and all of it now belongs to someone else.
She knows what this costs me. I can see it in her eyes, the recognition of what I’ve just done.
“Why?” she asks.
“Because I need to be here.”
“I have a physical therapist. I have everything I need.”
“I know what you have. I’m still staying.”
She studies me. I wait for her to say one word about it, and she doesn’t.
“Soren will be here in ten minutes,” she says.
She turns and starts down the hallway toward the rehab room. Her crutches click against the hardwood floor, slow and deliberate. She doesn’t stumble and she doesn’t look back, and I don’t offer to help.
I watch her until she disappears around the corner.
Every instinct I have tells me to call him back and take the deal out of his hands. Control is the only thing that has ever made me feel safe, and I just gave a piece of it away.
It should feel like a loss. It feels like putting down a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying.
Then there’s Soren.
Soren is the physical therapist I hired, the best in the city according to every recommendation I received. He’s tall and blond and built like a swimmer, with a warm smile and an easy manner that makes everyone like him immediately.
He is also very hands on with my wife’s leg.
I’m standing in the doorway of the rehab room, watching him guide Jules through a series of stretches. One of his hands is on her thigh, adjusting her position, and the other is on her hip, steadying her balance.
“That’s excellent,” he says. “Your mobility is improving faster than I expected. Let’s try that one more time.”
Jules nods and repeats the stretch. Soren keeps his hand on her thigh.
“Is that strictly necessary?” I ask.
They both look at me, Jules with irritation and Soren with professional patience.
“Proper form is essential for recovery,” Soren says. “I need to make sure she’s engaging the right muscle groups.”
“And you need to touch her thigh to do that.”
“Harry.” Jules’ voice is sharp. “Go find a meeting to sit in.”
“I don’t have any meetings today.”
“Then find another hobby. You’re distracting.”
“I’m concerned.”
“You’re hovering again.”
“I’m still observing.”
“You’re jealous.”
The word sits there between us. Jules’ eyes widen slightly, as if she didn’t mean to say it out loud. Then her expression hardens, and I can see her decide that she meant every syllable.
Soren clears his throat. “Maybe I should…”
“No.” Jules turns back to him. “Let’s keep going. He can watch if he wants. It doesn’t bother me.”
It bothers her. I can see it in the set of her shoulders and the way she’s deliberately not looking at me.
But she’s also enjoying this. She’s enjoying watching me squirm while another man puts his hands on her, after two years of watching me make excuses for Avery.
This is what it feels like.
This is what I put her through. I made her watch someone else take up space next to her husband, and I made her feel helpless and angry and slightly crazy, and now I know I have no right to complain, because I did exactly the same thing to her.
I watch the rest of the session in silence.
When it’s over, Soren packs up his equipment and heads for the door.
“Same time tomorrow?” he asks Jules.
“Same time tomorrow.”
He nods at me as he passes, and I nod back.
“So,” Jules says when he’s gone. “How does it feel?”
“Awful.”
She blinks. Whatever response she was expecting, that wasn’t it.
“It feels awful,” I continue. “Watching him touch you. Watching you smile at him. Wondering if there’s more to it than I know about, and knowing I have no right to ask, because I did the same thing to you for two years.” I pause. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
She takes her time.
“Yes,” she says finally. “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear.”
She reaches for her crutches and starts moving toward the door, and I don’t try to help her.
“I want a bath tonight,” she says. “I’ll need help getting in and out with the boot off.”
***
The bathroom fills with steam as the tub fills with water.
Jules is sitting on the closed toilet lid with her bare foot propped on a step stool and her crutches leaning against the wall. She’s wearing a robe, and underneath the robe she’s wearing nothing at all.
“I’m going to need you to help me undress,” she says.
I don’t trust my voice, so I just nod.
I move toward her and reach for the belt of her robe. My fingers brush her waist as I untie it, and I feel her breath catch. The robe falls open, and I force myself to keep my eyes on her face as I slide it off her shoulders.
She’s naked underneath. She’s paler and thinner than she was a month ago, with the last of the bruises still fading on her ribs and the pink scars of healed burns on her palms.
I have never wanted anything the way I want her right now.
“Help me up,” she says.
I slide one arm under her knees, careful of her leg, and the other around her back. I lift her from the toilet lid and carry her the two steps to the bathtub.
“Slowly,” she says.
I lower her into the water as carefully as I can. She hisses as the heat hits her skin, and then she settles back against the porcelain with a sigh.
Her injured leg rests on the edge of the tub, propped on a folded towel. The rest of her is submerged up to her shoulders, with her hair piled on top of her head and her eyes closed.
I should leave. I should wait in the hallway until she calls for me.
I sit down on the closed toilet lid, exactly where she was sitting a moment ago.
“You’re staying,” she says without opening her eyes.
“You’ll need help getting out.”
“I could call for you.”
“I’m already here.”
“I’m not going to drown in my own bathtub, Harry.”
“People drown in bathtubs all the time.”
“People don’t have their overbearing husbands sitting three feet away monitoring their every breath.”
“I’m not overbearing.”
“You’re literally watching me take a bath.”
She opens her eyes and looks at me. The steam has made her skin flushed and pink, and there are water droplets on her collarbone, and I want to lean over and lick them off so badly my hands are shaking.
“You’ve got that look,” she says.
“I know.”
“Stop it.”
“I can’t.”
“Harry.”
I force myself to look at the wall. “I’m sorry. You’re right there, and you’re…” I stop myself.
“I’m what?”
“Beautiful. You’re so fucking beautiful, Jules, and I haven’t touched you in weeks, and I know I have no right to want you, but I do. I want you so much I can barely breathe.”
She doesn’t say anything for a while.
“You’re the man who ignored me for two years,” she says. “You don’t get to look at me like that just because I’m stuck here.”
I keep my eyes on the wall after that. I listen to the water move when she moves, and that’s almost worse.
“The water’s getting cold,” she says eventually. “I need to get out.”
I drain the tub and help her sit up. Then I reach for the towel and hold it open.
“Ready?”
She nods.
I slide my arms under her and lift her out of the tub in one smooth motion. She’s wet and warm and naked in my arms, and I’m acutely aware of every place where her skin touches me.
I set her on her good foot, keeping one arm around her waist to steady her, and wrap the towel around her shoulders with my other hand.
We’re standing face to face now. Her hands are on my chest for balance, my arm is around her waist, and our faces are inches apart.
I lean in.
She puts her hand on my mouth.
“No,” she says.
I stop where I am.
“You don’t get to touch me because I can’t get out of this tub without you,” she says. “You don’t get to want me because I’m convenient. You don’t get to pretend we’re okay because you’re the one holding me up.”
I step back as far as I can without letting her fall, and I hand her the crutches.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be sorry. Just don’t do it again.”
She makes her way out of the bathroom without looking back.
I stand there for a long moment, staring at the empty tub.
Then I go upstairs to my own bathroom and turn the shower to cold. I stand under it with my forehead against the tile and my hand wrapped around my cock and her name in my mouth, and I hate myself for every second of it.
She’s right. I don’t have any right to want her.
I want her anyway.
***
The armchair outside her door is not comfortable.
I’ve been sitting in it every night since she came home from the hospital. My back aches, my neck is stiff, and the cushion has worn flat under my weight. I don’t care.
I can hear her through the open door. I hear the rustle of sheets as she turns over and the creak of the mattress as she shifts. I hear the click of the lamp turning on, and then off, and then on again.
She’s not sleeping. She hasn’t slept well since the fire. Every night I sit here and listen to her not sleeping, and I don’t go in, because she hasn’t asked.
The lamp clicks off again, and the sheets rustle.
I hear her sigh, a small frustrated sound that makes my chest ache.
I could go in. I could offer to sit with her, or talk, or do anything she needs. But she made the rules clear. I stay out here unless she wants me in there, and I don’t push and I don’t assume.
So I sit in the dark and listen to her breathe, and I wait.
The clock on the wall ticks, and the minutes pass, and it’s 3 a.m. when her voice comes through the open door.
“Just come in here.”
I freeze.
“I know you’re out there,” she says. “I can hear you breathing. Just come in.”