Chapter 7 Role Model
ROLE MODEL
“Are you sure you don’t mind doing this?”
They were in the basement where Rowan remembered there were Christmas decorations.
“Not at all,” he said. “This is my first Christmas not home or with my family. Maybe it will help some to have a tree up.”
Saylor thought that was a sweet comment. But she was learning there was a lot sweet and considerate about Rowan.
There were many complex layers to the man that was making her blood churn.
It was a nice distraction from the physical attraction that she was begging herself to ignore.
“Can I ask why there are decorations here? You said you always go home for Christmas.”
“Not always,” he said. “The first year West bought this place he wanted to have Christmas here so we were around snow. I might have been in college. Maybe twenty, no older than that. We all flew in and West had the decorations bought and delivered and we set it up as if we were home. It was nice.”
“You only did it once?” she asked.
“Twice. For two years in a row, but my mother said it was way too much work. She loved the holidays and decorating the house we had at that point. West put the decorations in storage. I think maybe he thought we’d do it again. Or now that he has a family, he might want to.”
Rowan pulled out the box the Christmas tree was in. She wished he had a T-shirt on so she could admire his muscles. She was positive he had some under there.
He wasn’t a big guy. Not like a bodybuilder she imagined there were plenty of on the beaches, but he was tall.
Being a surfer, he most likely swam well. She’d bet he wasn’t a gym rat type of guy when it came to working out.
“What do you want me to carry?”
He looked as if he was going to hesitate and then nodded. “That tub there is full of ornaments if you can get it. I don’t think it’s too heavy.”
She moved over and lifted the tub, her arms spread wide. It wasn’t heavy, just bulky. She got it up the stairs behind Rowan with the tree.
“Is there anything else?” she asked.
“There are more decorations down there, but unless you want to go nuts, the tree is fine.”
“No. I think the tree is enough.” He pulled half of it out of the box. “It’s got lights on it already.”
“It does. Hopefully, they still work.”
“It will still be great even if they don’t,” she said, taking the top off the container and sorting the ornaments.
There were glass and wooden ones, some funny, some pretty. A delicate blend that gave it a homey feel. Nothing that was homemade by kids over the years, but rather store bought by a son who wanted to create fresh memories.
Once Rowan assembled the tree, he held out the plug, as if displaying a prize. “Cross your fingers.”
He plugged it in and the white lights flickered to life. “It works,” she said excitedly.
“It does,” he said. “Now we can decorate it.”
“You’re going to have to do the ones up high,” she said. “Unless you’ve got a ladder.”
“I’m sure there is one somewhere,” he said. “There is everything else in this place.”
“I noticed that.”
They’d even opened a bottle of wine that had been in a fridge under the island.
One glass wouldn’t hurt. Nor the Christmas music he’d found on the TV that was playing.
She picked her wine up and took a sip. Whatever she was drinking was better than anything else that touched her lips from a bottle.
She closed her eyes and let out a little sigh.
“Are you trying to torture me?”
She snapped her lids open. “What?”
“What was it you said earlier? You look in a mirror, you know what you see. Or others see. Then add your closed eyes, your lips pursed, and that moan. Jesus.” He was fanning his face comically.
Talk about mortification. “Sorry. No one ever said they see what you’re saying you are.”
“Then they are blind,” he said.
He moved past her and picked up a few ornaments at random and was placing them over his head.
She had a few in her hands, skirting around and under him.
The scent coming off his body had her lady parts twitching.
She hoped it was only because they hadn’t seen action in so long.
Good lord, she’d never felt like this around a man before who she’d just met.
“I’m not so sure being blind is part of it. Maybe they noticed me right away but most times they couldn’t handle other things.”
“Please don’t say your diabetes,” he said. “Because that is nothing. Do you know how many people have it now? Once I knew Damon and what he wore or I saw, it’s easy to spot it on other people.”
“Last I looked, between five and ten percent of the population in the US has type 1 diabetes. It’s a big number. It’s growing more and more each year, which is sad. Wish there was a cure. Maybe someday, but for now it’s manageable if you take the time to learn and care for yourself.”
Not something she’d always done in the past, but she’d never fall into that trap again.
“You’re an excellent role model for people.”
She laughed and moved away to get more ornaments and breathe some air that wasn’t radiating off of Rowan.
“Maybe I am now, but I wasn’t when I was younger.”
“How old were you and how did you find out? Or would you rather not talk about it?”
No guy she’d ever been with before was interested.
Not that she was with Rowan.
He was nice and helping her out so she didn’t have to sit in an airport for days to wait out the storm.
“I was thirteen. I wouldn’t say I was overweight, but I wasn’t skinny.
That age where your body is changing and the rest of you hasn’t caught up yet.
I was sick. I thought I had the flu, but it wasn’t going away completely.
I’d lost around ten pounds in a week. One minute I wanted to sleep, the next I had a ton of energy.
I couldn’t stop drinking and then peeing. ”
Common symptoms her parents never thought much of.
“That had to be confusing.”
“It was. One day I just couldn’t get up off the couch.
My mother is yelling at me to stand. My sister is screaming at me to stop being a baby and wanting attention, but I could barely focus on anything.
I might have been slurring my words or something.
I don’t know, but my mother was terrified and she called an ambulance. ”
“That’s horrible,” he said. “Was your sugar really low?”
She snorted. “No. My body stopped producing insulin days before. Maybe weeks. Hard to say. There is always some little left in you, but I was in ketoacidosis. My body turned all the sugar and food I consumed into acid because it couldn’t process it, and this acid was destroying my fat.
I was damn near close to a coma. Another day and I would have died. ”
He stopped to stare at her, his eyes almost glossy.
She would always remember those words that the doctor told her parents. Her father breaking down in sobs, her mother needing to sit before she passed out.
They cared for her. She knew it. They loved her too.
But life got in the way, as they were hands-off parents because of their jobs and her sister’s constant explosive behavior.
Before she knew what Rowan was going to do, she found herself in his arms and he was hugging her.
“I can’t even imagine being thirteen and going through any of that.”
She lifted her arms and put them around his body and held on for comfort.
Comfort she would have welcomed thirteen years ago from any of her friends.
“It wasn’t easy. I was in the hospital for four days and then you have to learn how to take care of yourself.
Counting carbs, insulin doses, what to do when you’re more active, sick, hormones.
You name it, it changes the way your body absorbs insulin.
I gave myself insulin shots multiple times a day for six months before I started to use a pump. ”
“Something tells me it wasn’t an easy few years.”
She slipped out of his arms, afraid that if she stayed any longer, the tears would come.
“No. My mother struggled to grasp it all while working so much and caring for me and my sister. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to care or want to figure it out. I was in the hospital a few more times because I didn’t take care of myself.
The last time I was seventeen. A few weeks before the summer of my senior year.
I said no more. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to worry about slowly killing my organs. ”
Her mother kept telling her she was old enough to do it on her own.
How do you just do that and assume a teenager was going to make the right choices that could cost them their life when half her friends were rebelling and getting a drink on the weekends?
“What did you do?” he asked.
“My grandmother asked me to live with her that summer. She talked to my doctor’s office, learned everything she needed to, and together, we figured out what worked best for me. She taught me to cook healthy food and make good choices. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know.”
“And that’s why you became a nurse?” he asked.
“Pretty much. I figured I knew so much health information already, that I was one step ahead of the game. So there you go.”
She put her head down and went back to decorating the tree.
There was some silence, then he said, “I’m sorry if I embarrassed you just now. I’m the one in the family that does or says what I’m feeling. Not always smart.”
She turned to see him smiling. “It’s fine. I bet you didn’t always do nice things.”
“Oh God, no. Elias and I are closer in age, but not temperament. I mean, he’s patient as all hell, so it was hard to get under his skin. Foster, he could get his buttons pushed so I normally went after him or Nelson picking and prodding. I’d say I got in trouble the most in the family.”
“Because you wanted to be,” she reminded him.
“Shhhh, that’s my secret. No one knows that but you.”
The grin on his face made her match it, but she wondered why he’d shared that information with her.