Chapter 19
Nineteen
I mention living with my grandmother and he doesn’t have a comment.
I thought he’d ask. I thought knowing that I live with Grammy might scare him and he’d bolt.
Not that I’m opposed to company. It’s been an even more lonely few days without my books, but I kind of thought mentioning my elderly roommate would be a see-you-later situation.
But he doesn’t seem to care. He’s not even curious. He just enters my sick-infested apartment like I’ve said nothing.
I don’t know if it’s the flu meds or my strange curiosity, but I decide to test the topic.
“I love living with my grandma. She’s seventy-eight—” I wrinkle my swollen nose and hold up one finger.
“Err, no, eighty-four. She’s eighty-four and a spitfire.
” If I didn’t feel so miserable, I would care more that my place is a mess and I’m in Winnie the Pooh pjs.
“That’s nice,” he says, his tone sincere.
I tilt my aching head to the side. “I realize I’m… twenty-six. And that living with your grandmother might be seen as pathetic.”
“Why?” Zev asks, soup and book in hand, waiting just over the threshold of my entrance. I guess he’s waiting for me to lead him farther inside. I am pretty curious about that book… “She needs a place to live, so do you. I imagine you’re a great help to her.”
I’ve only thought of Gram being a help to me. But I think he’s right. She misses Gramps. So do I. And all that missing feels a little more bearable when we’re together.
“You should sit,” he says, another hint that we’re still in the entry.
“Right.” My nasally tone comes out not nearly as tired as I feel.
“This way.” I lead him into our small living room.
The one I’ve been using as a catch-all this week.
Piles of clean laundry are mounded on the couch, and the coffee table is simply a surface for my dirty dishes and tissues. I sigh. “Sorry.”
“You’re sick and I came uninvited. If anyone should apologize, it’s me.”
Exhaling, I lift my hand to my aching head. “That’s true.”
“Here,” he says, scooping up all of my laundry and tossing it into Gramp’s old recliner chair. “Lie down. I’ll warm up the soup.”
“That’s clean,” I tell him. “I just haven’t felt up to folding it.”
“Completely understandable,” angelic Zev, with the boulders for shoulders, says.
I slump onto the couch. “You’re way too nice. You know?”
“Nah. I’m nice to nice people. That’s all.”
Yawning, I close my eyes and tip over until my head rests against the arm of the couch. “That’s doubtful. You’re like Fran. People like you and Fran are nice to everyone. Even people who don’t deserve it.”
“Well,” he says, and suddenly his hand is slipping beneath my head.
I open my eyes with his touch and peer up into his icy blue eyes.
“I guess I’m lucky that you’re someone who deserves it.
” He lifts my head, then slides a decorative pillow I’d tossed on the floor beneath me.
I blink and he’s at my feet, lifting them up onto the couch. “Rest. I’ll be back.”
Zev has apparently found my kitchen. I can hear him rustling and searching around. But I can’t be bothered to worry about it or open my eyes just yet.
I’m not sure how long I keep my eyes closed. I don’t remember falling asleep, but then… I open them and there’s soup on one end of my now-clean coffee table and piles of folded clothes on the other end.
My head is fuzzy, and it takes me a minute to decide that I should probably complain about this. “You folded my clothes,” I say, pushing myself up until I’m resting on my elbow.
“I did.” He’s sitting in Gramp’s now-uncluttered recliner.
I adjust a little more and I’m all the way up. Officially sitting. “There could have been underwear in there.”
Zev lifts one brow. “Unfortunately, no—maybe next time.”
I snort. It’s not pretty with my nose stuffed and phlegm taking up space in my throat and chest. It’s difficult to stay mad at my very, very new friend when he talks like that.
“Your soup might need to be reheated. But it’s almost two, which means Parents’ Pick reruns will be on soon.”
I jerk, just a little, but it hurts my head just the same. Fran got me hooked on that old reality TV show. We watch rerun after rerun of parents setting their adult children up on blind dates. It’s hilarious. It’s also my guilty pleasure and not something I admit to watching freely.
I scoff. “You watch that junk?”
His cheeks go pink. I think I’ve embarrassed him. “Sometimes.”
“Well, my head hurts. And the lights from the TV only make it worse. So, thanks, but no reality TV for me today.”
“Do you want your book?” He lifts the book he brought from the coffee table.
“No, reading hurts, too. I am a hot mess express, Zevulun Hayes. Are you sure you want to be here?”
“Not feeling well and a hot mess are not the same. And—” His brow cinches. “I’m sorry. You must be bored. I could read to you.” He holds up the book he brought. “While you eat, I mean. I’m sure you want to rest.”
I do. I need to. But all I’ve done is rest. I wouldn’t mind Zev reading to me. In fact, I stare over at him—tall, broad, and muscular reading to me might be one of my personal fantasies. Sure, in that fantasy, Pooh Bear isn’t adorning my body, and there’s a whole lot less mucus involved. But still…
I clear my throat and hold back a cough. “I’m sure you have better things to do.”
Zev gives me the smallest of half grins. “Why is it so difficult to say yes?”
I swallow, caught, then hold a hand to my pained throat. “I don’t know.” Sighing, I lean back into the couch cushion, letting it swallow me up. I shut my eyes. “Fine. Yes, Mr. Hayes. That would be lovely. Feed me. Read to me. Make me feel like a human again.”
“Happy to.”
And that’s exactly what he does. He brings me seconds on the soup and grape juice—my favorite—and he starts from the beginning. I feel a little like the kid from The Princess Bride. Fran loves that movie. Maybe when I agreed, he should have said, “As you wish.”
“What’s this called again?” I ask, interrupting before Zev can begin chapter two.
He looks up from his young adult novel. “She Counted The Stars.”
“A true story?”
“It’s based on real events of German youth during World War Two, but this girl is fictional.”
“What’s with you and all the war books?” With my stomach full and my head soothed for the first time in days, I lie on my side, taking in each and every one of Zev’s words. The cadence of his deep voice is nice, too.
“I read a lot of books. Not all are war books.”
“The last two have been.”
“I read this a year ago,” he says. “I brought it for you.”
“And you read romance?”
“Sometimes,” he says. “When… encouraged.”
I smirk. “Right. The friend who encourages you.”
He clears his throat. “Yeah.” The word is somber, and it prompts me to open my eyes.
“Girlfriend?” I peek at him.
His jaw flexes. It’s so slight, but I see it. “Previous girlfriend.”
“Ah. An ex.”
He blanches at the word.
“You still love her,” I say—it’s not a question. Clearly, he does.
“Yes,” he whispers.
“She ended it?”
His gaze falls from mine. “It’s complicated.”
I raise my head, propping it up with my hand. “I understand that better than you realize. I still have feelings for my ex, too.” I swallow. “And it’s also complicated.”
“He left you?” he says, eyes glued to my face.
Oof. That hurts. So blunt, Zev Hayes. “I guess. I—it’s a weird situation.” I don’t say that I don’t remember—because, well, that’s just insane—and I don’t say all the awful things Gram and Fran said about Robert. I can’t. I don’t know that Robert. “But yeah. I guess he did.”
“Then he must be certifiably insane.”
He’s so serious it makes me laugh—which makes my head hurt again. I hold a hand to my temple and moan. “Ugh.”
“Is it time for more medicine?”
But I ignore the question. “You hardly know me, Zevulun Hayes. But you’re calling Robert crazy?”
He pulls in a breath through his nose. “I am. Because if he left you, then it’s true.”
“Maybe I was awful,” I say, my heart thudding in my ears.
“You weren’t,” he says. “You couldn’t be.”
I let a false laugh chortle through my lips. “Because I am so irresistible.” I motion to my pjs and the used tissues I stacked in my lap as he read to me.
“I’m getting you some cold meds.”
I sigh. “The skinny cupboard on the very left. I’m taking the sinus meds in the blue box.” I shut my eyes again; they twinge with pain as I’ve raised my voice to call to him in the kitchen.
But then suddenly, Zev’s hand is on my forehead, feeling for a fever.
I blink my eyes open and peer up at him.
His blue eyes are steady on my head, his lips in a serious flat line.
“You’re warm.” His eyes roam over mine, then drop to my lips, and with his face just inches away, I pull in a shuddering breath.
“Why would anyone leave you?” I whisper, peering up at beautiful Zev.
“I never said she left.”
My breath hitches. Oh my gosh. She’s dead. Zev’s girlfriend is dead and I’m talking about her like she’s some skank who broke his heart.
“Rose, would you like to spend the fourth with me?”
A holiday? With Zev?
“I—” I shut my eyes as my head pounds. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“I understand,” he says. And when I open my eyes, that angelic man smiles at me.
It’s a sad gesture, but still a smile. “Here’s your sinus meds.
” Zev’s hand might be twice the size of mine.
That, or I’m not seeing clearly. But that’s my thoughts as he drops two pills into my hand, then covers my open palm with his.
Pins and pricks make their way from my fingers to my wrist, to my elbow.
I sigh. “Maybe you could read again?”
“Happy to,” he says, and I am convinced that Zevulun Hayes is no different than Wesley from The Princess Bride, only he has a different tag line.