Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86828 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)
She squeals in frustration before she knocks me on my ass for the second time in under twenty-four hours.
Figuratively.
The door handle whacks into the wall next to the toilet half a second before the shower curtain is fully pulled across the tub. She attempts to hoist me out of it like I don’t weigh more than double her tiny frame. I say attempts because she can barely lift me.
“Please.” One word shouldn’t emit so much panic. However, hers is brimming with it.
I learn why when she murmurs, “I licked my thumb after repacking your dinner.” She sobs out a groan. “It’s hot. Really, really hot.” She isn’t talking about her tastebuds. She’s clutching her ass cheeks together too firmly for me to believe the burn has to do with anything but her intestines. “I need to go, like, now!”
When her stomach’s gurgle represents the deadly roll of an alligator in shallow waters, I leap out of the tub and charge for the exit.
The door can’t close since she warped the hinges when she kicked it open, but a steel vault couldn’t conceal the horrific noises that left her bathroom over the past eight hours. She is aware of the little privacy its closure will offer, so she doesn’t wait for it to occur before yanking her micro cotton shorts to her knees and plopping her backside onto the toilet.
“Do you want—”
“Just go… please.” A brutal gag breaks up her reply.
“All right.”
I don’t know why I am feeling guilty. This is her doing. She brought this travesty into her home. It just can’t be helped.
“There are supplies next to the tub.” I walk away before turning back around. “And the coolness of the steel does wonders for body aches. Once you’re no longer worried about vomiting and shitting at the same time, climb into the tub for a couple of hours.”
She stammers a shaky “Okay” before her stomach empties in one quick bowel motion.
8
CHRISTIAN
My eyes pop up from my phone when a creak sounds through my ears. It isn’t the warped hinges on the bathroom door. It is the groan of a woman confident she is on the verge of death.
Angel looks exhausted, and in under a second, it drags up memories of how unwell my mother was after her chemotherapy treatments.
“Bed. I need my bed.”
Although I should relish her getting her just desserts, I’m not a man who can miss a white flag being waved. She’s been punished enough. The groans that vibrated through the air vents of the apartment announce this without fault.
With Angel’s legs too weak to match mine stride for stride, I meet her at the bathroom door before scooping her into my arms. Her failure to protest that she can walk announces how unwell she feels, much less the clamminess of her skin when I pull her in close to my naked torso.
I’m still running a fever, so I skipped the heaviness of the suit combination I was wearing earlier and opted for sleeping pants instead.
I notice a droplet of sweat beading on Angel’s temple before asking, “Are you sure you only licked your thumb? You’re still burning up.”
I brush away the bead as she slowly stammers, “Food intolerance. Sesame. Seeds.”
“You have an intolerance to sesame seeds?” When she nods, I shout, “Then why the fuck did you bring them into your home?”
The bean dish I selected was coated in sesame seeds. I felt every pesky bump of their exit from my body since they were the only substance not in a liquid form.
“Not. Just. For me.” Her eyelids droop as she struggles to lift her eyes to my face. “This. Is. Their home too.”
Curiosity echoes in my tone. “Whose home?”
Before Angel answers me, her head bobs off my chest. She takes in the massive four-poster bed and floral bedspread before burying her head back between my pecs.
“Not. This. Room.” She waves her arm behind us, its flap barely the flutter of a fly’s wing. “Room. Next. To bathroom.”
“You don’t sleep in the primary suite?” I ask while twirling back around and heading in the direction we just came from.
As we enter the secondary bedroom next to the bathroom, she answers, “No.”
“Why not?”
I walk faster when she murmurs, “Hurts.”
I have a feeling not all of her reply centers on karma. The way she clutched her chest before speaking her one-worded reply makes it seem more like an emotional pain than a physical one.
While balancing her on one hand, I tug down the bedding on a double bed. It looks as unused as the king-size bed in the primary suite. Even the pillows appear untouched.
Like a stack of bricks falling down on me, the truth hits me when I place her onto the unwrinkled sheet.
She was the shadow under the bathroom door lip all night. I thought it was the base of the large hallway table outside the bathroom, but now that I am more lucid, I remember how it shifted a second after the DoorDash driver rang the doorbell.