I shook my head at her. “Listen to me, you are not dying. Okay? And it’s normal for you to be afraid of that. Especially after losing Melanie. But that’s not what that is.”
Her eyes searched mine. “And what if it is?”
I gazed back at her steadily. “It’s not. And if you’re that worried, let’s go have it looked at—”
She shook her head quickly.
I could see the fear in her eyes.
I couldn’t imagine what it must have been like to watch her sister die the way she did. Having something random like that happen to someone you love must make it difficult to ever feel safe again. And her birthday was Sunday. Her sister and her mom hadn’t made it to thirty. Vanessa was turning twenty-nine. That had to be frightening.
I squeezed her hands tighter. “You’ll just have to take my word for it, then. You’re a beautiful, healthy young woman and you’re going to live for a very long time, Vanessa.” I put a hand on her cheek. “Everything is going to be okay,” I said gently.
Her sad eyes canvassed my face, almost as if they were searching me for the truth. She turned her cheek a little into my palm, like she was chasing the warmth from it, and her lips accidentally grazed my skin.
I wanted to kiss her.
The urge was so intense I had to physically restrain myself from leaning in.
What would it be like? To lean down and kiss away whatever was going on in that beautiful, brilliant head?
But she didn’t want me kissing her. She didn’t want anyone kissing her.
At least there was that.
She reached for her napkin and pressed it under her eyes, and I let my hand fall away from her face, disappointed that the excuse to touch her was over.
“I’m sorry to dump all this on you at work.” She sniffed. “You don’t like me like this. You like me when I’m fun.”
“I like it when you’re happy,” I said honestly. “Fun is just the lucky by-product.”
She changed the subject. “Are you ready for my dad’s tomorrow?” She wiped under her eyes. “You don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”
“Of course I’m going.”
“Are you sure? I know the house really grossed you out.”
I wasn’t particularly excited to spend more time at Vanessa’s dad’s house—or with Vanessa’s dad. The apple had fallen in a completely different orchard with that one. But I wanted to check in and make sure Sonja was doing her job.
And the other thing.
I wouldn’t give up a night with Vanessa. Not for anything.
She was a light that I saw behind my eyelids now, long after I’d stopped looking at it—and I wanted to keep looking at it. All the time. And if that meant I had to have dinner in a hoarded house tomorrow night, then that’s what I was doing.
Vanessa peered at me from where she sat. She was calmer now.
I realized that she’d come here today because showing up to have lunch with me was one of her distractions. One of the things she did to keep her mind off whatever was bothering her.
I wondered how often she did this. How many times she showed up to hang out with me as her way of cheering herself up instead of succumbing to whatever sadness she was battling. She came here because I made her feel better or because she wanted to talk to me about it.
Because she was spinning in a tornado and the only time she feels still is when she’s with me.
And then it occurred to me.
I was her person. Me.
I couldn’t adequately put into words the way this made me feel.
It wasn’t in her DNA to let someone else take care of her. I knew because it wasn’t in mine either. We were the rocks in our family, always putting the needs of everyone else before our own, so I knew what it meant that she let me be there for her.
It was a privilege I didn’t take lightly. An honor to be the one she ran to when she needed someone to catch her. By some random stroke of luck, some geographical coincidence, I got to know her and be something to her.
And I’d be lying if I said being something to her wasn’t suddenly all I felt like doing.
CHAPTER 13
HE LAUGHED AT MY BODY
WHEN WE WENT TO
SECOND BASE!
VANESSA
Adrian looked up at me, pure amusement on his face. “And you thought this was advisable why?”
I did my best to look indignant, which was hard with my head stuck the way it was. “You know what? I don’t need your judgment right now. Not all of us are giants, some people need to use ladders.”
“The ladder part I get. It’s the ceiling fan proximity I have questions about.” He was laughing now. “It’s a good thing you gave me a key.”
He was in a tuxedo.
I thought Adrian had maxed out his ability to look attractive, but my imagination had failed me once again.
He had that gala tonight. I’d called him with my little emergency hoping I’d catch him before he left. I hadn’t. He was already at the venue. When I tried to hang up with him, he insisted I tell him what was wrong. I did and he immediately walked out to come rescue me—or to see it for himself. It was a crapshoot.
He started to climb the ladder to help me, and I braced myself against the wobble.
“What were you doing up here?” he asked.
“Something. I’ll show you later.”
The something was glow-in-the-dark stars I was sticking to my ceiling. I was putting some in the spot above the fan and I somehow managed to get my hair stuck in one of the votive lamps. I could not figure out how to undo it, and one of my hands was half-numb, which wasn’t helping. I finally gave up and sat on top of the ladder to wait for Adrian to get home, which mercifully was only fifteen minutes into my captivity.
There was no room on this ladder for two grown adults. He stopped when my knees hit his chest. “I can’t get up there unless…”
Unless I spread my legs and let him climb the last two steps between them.
Oh my God.
I’d been about to get into the shower when the maintenance guy showed up with the ladder I called for this morning. He wanted it back before he went home for the day, so I decided to blitz the project. So that meant I was in a dark-blue, thigh-high silk robe. No bra, no underwear. Just me and a thin slip of fabric with my head attached to a light fixture. Fuck my life.
I tucked my robe between my legs and opened my knees, wishing for the floor to open up and swallow me.
To his credit, Adrian didn’t glance down.
He climbed two more rungs and his zipper pressed directly into my crotch. I almost fell backward.
He put a hand between my shoulder blades and caught me. “Maybe you should hang on to me,” he said. “I don’t want you falling.”
GOD.
I wrapped my arms around his waist and died a little inside.
“You okay?” he asked, his chest practically rumbling against my cheek.
I nodded.
No, I was not okay. I hadn’t been okay all day.
I’d been to see the adoption attorney this morning.
It wasn’t certain I’d need to use her. Annabel could still get her life together. But knowing adoption was still something I had to seriously consider was enough to hurl me into a spiral. I’d stifled tears the whole way to Adrian’s office earlier. Then when I got there, I’d broken down and ruined his tie sobbing into it. Afterward, I’d gone home and gotten my hair stuck in a ceiling fan and my stupid tingling fingers couldn’t get their shit together to get me out. And now I was straddling Adrian, which was one part a complete turn-on and the other part just sad since he was perfect and therefore not into me.