Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
My neck heats, but I double-down on confidence and gesture to his chest. “Preparing for stuff is my thing,” I tell him.
He laughs, and before I interject, he tells me, “I love your thing.” His smile is a million watts of power and fucking beauty. He waves the baggie. “Thanks for these; they’re perfect. And now you’ve successfully earned your ninety-fourth preparedness merit badge.”
I feign confusion. “That many?”
He almost rolls his eyes and leans in, cupping my jaw. My hand slides down his thigh towards his ass, and our eyes rake each other for a boiling minute. And our mouths meet—I pull back, our lips separating before they even sting or swell.
Farrow frowns. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not distracting you before your exam, man.” My broad shoulder brushes his hard chest when I reach forward and collect the flashcards.
He tips his head. “You do realize I’m going to pass this exam even if I kiss the fuck out of you? Hell, I could fuck you all night, and I’d still ace it.”
I swelter, my muscles blazing with a hundred-degree desire. I try not to look at Farrow. Because if I look at my childhood crush who just said he could fuck me all night—I’m going to flash fuck me all night eyes.
“You can’t be that sure,” I retort.
“I kind of can. I know my shit, and this is shit I know.”
I force a grimace. “Looks like we know who has the better vocabulary now.”
“Always me, Harvard Dropout.” He reclines back on the beanbag, realizing that I’m not letting up, and he watches me flip through the flashcards.
I read off another one. “What are the drugs that lead to hypercalcemia?”
“Lithium and thiazides.” He passes the hacky sack from hand to hand.
Correct. I don’t tell him since he already knows. “How was your shift yesterday?” I ask while I search for another card that looks more challenging.
Farrow has been in his residency program for over a month now, and he barely ever tells me about his workday. And for someone who’s a kindergartener with stress—you know: he’s like rubber, stress is like glue; it bounces off him and sticks to you—working at the hospital has really stressed the hell out of him.
He just never tells me why or how.
I don’t know…it’s been getting to me lately. Farrow never shuts me out, and I can feel him closing that door to his work life more and more as the days pass.
Farrow chucks the hacky sack in the bin and tells me, “Nothing to rave about.” He ends there, and he sits up.
And I’m determined to eliminate his stress, not bug him about it. So I don’t press on about the hospital.
Farrow opens his exam day baggie. Stealing the apple, he takes a large bite, and the longer I watch him, the more he lifts his brows at me. “You’re looking at me and not your notecards.”
“Thank you for that update,” I say and tear my gaze off his smile that’s doing a number on me today. I read a card. “What do acanthocytes on a blood smear indicate? They also look like spur cells but with more rounded spurs.”
I flip over the card and read the answer. My stomach sinks.
“Maximoff,” he says in a silky but rough breath. He knows why I’ve stalled. He holds the back of my neck, his thumb stroking my skin.
The text on the card is clear.
Hypothyroidism, alcoholism, and liver disease.
My grandfather died from liver disease. It’s weird how little moments that you least expect can creep up on you and make you remember people you lost. And the older I get, my feelings about my grandfather shift and alter.
“What are you thinking?” Farrow says quietly, putting the apple aside.
I flip the card back over. “I’m thinking about my grandfather.” I stare faraway. “After he died, I was terrified that my dad would go out the same way.” I motion to my head. “In my mind, if he even drank a tiny sip of alcohol, he’d just collapse. And that’d be it.” I glance at Farrow’s hand splayed on his kneecap, and I lift it up and slowly interlock our fingers.
Farrow watches.
“It was just a little kid’s fear,” I tell him, “but I still remember going to restaurants where my aunts and uncles would have alcohol. There’d be a beer beside my dad’s water, and I’d worry all night that he’d accidentally drink out of the wrong glass.”
“How’d you get over it?” Farrow asks, and he lets me slip his silver rings off his fingers and collect them in my callused palm.
“My mom,” I tell him. “I told her why I was scared, and she said that my dad’s liver was made of vibranium.” Off his confusion, I add, “The same indestructible steel that Captain America’s shield is made of. She said that it’d take more than a single drink to destroy him.”