Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90075 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
On the rare nights when he’d sit and read with me in the lounge and not retire to his room, the silence had always been comforting, even though we barely spoke. His favourite thing to snack on between meals was tamari almonds...like me. He’d adopted my eating habits, preferring not to eat until eighteen hours had passed since dinner, so we started each day with a mini-fast that was said to lengthen the telomeres on our mitochondria so they cleaned up bad cells, purging our bodies of any illness before it could evolve into worse things.
My heart began to thunder as I tripped into our similarities and all the moments I’d taken for granted.
He made me a smoothie every morning when he made one for himself. He always folded my blanket on the couch if I’d gone to bed, so it was neat and placed just so on the armrest for me the next night. He mowed the lawn every week, even though we had a written agreement that we’d take turns. He bought me veggie seeds last time he was at the store, all because I’d been determined to start a small garden.
Oh my God.
How had I not seen it?
It wasn’t just our similarities but the little things he did for me. The constant little things that I hadn’t even noticed. The things that said a thousand words even while he gave me none.
He cares.
He’s always cared.
Eight long months of his little kindnesses that’d either been way too subtle, or I’d been way too blind.
I gasped and pressed my hands to my mouth.
And the worst thing?
The biggest connection we shared...past being lab geeks and bookworms and science nerds. Past our desire for a quiet and healthy life. Beyond our attempts to find cures and drugs that actually worked...he’d lost two of his immediate family...
Just
like
me.
I froze.
Oh God.
How had I not seen it?
I’d lost my parents when I was seventeen, thanks to a drunk driver ploughing headfirst into them on their way home from weekly date night. I’d already known I wanted to work in medicine in some form or another, but when they died, I didn’t have the stomach to become a doctor, which had been my first choice.
The thought of being in an emergency room when traffic accidents came in, drenched me in cold sweat. All I could picture was my mum and dad as they lay dying on the road waiting for first responders, seeing their mangled bodies on stretchers as doctors did their best to save them.
Their loss had irrevocably changed me, but I supposed I’d buried the trauma just enough not to dwell on it. I used work and long hours to keep me distracted...just like Nick.
I-I understand him.
I...I get it now.
I moved before my mind stopped whirling.
Dashing out of bed, I groaned as I left the warm cocoon, snatched my pink satin robe from the back of my door, and darted down the corridor.
The storm raged outside, making me doubly glad the heating was at a cosy temperature, and Nick had started the gas fire.
Yet another little kindness.
Another thoughtful gesture.
Damn...I’ve been so blind.
All this time, I thought he hated me. Every scornful look and chilly sneer when I pushed for him to cook with me or share a meal in the lab’s staffroom. To begin with, I’d wanted to hang out with him to get to know the guy the company had added to my rental agreement, but by the end...I just wanted to know him. I needed to know him because I already felt so drawn to him.
I supposed a part of me that noticed his gestures wanted to pay him back, only to find the exact opposite of the generous man who did such sweet things.
All that disinterest and aloofness. Now I saw it for what it truly was...fierce, feral restraint.
My fingers shook as I twisted the bathroom doorknob.
Not locked.
Was that a sign?
Did he want me to go to him or did he not lock the door normally?
The glass shower door billowed with steam, obscuring him. His silhouette bowed, his forehead touching the tiles as water streamed over his head.
My heart tripped with so much want and need and...love.
I wanted to share my epiphany.
I wanted to tell him it was far too late to keep me at a distance.
I’d fallen for him last night in a haze of drunken sex.
But now...now I realised I’d been falling for months, confused by his curtness, shaken by his animosity but never able to put my finger on why.
My heart thundered as loudly as the storm outside as I slipped out of my robe and let it tumble to the floor. My little black dress remained on the bathmat where Nick had stripped me last night. It represented everything we’d done and gave me hope.
Swift, savage hope that he wouldn’t push me away.