Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Now here I was, living on other people’s charity. My life was in ruins. I had nothing. I had no one because I’d been too cautious to ever let anyone close enough to really know me. What I had was a big mouth and a chip on my shoulder, and I would have gotten drunk one night and totally told someone something I shouldn’t have.
I needed to find out how Alex’s grandma had found me so that I wouldn’t make the same mistake again.
My hands shook, and I set them between my thighs and waited as she took my temperature, my blood pressure, checked my mouth and ears, then listened to my heart and lungs.
I could see her watching my face from time to time, but all she did was ask some general questions about my health. I stared at her hand the whole time. A big ruby ring sat on her finger, the sucker the size of an acorn.
“Robert…” She paused, busting me. “Gave it to me. It’s a family heirloom. It gets caught on everything.”
“It’s amazing.” Could I be less obvious? “Have you been married for a long time?” I asked her before she could turn the conversation around on me. Plus, everyone kept using his name like I should know who he was.
“Twenty-one years next month,” she answered. “It feels more like forty-nine sometimes.” She laughed, and it was a really nice one that made me smile.
Then I really thought about what she said and blinked. Twenty-one years? “How old are you?” Oh boy. That could have come out better. “I’m sorry.”
She looked up from the tablet and flashed me a playful smirk. “I’m fifty-four.”
I tried my best not to make a what-the-fuck face but figured I’d failed when she winked before focusing back on the tablet.
“It’s one of the many benefits of being married into this family and having a lot of naked time together.”
Outside of the room, Alexander groaned in obvious disgust.
“Oh, be quiet,” she said with a roll of her eyes. She dropped her voice. “They’re so square about sex at first, and then—”
“Do you talk to all your patients like this?” he called out, his voice weird.
“Yes. You’re all family, and you all hear everything, and most of you don’t act like preteens about s-e-x.”
“I know how to spell, Agatha,” he barked out, still sounding weird.
“I’d hope so.” She smiled. “Mind your own business anyway, I’m not talking to you.” The doctor shook her head like she was trying to remember where she was going with her thoughts. “While we’re talking about sex, I’m aware of your situation. Do you need me to fill you a new birth control prescription? You put on here you aren’t on any medications.”
Oh.
The last time I’d been to the gynecologist, she had written me a prescription that I hadn’t filled.
Was I in a position to be that vulnerable with someone?
I thought about it.
Wasn’t that the same thing I’d been telling myself for the last decade? The same lame-ass excuses? I was about to be thirty. I’d kissed less than a handful of people. I’d given a couple blowjobs when I’d been a teenager straddling the line between listening to my grandparents’ orders of secrecy and being a horny little shit who wanted one more connection in life. Since then, it had been a rush of taking care of my grandparents, then just learning how to be truly alone and surviving. Making enough money with my limited circumstances to eat, pay bills, and save for an emergency.
Then all this had happened.
Of course I wanted to have sex, that was one of the things I’d been the most upset about when I’d thought everything was over. I didn’t even have a vibrator anymore. What the hell did I have to lose taking a daily pill?
Maybe I could finally get over the lying and just… do it.
Literally.
“Yes, please,” I told her before I could talk myself out of it. Maybe I could drive out of the state to fill the prescription, or have it mailed somewhere else to be safe.
There was a thump from the hallway that we both ignored.
Agatha nodded, her eyes crinkling. “Okay. What were you on before?”
I rattled off the name that my gynecologist had recommended, looking toward the door.
“I’ll email it to you,” she said before giving me a serious face. “Birth control is effective in this family.”
What? I didn’t even get a chance to be embarrassed about what she was implying because she kept going.
“Now, I heard a little something in your lungs, and your ears and vocal cords are severely irritated. Usually, I would do a chest X-ray or run some tests, but unless your condition happens to worsen, I think you’re already on your way to getting better.” Her eyes slid toward the doorway, and I knew she was thinking about Mr. Magical Healing Capabilities and what he’d done for me.