Page 57 of Love What's Left
Sydney
Two Weeks Later
Straightening, I move the sheaf of papers on my bedside table out of the way and place the last dahlia into the vase the cat knocked off my bedside table. I put my hand on my hip and scowl. “Rufus, you need to learn to mind your manners.”
McRae pokes his head around the doorframe of the walk-in closet. “What did he do?”
I pick up a wet and mangled envelope. “Rufus sharpened his claws on my mail and took the whole vase with him. He can be such a jerk, sometimes,” I say affectionately.
McRae enters the room fully and swoops Rufus into his arms. “Don’t listen to her, Fuss-fuss. It’s your responsibility to your species to pounce on shit that doesn’t belong to you. You’re a hunter.”
Rufus purrs.
I cross my arms. “I’m so glad you said that, because you left a book and a cup of coffee beside the bed when you took your shower.”
He glances at his now empty nightstand, cringes, then gives Rufus a stern scowl. “I was on your side, dude. I had your back, and you turned on me.”
Rufus butts his head against him until McRae scratches him behind the ears, then sets him on the floor. When the cat struts away, tail held high to find a patch of sun, McRae eyes the flowers curiously. He picks up the mangled card, turning it over to look at the handwriting, then curls his lip. “Amelia? Again.”
“Yup, and she sent cake pops on Wednesday. I gave them to the staff,” I say.
“Your co-worker has a crush on you.”
I eye him to see if that’s jealousy in his voice or simply teasing. He gives me that mildly amused look he loves to use that doesn’t give away anything he doesn’t want it to.
“I don’t think it’s a crush.” I rearrange one of the stems so it doesn’t poke out so far. “I think she feels guilty. She says I told her you weren’t home the night I vandalized the lab, and I was nervous without my driver. She thinks she should’ve stayed with me after work because I was acting weird, but she ignored it b-because she had a date.”
“No one else noticed anything wrong either. It was hardly her fault,” he says.
“I told her that, and I asked her to stop sending me stuff. It’s too much.” If I ever go back to work there, I don’t want that kind of suffocating attention. I’ve been letting most of her calls go to voicemail. She’s nice, but overwhelming.
My gaze trails over my husband, and I can’t suppress my grin. “Whatare you wearing?”
He reaches for the bottom hem of his shirt, tugs the blue and yellow fabric straight, and raises his chin. “It’s a bowling shirt.”
“Do youbelong to a league?” I can actually picture it, as crazy as it sounds.
“You don’t recognize fashion when you see it?” He puffs out his chest and angles himself to give me a better view of the real reason for his dramatic change in style.
Smiling hard enough to make my face hurt, I indicate the blue-trimmed white oval on his chest. “Nice name tag,Gabriel.”
He affects an expression of surprise. “What?! My name is on this shirt? Where any wife could read it?”
“I love it.”
He smooths his hand down the line of buttons like a host on a shopping channel. “This old thing? Good, because I bought seven color combinations.”
My laugh gurgles a little. How ridiculous that I want to cry happy tears over this, but, God, he has to be the sweetest man who ever lived. “Thank you.” I glance at the tag again and read it aloud. “Gabriel.”
He winks at me and clicks his tongue. The sexy, cocky cutie. I used to wonder why I gave someone like him a chance, let alone married him. But he’s so far from being like my father, he doesn’t belong on the same planet. He’s charming, yes, but he’s also thoughtful and responsible.
“What’s the schedule today?” he asks.
I count off the appointments on my thumb and fingers. “Physical therapy in an hour. OT at eleven. Psychiatrist at one. Therapist at one-thirty. Speech therapist will be here at three.”
My speech sounds close to normal now, as long as I’m not stressed out. My new psychiatrist has been working out well too. I chose her myself after the debacle with Frankhouser. She manages my medications and overall psychiatric care, and I have separate appointments in her office building with a licensed therapist. I wanted to travel to her office for my daily appointments, instead of having them come here. I needed that little bit of normalcy and to start leaving the grounds.
McRae was relieved she agreed that a hospitalization wasn’t necessary under the circumstances. So was I. For now, I’ve accepted the answer is to never be alone until I’m sure I have things under control, which isn’t hard to do.
