Page 45 of Expecting an Argument
As exposed as I felt, the real question was if I actually craved the opportunity to let her hurt me. Was the pendulum swinging in the other direction after years of isolating myself? Did I want to find out if Olivia Adams was the type of woman I could hand a gun to and trust her not to pull the trigger?
Swirling the coffee in my hand, I dared to test my theory. I took a sip, just a little one, and let the warm coffee trickle down my throat.
Carmel vanilla latte. Delicious.
After sipping the coffee and thinking too much, I shut myself in the gym and made my body work through the turmoil so my brain wouldn’t have to. I wore only my gray sweatpants as I cycled through a body weight circuit, grounding myself with the feeling of my feet and palms on the floor as I did push-ups.
I shot Olivia a text to check up on her in the middle of my workout. Close to the end of my final set, she responded.
“I’m in pain.”
My brows furrowed as I looked at my phone. I asked her to specify what kind of pain and finished my set as I waited. Oliviahad been complaining about her hips being stiff for the past few weeks, so maybe that was it.
Or maybe it was worse.
I got up from the floor and texted her again. No response. I toweled the sweat off my neck and chest—still nothing from Olivia.
My heart started racing. Pain could mean one or both of the placentas detached. She could be hemorrhaging. I shoved my phone into my pocket and left the gym.
“Damnit, Adams,” I called from the foyer as I quickly headed up the stairs. “You’re scaring me.”
I had hoped for a sassy response, but was only met with silence when I made it to the second floor landing. I hurried down the hall to her bedroom door and knocked. “Olivia?”
No response. I turned the knob—locked.
She had fallen again. She couldn’t reach her phone. She was bleeding, unconscious, on the bathroom floor. I had only seconds to spare.
“OLIVIA!” I shouted as I shoved my shoulder into the door, popping the lock open. The door gave way and I stumbled into the room, my chest heaving as my head whipped from side to side. She wasn’t in bed. Or on the floor.
I only took a few quick steps into the bathroom to find her. She was in the bathtub, her hair piled into a bun and her face frozen in shock. She was awake and not bleeding, but the relief washing over me didn’t stop my pounding heart.
“Beau, what are you—?” she whispered.
I threw down my hands. “You can’t just text me that you’re in pain and disappear!”
“I’m sorry, I…I left my phone on the dresser,” she said. “It’s my pelvis again. I thought taking a bath would help.”
I forced out a sigh. She was fine. It was a simple misunderstanding. The babies were fine.
I rubbed my shoulder to soothe the ache from hitting the door. “Well, next time could you tell me—”
A low vibrating noise hit my ears. I looked at Olivia and she looked back at me. Her eyes were the size of baseballs and her cheeks grew redder by the second. Though the bath was full of bubbles, covering everything below Olivia’s shoulders, it couldn’t hide the very mechanical trembling beneath the surface that made the water ripple.
Sothat’swhy she wasn’t answering my texts.
I leaned against the doorframe and gave her a little smile. “Pain, huh?”
She furrowed her brows. “OK, big strong man—you got to bust open my door and now you know I’m just fine. Now if you will please just—”
The vibrating noise softened until it fizzled out. The bathwater went completely still and Olivia looked down at the bubbles and cursed under her breath.
As if there couldn’t have been a more perfect time for a battery to die.
I held back a laugh. “Serves you right for scaring me like that.”
She turned back to me like she was about to spit venom, but then her eyebrows raised and her face softened. I tracked her gaze and suddenly became hyper-aware that I wasn’t wearing a shirt.
“I didn’t know you had a tattoo,” she said softly.
