Page 32 of His to Protect
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.
"Your face is red."
"It's warm in here."
"It's sixty-eight degrees. Riven keeps it sixty-eight degrees always. He's very particular about it." She propped her chin on her hand. "Your face is red because I mentioned him and you started thinking about him and now you don't know where to look."
I looked at my coffee mug.
"See," Emma said triumphantly.
The worst part was that she wasn't wrong. The moment she had said his name something had shifted in my chest, warm and inconvenient, and now I was thinking about the way he had looked coming back from his run this morning. Flushed and loose and briefly, dangerously human. The way his eyes had found mine across the kitchen before he remembered to put the wall back up.
I pressed my cool mug against my cheek casually. Just because it was warm in here.
"You both do this thing," Emma continued, merciless, "where you're very carefully not looking at each other and somehow that's louder than if you just looked."
"Emma."
"I'm just saying. It's a lot of effort for two people who supposedly feel nothing."
"Can we talk about something else please."
"Fine." She sighed with her whole body. "But I'm right."
She was completely right and that was the entire problem and I was not going to think about it for one more second.
"I need to check your vitals this afternoon," I said. "Blood pressure, heart rate, medication schedule."
Emma smiled into her juice like she had won something.
She had absolutely won something.
Emma brightened at once. “You’re really good at the nurse thing. You’re gentle and patient while you do it.”
“It's my job,” I said simply.
“You remind me of Riven, actually,” she said. She set her glass down, her voice softening into something more serious. “He saved my life when I got sick. Everyone else wanted to give up. He never did. He kept pushing, kept researching, kept fighting for treatment options when other doctors said there weren't any.”
Her eyes grew distant, remembering. "He's the best person I know. But he keeps everyone at arm's length because he's terrified of losing them. But he cares deeply. More than anyone notices.”
She was speaking from gratitude, but it also sounded suspiciously like a sales pitch for her brother. "You're lucky to have each other," I said carefully.
“We are,” she said. “But he needs more than just me. Just putting that out there.”
“Noted,” I said, my voice carefully neutral.
“Good.” She hopped off the stool. “I'm going back to bed for another hour. Thank you for the juice.”
The afternoon moved along. I checked Emma's vitals around two o'clock like clockwork, wrapping the blood pressure cuff around her upper arm with practiced efficiency. The reading came back better than the last one, and it made me genuinely relieved.
"You're doing great," I said, removing the cuff and recording the data in my phone.
“I take my meds religiously,” she said proudly. "Haven't missed a single one.”
“Good girl.” I flashed a smile. “Your cardiologist will be pleased.”
Evening arrived and dinner came in brown bags filled with Thai food that Riven ordered. We sat at the kitchen island with Emma between us. She ate and talked about a book she was reading and asked questions about the characters with more excitement than either of us could match.
