Page 45 of The KING Review

I set her down as gently as I can on the bed. She barely stirs, just a soft exhale, lashes fanning over her cheeks. I want to brush her hair away from her face, but my hands are way too big and clumsy, so I remove the moon boot instead—as recommended at the ER—set it carefully by the bed, then I tuck the comforter up to her chin.

That should be it.

I should leave.

Instead, I linger a second too long, spine steeled, every sense keyed up.

I could write a note and slip out, but the thought of her waking up alone after this sits wrong with me. I’m not an animal—I’ll take the couch and keep my distance, but I can’t leave her alone.

I walk out to the living room and check that the door is locked. The couch is corduroy, the kind that scrapes gentle little valleys into my palms. Everything about this place is so clearly Neve. There are tarot cards on the coffee table, dog-eared at the corners. A stack of art books with Post-Its sprouting from the pages. An empty bottle of lavender soda sits on the windowsill next to a collection of tiny succulents.

I stare at the closed door of her bedroom. I can still hear the faint echo of her breathing.

The rational part of me—the part that’s survived a divorce, a custody battle, and half a decade of emotional reactivity masquerading as adult conversation—knows I should get up, go home, and leave all of this alone, that it was stupid to even respond to that very first message. I know it was.

I stare at my hands, then glance down at the front of my shirt, where the faint outlines of her tear tracks still linger from her breakdown in the ER. If I close my eyes, I swear I can smell her shampoo. My heart knocks against my ribs.

As I lie back, dragging a blanket from the back of the sofa to throw over my body, I try to convince myself I’m not worried. I’m sure there’s absolutely no way this could backfire on me at all.

Chapter Fourteen

Efficiency Queen

Neve

Iwake up with my head full of wet cotton and the distinct, soul-melting memory of last night’s humiliation. The way it comes back is slow motion—first, the ache in my ankle, then the echo of me sobbing into Grant King’s shirt in the ER, then the even better fragments of being princess-carried into my own bed, tucked in by huge, rough hands that should be illegal, left to wallow in my own embarrassment like the main character of a tragicomedy.

Oh, and let’s not forget the inciting incident—aka me tripping over my own feet, again, and then sending the world’s most embarrassing voice note to my professor, which caused him to speed across the city, thinking I’d been attacked, just because I couldn’t cope alone for forty-five minutes in a waiting room.

I groan, rolling onto my back.

Shower. Immediately.

I throw the comforter off and limp to the bathroom—no point putting the boot back on just to take it off for the shower—where I scrub myself raw and try not to think about how I’ll go about constructing an apology message to Grant.

Out of the shower, I towel myself dry and set my sights on priority number one: coffee. I’ll moisturize while the pot boils.

“Efficiency queen,” I mutter to myself.

I shuffle out of the bathroom as I squeeze most of the water from my hair, skin still tender and flushed from the hot shower. I hum under my breath, thinking coffee, thinking voice note apology, thinking maybe I’ll make ‘proper breakfast’ instead of my usual sad drinking yogurt.

I shove my foot into the moon boot because I know if I don’t, I’ll probably end up doing something stupid in the kitchen and making my ankle worse.

The bedroom door, as always, sticks at first, then opens abruptly. The sound jolts me—another argument for the boot because it prevents me from doing a dumb hop-skip in fright.

I’m halfway into the open-plan kitchen living room when I register the large figure sprawled lengthwise on my corduroy couch, Fia’s old, knitted throw blanket thrown lazily over top.

I shriek.

It’s not a dainty, feminine shriek, but the full-on, I’m-being-murdered-in-my-own-apartment, neighbors-come-running, top-of-the-lungs kind. My heart launches up into my skull, blood roaring in my ears.

Grant King bolts upright so hard he nearly flips the entire couch, eyes wide with shock. For a second, we just stare at each other, both vibrating, then my entire body goes boneless with relief. “Oh my God. It’s just you.”

Leftover adrenaline fizzes in my bloodstream, and the sensation is so intense that all the air floods out of my lungs, leaving me breathless.

Grant remains frozen, but now all the blood has drained from his face. He looks like he’s just seen the ghost of every ethical boundary he ever attempted to uphold, come to haunt him in the form of my still-slightly-wet, naked body standing four feet away, illuminated in the daylight spilling in my kitchen window.

I take in the scene.