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She turns to face me. "Look at Raven, indeed..." she trails off and I hate when she does that. She slips away from me, and just when I think she's going to get up and walk away from me, she sits to face me, and her eyes find mine again. Green, like fields of tall grass in the spring after the perfect storm drenched them. There’s a sadness in her eyes that makes me sad, too. "I have to do something about myself, Parker. I'm not getting better, I'm getting worse. I'm so fucking fat-"
"Stop it, Sabrina. I don't mean to demean your way of thinking, but it doesn't do you any good to say things like that about yourself," and then, because I don't have a lick of sense when I'm staring into those eyes of hers, I say, "if you could only see what I see, and if I had the chance to fuck you in front of a mirror until you did, I would. I'd show you just how beautiful you fucking are."
She rolls her eyes.
I…am the equivalent of…a gay best friend. She used to look at me with desire. Lust would fill her eyes, making them dilate every time she would look at me and now it's like I barely catch glimpses of it. I need to get the fuck out of this zone and fast. I get up and away from her. "Tomorrow morning, let's go for a run."
She narrows her eyes at me until she's squinting. “You’re serious?”
I nod once, “I am.”
"Fine."
“Fine.”
"Fine,"she says with a childish tone like she wants to stick her tongue out at me.She could. I’d just suck it into my mouth.
I close the door to her room with a grin on my face.
I slip out of bed at five AM and do a few sets of push-ups and sit-ups, burpees, and squats to get my blood going after a few stretches. By the time I hear her door open, I open mine, glistening with sweat.
Her pupils dilate, and her nostrils flare when she sees me shirtless, her eyes roaming all over my sweat-slicked body, landing on the bullet scars on my chest, then down the valley of my abs, stopping just below my navel then back up to my face as her cheeks turn pink.
Fuck yeah, I still got it.
She's wearing a beanie and baby-pink sweats that hide her body, but I've already seen it. Before. After. She could gain another forty pounds and she’d still be the sexiest woman alive to me. I'd still think her flawless as long as her health wasn't in jeopardy. But that's what I'm here for, and she not so subtly asked for help.
I can do that.
"Ready?" I ask.
She nods, tearing her gaze from mine and looks around nervously. "I might be bad at it."
"We'll go your pace. I ain't in a rush. We leave in four hours anyway. We're just going around the block twice."
Green eyes turn into large, jade saucers. “Twice?”
“Mmhmm,” I reply while leading us down the grand marble staircase and out the front door. I make her stretch while I do, and then, “C’mon, hellcat. Let’s go. The faster we do this, the faster we can get some breakfast.”
“I do like breakfast.”
I grin, taking off in a slow jog. “I know.”
It takes us half an hour to get around the block twice. "I'm proud of you," I say, handing her a bottle of water and pulling the hem of my sweatshirt to wipe off the non-existent sweat off my brow. Sabrina gulps down the water as she stares at my abs, and I pretend not to notice. "C'mon, let'sget you fed."
"Oh, darling! Are you running again? I knew I noticed you lost a kilo or two." Tildy says when we walk into the dining room. Maksim is already seated beside his future mother-in-law, eating and sipping on his coffee. I’m surprised the motherfucker doesn’t have a pinky out while holding his little coffee cup.
Sabrina watches what I pile onto my plate, mostly proteins, and copies me. "Er, yeah. Just... you know, getting wedding ready." She lies, sitting beside Maksim and I take my plate to the kitchen where the staff eats.
Because that's what I am - the fuckinghelp.
We're back in Brooklyn Heights.
A week has gone by without us having to physically talk to Maksim or be around him, and we've been jogging every other morning. She surprises me by saying we were going to visit Raven now that they've moved in just two doors down after our jog. Her smile falters when she sees her therapist open the door. “D-Doctor Archer?”
“Sabrina,” his dark brows shoot up in surprise. “What are you doing here? I don't see patients at my residence.”
“I'm so sorry, I could have sworn Raven was moving in here.”