Page 16 of Gideon (Finding Home #3)

Chapter

Six

First steps are always the hardest. Unless you’re drinking gin and then all of them are pretty difficult

Gideon

Well, it turns out that I do say things I don’t mean.

I don’t want Eli to go out, and I definitely don’t want him to go out with Oliver and have a good time.

I’m not sure where that feeling is coming from.

Maybe it’s because he’s my nurse, not Oliver’s.

I grimace at myself. Even in my head I sound like a five-year-old.

Milo would shake his head in disgust, and Niall would laugh until he wet himself.

I fidget in my chair on the deck. I’m supposed to be listening intently to my friend Jacinta’s tales of a modelling job she’s just done.

What I’m actually doing is surreptitiously watching Eli move around the suite, gathering the stuff he needs for his date.

He’s dressed in bright orange shorts and a grey striped t-shirt that shouldn’t go together but on him make him look like a model.

I watch as he stamps his feet into his old grey Vans and stuffs a pair of navy-spotted swim shorts into his backpack.

“I thought you wouldn’t need them,” I call out and instantly curse myself. I was being surreptitious. Jacinta’s voice trails off.

He comes to the door. “Oliver can bugger off if he thinks I’m getting my tackle out on some random beach.” He looks at the sky. “Particularly in this sun.”

I toss him my tube of sun cream. He catches it and raises his eyebrow. “For protection,” I mutter. “For your face,” I add quickly. “Not your penis.”

He pauses to consider. “I wonder what factor you’d need for that.”

“Total sun block,” I say grimly and he looks at me.

“You’ve gone nude, then?”

Jacinta immediately snorts. “Darling, when hasn’t he?”

“Every day,” I say glibly. “Usually before I go in the shower.” I relent.

“I have. I’ve done a lot of things that Frankie would have a coronary over, but I’m variable in my wildness.

Depends on what day you caught me. Some days my career means a lot to me.

Others I’d walk naked down the street if it meant I was myself.

” There was a lot more bitterness in my voice than I’d intended, and from the look on his face more than he was expecting.

I smile quickly. “However, that is why I can say with experience that it’s not wise to get sunburn on your cock. ”

Jacinta shudders. “And I can say the same thing for your tits. I couldn’t wear a bra for a month.”

I grin at her. “Sweetie, you don’t need one anyway.”

“Bitch.” She chuckles.

I look up and find Eli staring at the two of us, his expression clouded. There’s a knock at the main door of the suite, but he hesitates. “Will you be okay?” he says cautiously.

I nod quickly. “Of course I will. Jacinta’s here for the whole afternoon with me. What trouble could we possibly get into?”

Jacinta snorts. “I think it’s more appropriate to ask what trouble can’t we get into.”

Eli looks even more worried. “How do you feel?”

“I feel like a grown man who’s telling my employee to take some time off,” I say sharply, but as normal, it’s like water off a duck’s back as he makes a dismissive face.

“I’m sure that sounds very good, but it actually doesn’t cover the reality that I’m in charge.”

I grin unwillingly. “Let me have my illusions.”

He waves a graceful hand. “Go ahead.”

The knock comes again, and I watch his back as he paces to open the door. I can feel Jacinta’s gaze on the side of my face like a fucking heat-seeking missile.

Oliver trails behind Eli as he comes back onto the deck.

Dressed in tight red shorts, a white t-shirt, and expensive deck shoes, he looks bright and very good-looking.

“Good morning,” he says and then twitches as he undoubtedly recognises Jacinta.

As a supermodel, she’s well used to it and just smiles vaguely at him.

“How are we?” he asks brightly.

I open my mouth, but Eli forestalls me. “I’m not sure about this,” he says slightly desperately. “I don’t think I should leave Mr Ramsay alone all day. He’s only just getting back on his feet.”

I open my mouth, but this time it’s Oliver’s turn to speak over me. “I think we’ll be alright without Eli for an hour, won’t we, Mr Ramsay?” he says in the same overloud voice that people talk to small babies with.

I raise my eyebrow. “I’ll obviously try to contain my abject sorrow, but I’m sure I’ll cope.”

He pats me on the arm rather familiarly, and I see Eli repress a smirk. “Oh, we are a card aren’t we, Mr Ramsay.”

“What is this we business with everyone in the medical profession?” I ask in a bewildered voice. “I might be a card, whatever that means, but I’m quite sure you haven’t joined me.”

“Oh dear, I think Mr Ramsay needs a little sleep,” he coos loudly as if I’m hard of hearing.

Eli bites his lip, laughter in his eyes as I brush Oliver’s hand off my arm.

“I don’t need a sleep. I need a new pair of eardrums now.

Why are you talking to me at that decibel level?

” He starts to say something but I shake my head and look at Eli.

“Go on,” I say quickly. “Get off and have a nice day. Don’t forget you have to be back at the ship by … ” I falter.

“Six thirty,” he says, his eyes twinkling before he shakes his head. “And you were doing so well with your adulting.”

I smile at him, hearing Jacinta suck in her breath for some bloody reason. “Fuck off.”

Oliver stares at us, and Eli shifts, looking suddenly awkward in the face of his unhidden curiosity. He squints at me. “Remember, though, no alcohol,” he says quickly.

I shake my head. “What the hell? I might as well enter the church.”

Jacinta immediately bursts into laughter. “Gid, you’d burst into flames if you even entered a church, and black really isn’t your colour.” She pauses. “Although red is. You could be a cardinal. Do they still have them? How about lime green? Who wears that?”

“It’s the church, not the catwalk in Paris Fashion Week,” I mutter.

Eli looks earnestly at me. “I need you to promise, or I’m not going anywhere.”

I stare at him. “Okay,” I say slowly. “I promise I will not drink alcohol.”

Anyone else with any knowledge of how often I break my word would hesitate, but strangely he doesn’t. Instead, his expression clears of worry, and I know instantly that I’ve fucked myself because I don’t want to break that look of trust.

He slings his backpack over his shoulder and looks at Oliver rather doubtfully.

“Go on then. Have some fun,” I say heartily as if I’m fifty years older than him.

He nods. “Okay, I’m going. But I’ll have my mobile with me all the time. I’ll text you when it’s time to take your pills. I want you to promise me that you will take care, and if you feel even the slightest bit poorly you will ring me.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. “I promise.”

He nods awkwardly, gives Jacinta a faint smile and, with a wave of his hand he’s gone, Oliver padding at his side and leaving me with a silence that is positively vibrating with Jacinta’s need to talk.

“No,” I say quickly and she scoffs instantly.

“Fucking hell, when has that tone of voice ever worked on me, Gideon Ramsay?”

“Never,” I say dolefully. “Why couldn’t I have taken up with a stupid person?”

“That’s your tragedy,” she says kindly.

I snort and look at one of my best friends in the world and arguably one of only two people who knows me.

She sits curled in her chair, the sun shining on her blonde hair coiled at her neck.

Dressed in a pale green, short sundress, she looks slender and tanned.

But more importantly, she looks healthy.

“You’re glowing,” I say, and she flushes.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

I nod. “You are, sweetheart. You look so well.”

“I feel well,” she says earnestly. “I haven’t touched a drink or any drugs for ten months.”

“Well done,” I say passionately. “You still going to meetings?”

She nods. “Every week, no matter where I am.” She looks at me. “Thank you.”

I shift uncomfortably. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do,” she says steadily. “You got me into that treatment centre by the scruff of my neck, and you were with me every step of the way.”

“Only because I didn’t have anything better to do,” I say quickly.

She smiles at me lovingly. “Okay, sweetie. You’re the heartless wanker who looked after me at the lowest point of my life better than my own family ever did.”

I shudder at the thought of when I’d found her in a hotel room in Spain.

She’d been thin to the point of emaciation and strung out with track marks over her thin arms and her complexion grey and pallid.

I’d kicked out the two men she was in bed with and stuffed her in a shower while she shouted obscenities at me.

Once she was clean I’d dressed her and driven her to a clinic I’d heard good things about.

I’d stayed in a hotel nearby for two months after she made me promise not to leave her.

I’d lost out on a film role and been fined a humungous amount of money for backing out of another film.

I’d also cornered the nickname Reluctant Ramsay from the press, and Frankie had raged for weeks.

I’d ignored him and stayed out there, visiting every day once I was allowed.

Then when she was discharged, I rented a villa for another month, the two of us taking long walks, swimming and talking.

It had felt like the most intimate time I’d ever spent with her despite the years of us fucking each other and many other people.

I’d got to know her, and unfortunately she’d got to know me even better, which is why I know she’s not going to accept any bullshit.

“Where’s Alex?” I say quickly in the hope of diverting her.

She smiles at the thought of the tall, gentle professor she met when she knocked him off his bike in London. Steady, kind, and loving, he’s her perfect foil, and I couldn’t have picked anyone better for her.

“He’s giving us time to talk. He’s having lunch.”

“He’s not jealous?”