Page 18

18

RILEY

“ T hanks, Mischa. I’ll see ya next week.” With a lift of my hand I stroll out of the studio and head to my car. The cold November air whips through the buildings and hits already bundled up patrons. Me included. I pick up my pace and basically jump into my car and start it up. Checking my phone I see no messages. Which is weird because Sarah and I are supposed to have a meeting in a few hours so I expected something from her.

Something has been off with her and I’m running through every scenario wondering if it’s something that I did. We have the next two days off from hockey so it makes my decision to head to her much easier. I pull out of the lot and speed home to get showered and on the road. I’m not sure what this visit will entail, so I pack an overnight bag just in case.

Me: Hey, would you mind coming over to feed the girls tonight?

Logan: No problem. Is everything okay?

Me: Thanks. And I have no clue.

I’m lucky that Logan lives a couple floors down from me, so I don’t have to worry about giving him an access code. And we both have spare keys to each other's places so that’s another worry off my plate. Once back in the garage, I toss my bag in the passenger seat of my Range Rover and decide to give Sarah a courtesy call. It goes right to voicemail and that sets off an alarm bell in my head.

I get to her office an hour and a half later and I have to tell myself not to sprint inside. The receptionist is busy typing away when the elevator opens to her floor but stops when I park in front of her desk.

“Hi, is Sarah here?” I ask as charmingly as possible.

“I haven’t seen her. But she does get in before me, so you can head back and check.”

I push off her desk. “Thank you.”

The office is a little busier than the last time I was here. So I’m able to see the layout with more occupied cubicles with phones ringing, the tapping of keyboards, and the sound of the printer spitting out paper.

I round the corner to Sarah’s office but stop short when I see her lights off. Fishing my phone out of my pocket, I call her again. And again it heads straight to voicemail.

“Riley?” A moderately built man in his mid-thirties asks.

“Yeah,” I say hesitantly and finally place him. “Jeff, right?”

He nods. “I think she took a sick day. I’ve tried calling her as well and got nothing.”

I try not to let my panic show. “Okay, thanks.” I pivot to leave, but he stops me.

“Would you mind coming into my office?” Jeffs turns to his large corner office without waiting to see if I’ll follow. I don’t want to. Every muscle is screaming at me to head to Sarah’s house. But I do what he says. Because like it or not he’s Sarah’s boss, which kind of makes him my boss. “I know about your arrangement with her.”

The door closes and I wait for Jeff to round to his desk chair. “I don’t know…”

“She already told me. But not because she wanted to. I saw the pictures and she explained everything to me.”

“So you know that we have a deadline?” I question as I lower into the seat in front of his desk.

“I do. I also know that you’re the first guy she’s attempted to date since her asshole ex screwed her over.”

“Fake dating,” I correct him.

He steeples his hands in front of his lips. “Are you trying to remind yourself of that?”

As a matter of fact, I am. But I don’t justify my need to respond. The truth is that the night we saw the Northern Lights, I knew I wanted to say to hell with our fake dating and actually date.

“You know, we’ve never needed HR to step in. Because I never thought one of my agents would date a client. But even with the arrangement you two have going on, I’ve never seen her happier. When I met Sarah, she was content, if not a little heartbroken despite still being with her ex. But when you came into the picture, it was like I didn’t even recognize her. So while I’ve never needed a meeting with her or any of the other agents, I don’t have an issue with you two together. And if that’s the way you two choose to go then we would need to give you a new publicist. Because paying her while dating her doesn’t sit right with me.”

I survey him while he talks about Sarah. I don’t see any lust or longing hidden in the depths of his brown eyes. Just care. He may be one of the first people to show her love because it’s clear her parents never did. At least not in the way that it counts. But it doesn’t stop me from checking. “Do you care about her?”

“Not the way you do.”

I furrow my brows and will him to continue.

“Sarah is like a little sister to me. Bothers me like one too. But, no. When I hired Sarah, I had just buried my wife and was learning how to be a single father to two kids. She saved the three of us whether she likes to take credit or not.”

“I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell him. I lost my parents. But he lost his wife. His kids lost their mother. I don’t know how anyone can look so put together and be as successful as he is. Sarah taking care of them is the kid of person she is whether she realizes it or not.

“Thank you. Well, I’m sure you want to check on Sarah?” I nod my head and his smile is warm. “She keeps her spare key under the mat in front of her door.” My look of shock and horror has him laughing. “I know. I’ve told her that’s the worst hiding spot and the first place anyone would check to easily break-in. So maybe you can be the one to drill it into her head.”

“Maybe.” I say and stand up. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

My stride is steady, if not a little hurried, as I let my legs carry me out of the office and to my car. Even though I was at Sarah’s house a couple of times, I still remember how to get there. And fifteen minutes later I’m pulling up and parking at the curb. Her cars in the driveway lead me to believe that she’s fine. But another part of me tells me she’s not. I knock soft but firm and wait for her to answer the door. After a few minutes of waiting for it to open, I look under the mat, and sure enough a key is there, so I let myself inside and make sure to lock the door and set the key on the entryway table.

“Sarah?” I call out. Nothing. I stroll down the hall to her living room and find it empty. Taking my shoes off, I climb the stairs to her office. Again, nothing. My feet lead me to her bedroom and I see a human-sized lump in the middle of her bed. The blinds and curtains are shut leaving the room dark despite the sun on maximum brightness today.

I pull off my jeans and shirt, because outside clothes in bed are gross, and lift the covers to her sleeping form.

“Riley?” She croaks out in a whisper.

“Hi, baby. What’s wrong?” I ask as I pull her closer to me.

“Migraine,” is all she says. And she must be out of it because she doesn’t question why I’m here. She just burrows herself into my curled arms and lets out a pitiful whimper that hits me right in the chest.

I run my hand along her back and massage her head and neck. She doesn’t push me away or tell me to stop. After a while, her body goes boneless as she falls asleep. I continue with my ministrations until sleep takes me as well.

Hands running up and down the side of my torso arouses me from my nap. I turn my head to Sarah’s blue ones and my lips lift in a small smile. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“How’s your head?” I ask.

She winces as I speak but I don’t take offense from it. “Still pounding.” Sarah whispers and breathes deeply.

“What’s wrong?” I’m instantly on alert and search her face for more signs.

“I get really bad nausea too. ”

“Sounds terrible,” I joke.

She does a short laugh then stops. “Don’t make jokes.” She tells me and buries her face back in my neck.

“Do you want some food? I can make chicken noodle if you have the stuff for it.”

“I don’t have any food.”

I kiss the top of her head and untangle myself from her. “Okay, then. You go back to sleep and I’ll run to the store. Soup makes everything better.”

I leave her with a soft smile on her face and a pang in my chest where she belongs.

The steam and mouth-watering aroma from the chicken noodle soup invades my senses. I didn’t bother going back upstairs when I got back from the store. My plan is to take a bowl up to her room and feed it to her. Because I doubt she’s had much of anything today if evidence of the bags under her eyes were any indication.

I’m scooping her soup into a bowl when I hear a noise from the hallway. Sarah’s lifeless body trails into the kitchen, surprising me.

“Hey, sleepy. I was gonna bring your food to you.”

She shakes her head gently and drops into a seat at the kitchen table. “I wanna eat down here with you.”

“Okay.”

I sit next to her with a big helping in my bowl and a smaller helping in hers. Her movements are cautious as if she’s scared to move too fast to aggravate her head. She looks so fragile in this moment. It makes me remember that underneath the shark-like persona she presents at work, she’s still just a girl. Well, a woman .

When I finish my soup, I push my empty bowl away and pull hers in front of me. Her protest dies on her lips when I drag her onto my lap. I hold the bowl in my far hand and scoop up some soup with the other and bring the spoon up to her lips. We continue like this. Me feeding her and her willingly letting me help her. When her bowl is empty, her body sags against mine and I stand up, carrying her to the couch.

I cover her with a blanket and wait for her face to relax. “I’ll be right back.”

“Hey, Riley?” Sarah asks.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” I kiss her on the forehead, out of comfort and to see if she’s got a bit of a fever and head into the kitchen to clean up. Once I’m done, I check on Sarah before heading back out to get my bag and to call Momma.

“Hi, Riley. What’s up?”

“What do you do for someone who has a migraine?” I snag my bag off the passenger seat and head back inside at a brisk pace. We’re told we won’t get snow, but I highly doubt that as the temps have dropped faster than usual. Back inside, I set my bag on the landing and go over to Sarah’s front room to continue talking with Momma without disturbing her.

“Do you need me to bring over some medicine?”

“No. Besides, it's not for me. It’s for Sarah.” I tell her to reassure her.

“Poor thing. Is she drinking enough water?”

“I think so? I made her some chicken noodle soup and had her drink some Powerade to get her electrolyte levels back up.”

“You’re too good for her. ”

“She makes me want to be good,” I announce.

“Well, honey, I think you’ve done all you needed. Just let it pass through her body.”

I let out a breath. “I will. Thanks, Momma.”

“Anytime, Ry. Love you.”

“Love you too.” I hang up my phone and set it next to Sarah’s spare key. I walk back into the living room and look at her passed out form. Not wanting to disturb her, I lift up her legs and place them in my lap when I settle on the couch.

My efforts are futile as Sarah wakes up again. She sees where I’m at and gingerly moves over to me and curls into my waiting arm. “I’ve never had this,” she says so low I almost don’t hear her.

“Have what?”

“Someone to take care of me when a migraine hits. Paul, my ex, always told me to take some medicine like that was the cure all to him. And my parents would laugh it off and say I was begging for attention,” her voice is tight and monotone. Like these people in her life stripped her of her joy before she even realized what was happening.

“You have me now,” I tell her, my voice strong with conviction. I hate that she’s had to deal with this pain by herself.

“But for how long? Riley, this is supposed to be fake.” Her voice cracks on the last one and it’s enough to crack open my heart and spill everything to her.

“Baby, this isn’t fake for me. Not anymore. I know it happened fast. I know we were supposed to stay on our respective sides of the line. I don’t want to use the word ‘fake’ anymore. At least not when it comes to us.”

Sarah traces a pattern on my free hand and I hear the wheels turning in that gorgeous head of hers. “But, you’re my client. I technically work for you. If that’s not a conflict of interest, then I don’t know what is.”

“Do you want to talk about this now?”

She lets out a breath. “I think the not knowing how to move forward will drive me insane.”

“Alright. I talked to Jeff today when I went to your office looking for you. Funny, but he was the one who said he was fine with us dating. But that it would be in the best interest of our relationship that I should be given a new publicist.”

Sarah nods but stops with a hiss.

“Baby, we can talk about this tomorrow. You’re in pain.”

“No. I wanna keep going.”

“Okay, stubborn woman.” I say and kiss the top of her head. “He didn’t demand I get a new publicist. But he did point out that our relationship would look weird if I was still paying you. So I have to give him an answer soon. And it depends on you.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“I want to say yes, Riley. So bad,” she starts and I feel wetness seeping through my shirt. “But I’m so scared. I swore off relationships and love. And being with you makes me more vulnerable than I ever wished to be again.”

“Let’s not put the cart before the horse, okay? One day at a time. But if you do decide that a full-blown relationship and love is something you want, let it be me. Okay?”

She looks up at me through cloudy eyes, “Okay.”

“Let’s go up to bed. You’re exhausted.”

“You’re staying?” She looks at me as if no one has ever put her first.

“Of course I’m staying.”