54

LAURA
“Oh, my poor baby,” Balery cried when she saw me, dumping her purse and the flowers she was carrying on the ground before hurrying over to sit next to me on the bed.
Her eyes swept over my form once in in a quick survey, then she promptly burst into tears.
My heart broke. “Oh, Balery please don’t cry.”
I didn’t know what to do with myself. I’d always been terrible at comforting people, especially when they cried, so I tended to avoid the act altogether. Right now, I could do nothing but stare at her helplessly as she sobbed. It made me feel like a piece of shit–for not knowing how to react to certain display of emotions and for making her cry in the first place.
“But look at you,” she sniffed, tears running freely down her beautiful face. “You’re all patched up and I-I’ve never seen you like this–”
“I suffered just one injury and it was to my head, Bales.” I cut her off. “I look worse than I feel. Really.” Stretching with mild difficulty, I handed her a kleenex from the bedside table. “Here. You’re ruining your make-up.”
She wasn’t, but I would say just about anything to get her to stop crying. Watching her cry over me made me want to cry and, well, we couldn’t have that.
When she’d dabbed at her tears as carefully as she could, disposed it and come back to bed, she asked, “How are you feeling?”
“Honestly, I feel really great for someone who was involved in the kind of accident I was involved in, and I’m really grateful to have come out with nothing more than a scratch.”
Balery’s eyes trailed to the ‘scratch’ in question. “Did it hurt?”
She had to be referring to the stitching process.
I shook my head. “I was unconscious when that was done.”
If possible, that seemed to make her even sadder and for a moment, it looked like she was going to start crying again but then she shut her eyes and inhaled, making deliberate efforts to keep her emotions under control.
A lump the size of a boulder sat in my throat. I squeezed Balery’s hand and she squeezed mine right back.
When I’d told her over the phone about the accident this morning, she’d reacted pretty much how I’d expected her to, which was why I’d been reluctant to tell her in the first place. She’d left work to come see me immediately. And when I’d sent over the address telling her that it was Jack’s, that had given her pause.
There was a lot she didn’t know–such as, ahem, my pregnancy–but I hadn’t gotten around to telling her yet. Not because I wanted to keep it a secret, but because I was still struggling to process things. Everything was happening so fast, it felt like I was caught in a whirlwind and I still hadn’t found my footing yet.
I needed time.
In the meantime, Balery and I caught up on far less…crucial matters. Apparently, she’d told Jack’s friends about the accident and they’d been worried . They were thinking about seeing me but that was the complicated part.
“If you don’t want them to come, it’s fine.” Balery said quickly when she saw the expression on my face. “I can tell them you’re not comfortable with it and have them send flowers instead.”
I sighed. “No, it’s just that, you know, considering my living arrangements at the moment, they’d be curious and, well…” I trailed off, falling back on the pillows. I didn’t have to complete the sentence. She knew what I was talking about.
Her eyes lit up with understanding. “Oh,” she said, the shape of her lips mimicking the sound. She shifted closer to me on the bed, and when she spoke, again, her words were low. Hushed. “Laura, are you comfortable here?”
Translation: Was I really comfortable living with the man I’d spent the better part of the last two months running away from?
My honest answer?
“Of course. He takes such good care of me and if I were you, I’d be worried because that man is doing a fine job of stealing me from you.” I told her with mock seriousness, but Balery didn’t appreciate my half-hearted attempt at a joke.
“Seriously, you know you can come live with Jack and I for as long as you want, right? You’re not just staying here because you think you’d be a burden to us–which you couldn’t possibly be because we love you and care about you and there is absolutely no way we could ever tire of you–” She stopped abruptly, blinking in confusion at the smile on my face. “Why are you smiling?”
I shook my head, still smiling. “Because you’re so sweet and I love you.” Her expression softened. “You’re worried about me, I understand. This isn’t something that usually happens, and considering how adamant I was on getting away from him before…” I shrugged and she nodded.
“Yeah, exactly.”
“I get you, but I’m serious. He’s so good to me, Bales.” I swallowed, looked away, then looked back at her, a tad uncomfortable by what I was about to share . “I-I think I might be falling for him.”
As crazy as that sounded, it was the truth. Alex was…Alex was everything. When I’d met him on that elevator months ago, I’d never thought that he would be more than a one night stand.
The way Balery’s mouth fell open was almost comical. She blinked once. Twice. Then slowly touched the back of her hand to my forehead. “Sweetheart, do you think you might be suffering any lingering symptoms from–”
She trailed off, both of us turning around at the sound of light footsteps.
Speak of the devil.
Alex stood in the doorway, big and beautiful and all fucking mine. The sight of him was like a punch to my solar plexus, rendering me breathless, and it was crazy because one would think that with how much time I’d spent around him–especially now that we were actually spending time together–I would have gotten used to seeing his face, which was a work of art on its own. But no, every single time I saw him, I was reminded anew why I never stood a chance at resisting him.
“Hey,” he said and I swear to God, butterflies took flight in my belly, my breaths shortened, and I had this sudden strange urge to fall back and kick my feet in the air like a little girl. His eyes briefly flitted from me to Balery. “You guys all right?”
For some reason far beyond my reach as at this moment, I couldn’t get my vocal chords to work. I opened my mouth but not a single sound came out of it. Balery must have realized what was happening because she thankfully took control of the situation.
“We’re fine,” she beamed. “Laura was just telling me about how well you’ve been taking care of her. I can’t thank you enough for that.”
I could have sworn that Alex flushed. “You don’t need to thank me for that.”
His eyes clung to my face, searching for signs that I was in pain of any kind. I knew this because he’d been doing it since yesterday and when I’d called him out on it, he hadn’t denied it. While it made me sigh and roll my eyes–because, hello? I wasn’t an egg–I also secretly liked that he cared about me that much.
I searched his expression for anything that might show that he’d caught the tail end of my conversation with Balery and found none. I hoped he hadn’t, else it was things were going to get real awkward for me when she left.
“Okay…” Alex said eventually, drawing out the word. “I’ll leave you two to it.” With those words and one lingering tender look at me–which totally tugged at my heartstrings(couldn’t believe I was now using this word)–he turned and left.
My eyes clung to his retreating form.
“I don’t think that man would have let me walk out of here with you. He looks so incredibly possessive of you. But oh my God,” Balery breathed. “This is a miracle.”
I managed to drag my eyes away from the now empty doorway to look at Balery. “Huh?”
She looked excited, but also cautious like she was too scared to believe what she was seeing. To scared to hope. “You’ve really developed feelings for him, haven’t you?” She asked, then added, “Real ones.”
It would be an insult to both me and Alex to pretend otherwise, so I nodded. Once and without hesitation. I may not be sure about a lot of things at the moment but this, I was one hundred percent sure of.
Tears welled in Balery’s eyes and I groaned. “Please don’t tell me you’re about to cry again.”
“I can’t help it,” She huffed, blinking back the tears. “I’m just so happy that you are finally experiencing real human feelings and that you’re actually allowing yourself feel them.”
I laughed. Despite how crazy that sounded, it was the truth.
I didn’t let myself feel. I’d rather bottle the feelings up inside me and swallow them down, acting like my problems didn’t exist rather than addressing them. But since meeting Alex, I’d changed.
“Are you official now?”
“Yeah,” I answered truthfully. “I mean I’ve never done this type of thing before so I don’t know how it usually goes. I’m hoping I don’t fuck this up because, Bales, he makes me feel so safe and protected.” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “It still feels weird sometimes, you know?” She nodded like she understood, but could she really? I went on regardless. “For instance, he makes me talk things out when I would rather just push them to the back of my mind. And he-he makes me hold eye contact with him whenever we’re discussing important stuff. He doesn’t let me hide at all. And while sometimes, I hate it, I think…” I shrugged. “I don’t know. I think there’s a tiny part of me that appreciates it because I feel like deep down, I’m really so fucking tired of hiding. And he’s so patient with me, Bales. I have never met a more patient man in my entire life.”
Balery said nothing. She simply watched me with a private, knowing smile on her face.
A frown found its way to mine. “What?”
“What you haven’t realized, sweetheart, is that you’re already in love with him.”
I drew my head back, eyebrows flying high. “What? Of course not.”
She simply shrugged. “If you say so.”
But I wasn’t letting it go. “I think I’d know if I was in love, Balery.”
One perfectly arched brow lifted. “Would you?”
“Yes,” I said a bit too forcefully. “I have feelings for him, yes, but I’m not in love with him.”
“Of course, my love. Let’s have this conversation one month from now.” Then she patted my cheek like I was a lost child and I damn near bit her finger off.
I liked him. But I was not in love with him, was I?
Was I?