Ella
I shutmy alarm off fifteen minutes before it was supposed to wake me up Saturday morning. I’d tossed and turned before finally giving up, laying in the soft glow of the morning light. I stared at the ceiling, my legs fidgeting under the covers.
Bradley Cooper must have sensed my unease because he’d stayed in bed with me instead of ditching me for Grace. He gave a dissatisfied grunt from the pillow beside me, reminding me that my restlessness had greatly inconvenienced him all night.
Sam was scheduled to go home later that day. Grace was over the moon, and she’d said more than once how excited she was about our little family dinner that was supposed to happen that night. However, I worried we were the only ones looking forward to this time together. Ever since the accident, Cash had been slowly withdrawing.
At first, I’d dismissed it as him being overwhelmed. I thought once things started looking up and he got a little rest, things would go back to normal. Instead, he’d felt more distant by the day. Even when he was in my arms, he felt oceans away.
He stayed each night at the hospital despite Sam’s insistence that he go home and get some rest. Cash opted to leave during the day soon after Grace and I got there, trading off to keep Sam company. We were ships passing in the night when I’d thought we were on the same boat.
Bradley Cooper sighed in my ear as though he could read my mind.
“Me too, buddy,” I said. “Me too.”
I plucked my phone off the nightstand, holding it in front of my face to unlock it. I pulled Cash’s name up and considered sending him a text, but what would I have said? I could have told him how much I was looking forward to our dinner together. I could have said that even though I’d seen him every day, I still missed him. But it seemed the closer I tried to get, the more he pulled away.
I scrolled past his name and pulled up my text thread with Liv.
Ella: You up?
Within seconds, the little text bubbles appeared.
Liv: Yep. Chloe was up half the night. You okay?
I laid there for a moment, trying to decide how to answer that question.
Ella: Do you think me and Cash were a bad idea? Be honest.
A moment later, my phone was ringing and Liv’s face glowed across the screen.
“Hey,” I answered.
“What’s going on?” she asked in a hushed tone. “Of course I don’t think you guys are a bad idea. Why would you ask that?”
I groaned and exhaled sharply. “I don’t know, Liv. Something feels off. He’s been so distant ever since the accident.”
“Try not to read too much into it,” she said. “Things will go back to normal once Sam is out of the hospital. He’s probably sleep deprived and has a pretty big emotional hangover after all of this.”
I chewed my lip. “I hope you’re right.”
“Of course I’m right,” she insisted. “Cash loves you.”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “Did he say something to you?”
“He didn’t have to,” she said. “It’s in the way he looks at you. The way he’s always looked at you, really.”
“You think so?”
“Are you kidding me?” She laughed. “The man has clearly been smitten with you since the night we all first met. But more than that, I think you understand some of the hardest parts of each other’s lives in ways few people can.”
“I don’t know.” I sighed. “I kind of resisted the idea of us in the beginning. I mean, he’s basically your boss, he’s Grace’s boss, and we’re all like family. If things ended it could get really weird and awkward. Then, it was like the second we seemed to get on the same page, the accident happened, and he pulled away.”
“That was a lot to have happened so quickly, though,” she reminded me. “Give it a few days. Sam goes home today, right?”
“Yep,” I said. “We’re going to the hospital in a couple of hours, but he’s supposed to be able to leave by late this afternoon.”
“Once Sam gets settled and you’ve all been able to get some rest, I’m sure Cash will be back to his old self. I can personally attest to how much sleep deprivation can affect a person.” She chuckled softly, and I heard Chloe start to cry.
