“If you’re asking if I’ve ever gone on a run at midnight to lower my blood sugar the answer is yes. But that was also back when I had roommates and didn’t have to go alone.”
“Don’t go alone.”
I throw away the discarded packaging in the trash can beneath the sink and toss my sharps into the labeled bucket beside it. “Can I ask why?”
“For one, Nellie would be devastated if you so much as tripped and skinned your knee.”
My heart warms at the new tidbit of information.
Sutton continues, “And if you don’t report to work in the morning, I’m the guy who has to go looking for you.”
“Because you’re my boss?”
“Because I’m a cop.”
“Ah.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Well, you can rest easy. I’d put on a workout video long before I set foot outside in a strange neighborhood.”
“I appreciate it.” The grit in his voice sends a pulse to someplace it shouldn’t.
“I’m all fixed now, so you can go back to sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Sutton exhales deeply across the line.
“Seven o’clock, Ms. Thompson.” Sutton effectively replenishes the distance between us.
“See you then.”
“Night,” he says gruffly and ends the call.
I blow out an audible breath. That was fucking unpredictable to say the least. This is not an angle I considered when I gave him access to my monitoring app, but a tiny part of me doesn’t mind it.
I’ve been in charge of my survival for a long time. Too long. Ever since my mom got tired of my diagnosis in my teens and left me to fend for myself.
Having someone check in, even if it’s just to confirm he’ll have a functioning nanny come morning, feels good. Nice even.
If I ignore the fact he’s just about the last person on earth I should ever want to care.
9
Sutton
“What the fuckis wrong with you this morning?” Silas drops his dumbbells on either side of the bench and issues the sharp jab.
“Nothing. What the fuck is wrong with you?” I look at him through the mirror.
My youngest brother studies me before swiping his gaze to our middle brother, Spencer, standing on my left.
“Spence? It’s not just me, right? He’s being fucking weird.”
Spencer’s bored expression says he’d rather be having any other conversation. “Don’t know, man. We did just force a stranger into his home. Give him a second to adjust.”
“Thank you,” I mutter, returning my focus to my last set of hammer curls.
“It’s been more than a week. Almost two. You see her, what, five minutes a day? It’s not like she’s living with you,” Silas retorts.
