Sweetheart.My brain misfired. My insides melted.
“Sorry,” he husked. “That just… slipped out.”
I’d repeated it out loud. But instead of being embarrassed, I clung to the way his voice sounded. Like he was maybe, possibly, a little bit as affected as me.
“It’s fine,” I whispered.I love it. Too much.Then I registered the other thing he’d said. Keeping my gaze tilted downward, I dared myself to open my eyes.
I was clinging to him, my hands bunching against the sleeves of his T-shirt.
Embarrassment ripped through me. I let go.
The moment I did, he was up, backing away. Then he was gone.
With Sam out of the room, I breathed hard, panting likeI’d just run a mile. Why had I been so stupid? Why couldn’t I have packed a lunch like a normal person?
I didn’t know the answer to the first question. But I did the second. We’d run out of bread, and I’d had to help Tommy stick some chicken strips in the air fryer for his lunch. And then Henry had wet a new diaper and we were running late and?—
I grabbed the bubbly water Sam had left on the bedside table, guzzling down half of it.
Nothing out of the ordinary was happening here, if I thought about it. Sam was taking care of me like he would with anyone else. He’d been a medic, at some point. Did he call all his charges sweetheart? Probably. Maybe. I didn’t know.
But for a moment, still feeling permissive in this state, I went back and hung onto that word. I held it like a pearl. A precious thing gifted just to me.
CHAPTER 18
The Devil on my Shoulder
ELLIE
Sam seemed neutral again when he came back. Like he wouldn’t be letting any moresweetheartsslip. He opened the yogurt he’d brought for me. Put it and a spoon in my hands.
I ate, one spoonful after the other, realizing I was, of course, ravenous.
“Henry’s with Tommy,” Sam said. “They’re watching a show about a penguin. It’s pretty cute.”
I didn’t love Henry watching TV, only because he was so little, but sometimes it was necessary. Tommy’d had a lot more. Yet another thing I added to the list of things I was sure I’d screwed him up with. But I said a prayer of thanks for screens now.
I finished the yogurt. Sam bent down to take the container and spoon from me. He set it on the tray, then stood at the end of the bed, hands in his pockets.
“You can sit,” I said.
Sam looked over at the lone chair in the room. It didn’t just have a shirt on it, I could see now, but a pair of underwear. Not a sexy pair either. Oh God, were they dirty?
“Here,” I said quickly, pointing my chin at the end of the bed.
Sam hesitated, then lowered himself onto the very far edge of the mattress. He saw me struggling with the wrapper on the granola bar he’d handed me and leaned over, opened it easily, and handed it back to me.
“Is everything okay, Ellie?”
I almost laughed. Instead, I stared at the granola bar. I felt less unhinged than I had when he was almost on top of me a few minutes ago, but I still couldn’t look him in the eye.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. My voice was a little wobbly. “I’ve skipped meals before and been fine. I’ve been tired before.” I hadn’t been sleeping well, not for the past few nights. If I was being honest, I hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since I’d crashed into Sam on the street that first day. What was it, a month ago now? It felt like forever. But I’d worked all day countless times after being up all night with Henry. And Tommy, both recently and when he was a baby. “I guess… Mrs. Oxford is going to Florida next week. Her sister lives there, and she’s flying out to look at a condo. It was a last minute flight deal. Maybe that’s been weighing on me.”
“I can look after Henry,” Sam said. He didn’t even hesitate.
“It’s fine, I can put off the job I was going to be doing.”
“You don’t have to, Ellie.”
