Page 133 of Love Felt Like This

I sigh, bypassing him and walking down the steps into the den.

“Where are you going?” he calls. I can hear the frustration in his raspy voice.

“I’m making you a bed,” I say.

His groan carries down the stairwell, right as I start to remove the floral cushions from the couch and grip the handle for the pullout bed.

Chapter Twenty-Four

A Two-Person Bird

Griffin

“This will put you behind,” I grunt.

Beverly holds out a bowl of soup and rolls her eyes.

“I’ll be fine,” she says.

I shake my head to argue, but that motion gives me a slight headache, so I instantly stop, clutching my temples in my palms.

Beverly sighs, extending the bowl toward me again.

“I’ve got this,” I answer to an unspoken question.

“Well, unfortunately for you, I don’t care,” she says. Despite my frustration, my lips twitch at the corners. I’ve never heard Beverly so insistent. I kinda like it.

“You can’t do everything by yourself,” she says. “You showed up for me when I was sick—”

“Drunk.”

“When I was sick,” she finishes. I snort. “So I show up for you.”

“You’re on a deadline. You don’t have time to do all this.”

“And what good is puppeteering Bernie if my right hand is down?” she says with a small smile. “We’re a two-person bird, remember?”

I sink into the sheets and groan, but Beverly only laughs.

She’s always laughing. Always showing up to situations with positivity and determination. I’ve never seen her this stubborn, though.

She nudges the soup bowl toward me once more.

I finally take it into my palms, bypassing the spoon and sipping the broth.

“I need to check on Ava,” I say.

“You will,” she says. “In an hour after you nap.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” she asks with a smile.

“Treat me like I’m incapable.”

“I know you’re not,” she says. “But sometimes it’s okay to not be okay. And you don’t seem to get that, so I’m here to remind you. Lucky you, huh?”

She twists around and grabs something from the side table behind her, then reappears with a water bottle. It’s a reusable one, lined with stickers from what appear to be various theater productions and even a national park or two.