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“Come on.” Hunter finally stood and helped me up. “Let’s get out of this little bathroom.”
“I have appointments today that I need to call and cancel.”
“You don’t have to do that. I need to find a place to stay and crash for a little bit. I’ve been up since yesterday morning.”
“How long are you staying?”
“Not sure yet. At least the next two or three days.”
“Stay here at Mom’s with me.”
“Does she have one of those metal things you use to grind up meat?”
I scrunched up my nose. “Yeah. Why?”
“No reason. She makes good meatballs. But I’d rather get a hotel, if you don’t mind.”
“Okay.”
Even though I’d already taken a bath, I took a quick shower hoping it would help clear my head while Hunter went on my laptop to find a hotel near Mom’s house. When I finished getting ready, I found him sitting up on the couch, but sound asleep. I took a moment to appreciate the man and consider how difficult the decision must have been to tell me. He hadn’t told anyone except his lifelong best friend since finding out more than ten years ago. That was a lot for one person to hold in. I decided I wanted to show him how much I appreciated him being honest with me, so I straddled his hips and woke him with my lips pressed to his.
“Mmmm…” he groaned, coming to life.
I might’ve started the kiss, but he certainly took over fast enough. Hunter wrapped both of his hands in my hair and used it to keep me in place while his talented tongue led mine in a tantalizing dance. When I attempted to break the kiss, he caught my bottom lip between his teeth and tugged.
“Where you trying to go? I could get used to being woken up like this.”
I rubbed my nose with his. “When I was a little girl, whenever my sisters and I wouldn’t confess to doing something wrong, my mom would promise no punishment for telling the truth and say, ‘Honesty is always rewarded.
’ Then when we came clean for whatever we were hiding, she’d give us a lollipop or something as a reward.”
“Oh yeah? You saying you’re going to give me a lollipop for dumping my depressing truth on you?”
I pulled back enough so he could see my sinister smile. “Close. I was thinking you’d be the lollipop. I’ll go to my appointments; you go to your hotel, take a hot shower, and climb into bed naked. I’ll wake you with your honesty reward.”
***
Minnie was my last appointment for the day. It wasn’t professional to have favorite patients, but I’d come to visit her even if I didn’t get paid.
She stared at the elevator panel with stress lines etched all over her face as she waited for the car to arrive. She’d only checked the door lock three times before I urged her to walk to the elevator. Not checking the fourth time was killing her. Obsessive-compulsive behavior isn’t about not being able to resist the compulsion. It’s about the inability to stop thinking about the compulsion when you do resist it. She hadn’t needed to check that the door was locked a fourth time, but she was unable to stop thinking about checking it now. I attempted to distract her while we waited for her slow-as-shit elevator.
“So…Hunter is back.”
That did the trick. At least temporarily.
“Oh? I knew he’d come to his senses.”
I smiled. “That makes one of us.”
The elevator doors opened, and I had to put my hand on her shoulder to guide her to step inside. It wasn’t easy for her to leave the floor. But today we were going to go down to the lobby, step off the elevator, and wait for a new one before coming back up to check that the door was locked again. Breaking the pattern a little each week was working, albeit slowly.
“You were right, by the way. He had a secret he was trying to protect me from. He’s got a health condition. Well, it’s complicated, but he was afraid to get involved with me and drag me into what could amount to some rough years, medically.”
Minnie was quiet as we stepped off the elevator and waited for the next one to arrive. I knew from prior experience that focusing was difficult for her until she was on the upswing, heading back toward the relief of her stress. Today it was stepping into the elevator that alleviated some of her anxiety, knowing she’d soon be able to touch that door handle again.
Once the elevator doors closed, she let out an audible exhale and spoke. “Thirty years ago, when I was dealing with my condition alone, I pushed people away because I didn’t want them to try to make me stop what I was doing. I knew people would try to help me, but that would mean having to stop checking things, and, of course, that thought alone caused me stress. So I pushed people away rather than face my fears.”
I nodded. “I guess that’s what Hunter had been doing all these years. He didn’t get tested for a long time because he didn’t want to have to deal with the results. It was easier to push people away than be pressured to get the tests done when he wasn’t ready.”
