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“I’m not the best sleeper,” he confessed, pausing before he continued, “and I promised your mom I’d stay with you until you seemed less likely to die.”
“What!” I screeched, horrified by so many things about that admission that it was hard to pick just one of them to focus on. And buried under the horror was a huge heaping pile of disappointment. Holden was still here because he felt obligated. Sure, he was also probably genuinely concerned about my welfare because he was a good person, but I guess I had wanted him towantto be here as much asIwanted him here.
“She’s been calling me to check on you,” he said, and I groaned, covering my face with my hands. “It’s fine, Sutton. She was just worried, and I didn’t mind letting her know you were still breathing.”
I dragged my hands down my face, taking a deep breath. Exhaustion. That was why the hot tears were building up and threatening to overflow. It was just exhaustion, not mild heartbreak.
“I’m going to go take a shower,” I said, pulling my hands away from my face and sweeping them down my body. “I feel gross and a shower sounds heavenly.”
Disappearing to shower was an absolute violation of the rules of being a good hostess, but I couldn’t bring myself to care. I needed to get out of Holden’s presence for a minute. Plus, I really did feel gross — and I was positive that I looked ten times grosser than I felt.
Holden nodded, his eyes narrowing as if he could sense the shift in my emotions. “Okay, take your time. I’ll be here if you need anything.”
Yeah. Because you promised mymomyou would,I thought unfairly.
I took my time in the shower, the hot steam reviving me and easing the ache in my muscles from having spent the day in bed. I combed my hair and pulled on one of my more respectable pajama sets, a short-sleeved V-neck T-shirt with pearl buttons down the front and matching shorts. I tugged on one of the lacy bralettes I usually wore on the weekend, and decided this was as good as it was going to get. Holden had already seen me looking like roadkill. At least I felt like I had a better handle on my emotions now.
I went out to the living room. “Are —” I started, but as I glanced around, I realized Holden was gone. My heart sank to my feet. So much for having my emotions under control. “Well,” I said to the piglets, who were too busy eating to pay attention to me, “I guess that’s that.”
Going to the kitchen, I flipped on the lights and opened the freezer door for some ice cubes. I had some ginger ale under the sink that was calling my name. The cabinet door and my front door swung open at the same time. I screamed, jumping so hard that I threw myself off-balance and landed on my butt.
“Shit!” Holden cursed, setting a plastic bag down on the counter and rushing to where I was sprawled on the floor. He reached down to help me up. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine,” I said, waving off his concern, but I still slipped my hand into his. I didn’t need help getting up, but I wasn’t passing up an opportunity to touch him. Sad but true. “I thought you had decided to go home after all.”
“No,” he said as he hoisted me up, nodding to the bag on the counter. “I just went downstairs to get the food. I’m starving and not much of a cook.”
I looked over his shoulder and yelled again — happily this time.
“Is that from Mao’s?”
“Yeah.” Holden released my hand and turned to unload the contents. “I thought you could use some comfort food, and their egg rolls sounded pretty damn good to me too.”
“Not bad for a strip mall dive, huh?” I teased. I opened a cabinet to grab us some plates, silently reveling in how domestic and natural it felt to be eating dinner with Holden.
“I’ve been converted.” He motioned to the spread on the counter. “We’ve got egg drop soup, egg rolls of course, a variety of dumplings, beef lo mein, Sichuan eggplant, War Su Gai, sesame beef, and an order of chicken fried rice. And there’s white and brown rice. I wasn’t sure what you preferred.”
My eyes widened at the amount of food he’d ordered.
“That’s a lot of food,” I said, sounding giddy at the prospect. “Table or picnic?”
“Table, and maybe start with some soup. See how that goes before you move on to the hard stuff.”
“Good idea,” I responded, adding an egg roll to the sampling of dumplings on my plate. I felt Holden’s sigh. “Don’t worry, I have an iron stomach.”
“The amount of barf I cleaned out of your trash can begs to differ.”
“Meh, I always puke when I’m super tired.” I walked to the table and set my food down. I could have sworn I heard him muttering something about being stubborn under his breath as he filled his own plate.
We both tucked into our food with gusto, a comfortable silence fell over the table. While I shoveled food into the black hole that was my belly, I thought about everything Holden had done for me today and tried to come up with the words to thank him.
“Oh no, Holden!” The realization that it was Friday dawned on me. “It’s Friday.”
He paused, checking his watch. “For another few hours, yeah.” He finished his bite of sesame beef, confusion written on his face.
“Did you miss work to come here?”
He shifted in his seat, flipping his fork around in his hand.
