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I shook my head and walked to the opposite side of the bed, laying beside her. The mattress sagged, pulling us together in the center. I wrapped an arm over the pillows, waiting for her to relax into my side.
She didn’t melt into me. Not right away. The anesthesia was gone, and her defenses were back in place.
“Relax, Nora,” I coaxed her, sinking my fingertips into her hair and working tiny circles down the base of her neck.
She set her palm on my chest, her knee pressing into my thigh. I repressed the urge to bury my face in her hair and pull her closer. For now, this had to be enough.
CHAPTER16
Nora
“There is a fire in the kitchen,”the AI-generated voice called, following the announcement with a merry chime.
“I know! I’m taking care of it,” I yelled, opening the oven to a plume of black smoke. Waving the smoke away with my bandaged arm, I searched the countertop for an oven mitt with my good hand.
“The alarm will sound. The alarm is loud.”
“Really?” I glared at the tiny screen threatening me from the kitchen counter.
I donned an oven mitt and pulled the cast iron pan out. Except, I barely cleared the rack before the weight became too much. In a split-second decision, I avoided propping the screaming hot pan on my forearm and let it fall to the ground. Hot potato pieces flew in my face as the cast iron smacked the oven door and the alarm blared.
“Back up!” Andy flew in from seemingly nowhere, pulling a fire extinguisher off the wall, wrapping an arm around my waist, and pushing me behind him.
“It’s fine! It’s not a fire.” I stopped him just before he pulled the pin on the extinguisher. “I think I spilled something on the bottom of the oven. I’m so sorry.”
His eyes narrowed as he surveyed the mess in front of him. Thankfully, the cast iron hadn’t cracked the oven door, but I’d ruined the dish. I suppressed a groan as he turned, a worried expression marring his face. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, fine,” I assured him, running a finger through my hair and pulling out a chunk of potato. “I tried to pick that pan up with my good arm. It was a little too heavy for me.”
“Sit down. I’ll clean this up.” Andy loosened his tie and set the fire extinguisher on the countertop.
“Don’t be ridiculous. I made this mess.” Tears threatened the corner of my eyes, and my voice shook. “I’ll clean it up.”
I rushed to the closet and smacked my wrist into the wall with a yelp. The tears spilled down my face as I pulled the broom out, wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand. Andy appeared behind me, his hand softly gripping my elbow.
“Relax.”
“I’ve got to clean this up and find something else for dinner, so we can make it to Bob’s tonight. We can’t blow that off another week.” The words spilled out of my mouth, my voice wavering on the precipice of panic. I tried to move around Andy, but he put his other hand on the broom, peeling it away.
“We can salvage this. It’s just the potatoes. And if we can’t, I’ll run out for a pizza.”
I attempted to evade his grasp, my focus on the mess on the kitchen floor, the smoke escaping from the oven, and the clean laundry basket on the couch.
Andy kept his gaze locked on mine. “Deep breath, Nora.”
I relented. “Fine. One deep breath.” I closed my eyes, inhaling with him and fighting back a smile. “Do you think this is helping?”
“It’s calming me down. I thought you were trying to burn down the kitchen,” he said, cracking his eyes open with a smile. “Although, if this is some ploy to get out of going to Bob’s tonight, can we come up with a less destructive excuse next time?”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not that. I want to see everyone. I just thought that I’d recover faster. It’s frustrating.”
In the three weeks since my surgery, I’d done all my daily exercises and gone to therapy, but the surgery zapped my mobility and strength. I could barely dress myself, let alone easily cook a meal.
“Then, take a step back.”
“What does that even mean, Andy?” I sighed, exasperated and tired. Unused to unemployment, I ricocheted around the house all day, searching out projects and finding most impossible in my current state.
“It means you don’t need to do all this. The laundry, cooking, cleaning. Hell, I have a housekeeper, and I kept up with the day-to-day mess just fine before you moved in.” I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. He’d barely inhabited the place. It was more of an empty showroom than a home. “I appreciate what you’re doing, but it’s unnecessary. We’re in this together, remember?” He squeezed my elbow with an inviting smile. “Besides, you’ll be busy with schoolwork in the next couple of weeks, and we’ll split the chores. Fifty-fifty. Until then, just make getting better your full-time job.”
