Avery takes one of the basketballs off the cart and bounces it a few times, grinning at me. “Think we could come and watch the kids play sometime?”
I chuckle. “Sure. For a second I thought you were going to ask me to throw down with you right here and now.”
“Afraid I’d beat you?”
“Only if I have to play with one hand holding on to this box at the same time.”
She laughs. “That sounds like a challenge, Mr. Baine.”
“If you’re not careful, it will be.” I swipe the ball in mid-bounce, palming it and setting it back on the cart. “There’s more to see. Come along, Ms. Ross.”
We exit the gym through the back door near the lockers and fully equipped fitness room. Heading up the corridor, I show her the center’s six-lane swimming pool and another room that will be used for aerobics and yoga classes.
She glances up at me as we move through one empty area to the next. “Are we the only ones here today? I don’t see any workers.”
I nod. “Finish construction wrapped up a few days ago. Except for one or two final punch list items, everything’s in place and waiting for the ribbon-cutting this week. Tomorrow there’ll be some folks from the media coming through for photos and press releases, but right now we have the whole place to ourselves.”
She smiles. “You mean we could skinny-dip in the pool and no one would be the wiser?”
My cock stirs to swift, full attention. “We might want to make sure the security cameras are turned off first.”
I indicate the small black devices mounted high in the corners of the corridor and the activity rooms. Avery laughs and waves at the one above our heads.
“Come on, I’ll show you the rest.” I place my free hand at the small of her back. Then I lean down until my lips brush her ear. “We’ll return to your very excellent idea about getting naked after the tour.”
We move on to the second floor, which houses a computer lab and library as well as study rooms where latchkey kids and other youth in need of somewhere to go will find comfortable chairs and quiet areas for homework or just a place to get away.
Avery soaks it all in, looking at me with wonderment in her soft gaze and her voice. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
She hasn’t hidden her enthusiasm at all since we began our tour, nor does she seem the least bit bored as I’ve pointed out the minutiae of various building details and the many activities the center will provide.
We’re paused in one of the cozy study rooms when she exhales a tender sigh and lays her hand against the side of my face. “Do you have any idea what a gift you’ve created for this community? You’ve done something truly remarkable here, Nick.”
Her approval touches me more deeply than I’m prepared for. Even though we weren’t together to share in the actual construction of the rec center, touring it with her now feels as though she is a part of it with me. It feels natural and right that she and I should share this together, just the two of us.
I kiss her, savoring her kindness and the sweet taste of her. How I managed to go the entire year without the feel of her lips against mine, I have no idea. It’s not easy to break the contact. Harder still to put the thought of making love to her out of my mind when all I want to do is drop the box in my hand and bury myself inside her right here where we stand.
But I wasn’t joking about the cameras. They’re installed for the safety of the center’s patrons as much as they’re in place for insurance requirements.
I groan and force myself to draw away from her delectable mouth.
“Do you want to see more?” My voice is gravel in my throat, all of my blood vacated from my head to the massive bulge straining the zipper of my suit pants.
“I want to see everything you’re prepared to show me, Mr. Baine.”
I chuckle and take her hand in mine. As we ride the elevator back down to the main floor, I try to distract myself with the tour guide spiel I’ll be reciting for the press tomorrow. “Beyond athletics and study, we’ll also have creative classes for the kids. Dance, drama, art.”
“Sounds great,” she says as we alight from the lift.
I nod. “We’ll also have a gourmet chef on hand to cook meals for the kids who need them and to instruct the ones who want to learn their way around a kitchen.”
Avery’s brows rise as I bring her to a pair of swinging doors and push them open. She stares for a moment, then on a gasp she walks past me into the industrial-size professional kitchen designed to my personal specifications.
“Holy shit.”
She strolls by the multitude of stainless steel gas ranges, grill tops, ovens, and prep counters that dominate one entire side of the kitchen. On another side of the massive room is a walk-in freezer with more square footage than most of the apartments in this neighborhood, and a wall of built-in refrigerators with food storage space ample enough to feed an army.
I set the box of hardware down on a nearby counter and follow behind her as she peruses every square inch of the place. “I thought all of this gleaming metal might seem cold and clinical to the kids who come in here, so I had a craftsman come out and build all of the teak cabinetry and pantry shelving.”
She walks over to it, running her fingers lightly over the clean lines of a cupboard. Then she lets out a soft exhalation and shakes her head. “There’s no way to open any of these cabinets or drawers.”
I lift my shoulder, my smile sardonic. “Do you know your way around a screwdriver?”
She grins back at me. “I think I can manage.”
“Good. You’re hired.”
I go and fetch a hand drill and the other things we’ll need from a toolbox stowed in the janitorial closet, then Avery and I set to work measuring and installing the hardware.
It feels good to have her next to me, completing something as a team. She’s careful and exacting, her eye for detail even more meticulous than mine. But it’s not just Avery’s nature that makes her treat this simple task as if it’s the most important thing in the world.
She’s doing it for me.
I see that truth in her gaze when we finish the last drawer and stand back to look at our completed job. What I see in her eyes humbles me. It staggers me.
Makes me love her more than I had even before.
“Look at what you’ve done, Nick.” Her warm smile reaches deep inside me, to a place no one has ever touched before. Not before her. “It’s incredible, all of it. I know how much the rec center means to you. I remember how important it was to you to see this vision come to life and you did it.”
My chest tightens inexplicably at her praise because she understands this isn’t just another construction project to me. Not another business I could consume and reinvent in an effort to turn an easy profit. This is different.
This is a piece of me.
“You created something that’s going to have a lasting influence on this entire community and on every child who comes through its doors.”
I nod, but the movement feels tight.
This is more than an altruistic gesture for this community that’s many miles away from the dirt roads and swamps of my youth. I built this for myself too.
This building is the place I longed for when I was a troubled boy with problems too big for me to handle. It’s the sanctuary where I wished I could have gone when every other part of my life was spiraling horrifically out of control. When I felt I had no one to turn to and nowhere to go.
Avery doesn’t understand everything I was running from as a kid—the monsters I’ve buried deep in my past—but when I look into her searching eyes right now, I know that she can see the fissures in my veneer. She sees past the suits and the cars and the wealth.
Hell, I think she always has, right from the start.
Her hands are tender when she reaches up to hold my face. Her gaze captures mine, refusing to let go. Pleading with me to let her in.
“Thank you for bringing me here. For letting me share this with you.?
?? She smiles, those gentle eyes killing me with the depth of emotion I see in them. “I’m happy for you, that this all came together the way you dreamed it would. But it’s more than that, Nick. I’m proud of you.”
The words hit me hard. I can’t recall the last time I heard someone say them to me.
And never the way Avery is saying them now.
I’ve never seen the kind of love that’s shining at me from the light in her eyes.
Suddenly I can’t find my voice, not that I even know how to respond. On a growl, I pull her into my arms, hoping my kiss will tell her all the things I’m unable to articulate right now.
The good and the bad.
Even the sickening things no one else knows—no one who ever cared about me, that is.
Like a wave gaining strength as it races toward the shore, the impulse to let her in—to open the door just a crack and see if she’ll stand fast or run away—nearly overwhelms me.
I’m not sure if I’m ready to test her like that.
I can’t imagine a day that I ever will be.
When I lift my head from our kiss, my breath is sawing out of me, my heart hammering in my temples.
Her brow furrows as she holds my gaze. “What’s wrong?”
I shake my head, unwilling to ruin the day we just shared by inviting her sympathy. Or, Christ, her pity. That’s something I never want to see in her eyes.
But I already am ruining it all. My silence is making her anxious.
She takes a step back, out of my arms. “Where did you go just now, Nick?” She studies me, uncertainty creeping into her quiet voice. “You got so quiet. Was it something I said?”
“What?” My response comes out harsh, incredulous. “No. You didn’t say anything wrong.”
“Then talk to me.”
I look away from her and curse low under my breath. I’m fucking this up and I know it. But damn it, the words won’t come. They stay stuffed halfway down my throat, foul and unmoving.
Her expression sags in my lengthening silence.
When her phone abruptly starts ringing, we both flinch.
It bleats three times before she reaches into her purse to retrieve it. “It’s Pauline,” she murmurs woodenly. “I gave her my number this morning and asked her to call if anything changed today.”
I nod, feeling absurd as I stand there, our sudden impasse stalled as she takes the call.
Avery’s face blanches a second after she says hello. She hangs up a moment later. “I need to go to the hospital. Kathryn’s in an ambulance on the way to the ICU.”
Chapter 15
Nick holds my hand as we get off the elevator on the intensive care floor of the hospital.
Because we’re not family of Kathryn’s, the staff at the nursing station can tell us nothing about her condition. Instead they direct us to a waiting room that’s filled with other anxious and grieving people. Nick and I take the only two vacant seats next to each other. And then we wait, sandwiched between a set of parents trying to reassure their fearful children that their grandpa will be home again once his heart is better, and a middle-aged man with tear-stained cheeks staring zombie-like at the muted flat screen television while he absently twists the worn gold wedding band on his finger.
Although there is a heavy swinging door that separates the seating area from the ICU corridor outside, there’s no escaping the constant jarring barrage of hospital noise and activity. Intercom announcements summon doctors and other personnel. Nursing staff moving occupied gurneys and wheelchairs tethered to IV poles and medical equipment sail past the narrow window of the waiting room in a seemingly never-ending parade.
Each time I hear the sudden piercing alarm ring out from a patient’s room outside, my throat constricts with panic.
“I wish they’d let us see her.”
Nick wraps his arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss to my temple. “I’m sure they’ll tell us something soon.”
Although he sounds confident and his embrace is warm and tender, when I look at him I’m not sure he actually sees me. There is a tension around his mouth that I haven’t witnessed before. His mood has been grim since we left the rec center. Each mile that brought us closer to the hospital seemed to make him withdraw a little more.
And I haven’t forgotten the odd silence that had engulfed him even before then.
I swivel my head to look at his unreadable profile. “Is everything okay?”
His eyes meet mine and I know he understands what I’m really asking. Are you okay? Are we?
“Yes.” His expression is utterly earnest. In Nick’s solemn, honest gaze, I feel our connection as strongly as ever. He’s giving me that now, trying to let me in. Tenderly, he draws my hand to him, linking our fingers. “I’m here with you, baby. Don’t ever doubt that. I’m not going anywhere.”
I want to believe that. And I don’t doubt he cares about me, or even that he might love me as completely, as desperately, as I love him. But there are times when I feel Nick is always just a hairbreadth out of my reach, existing somewhere no one can ever truly touch him.
It’s that part of him I fear the most. The part that makes me worry if I hold on too tightly, probe too deeply, he’ll be gone.
I recognize that elusiveness in him because I’ve spent most of my life in that place too.
The waiting room door swings open and Kathryn’s personal nurse nods at Nick and me in greeting. She gestures for us to join her in the hall outside.
“She’s stabilized,” Pauline assures us right away. “She was in one of her stubborn moods and refused to take her afternoon pain medicines. I’m her nurse and she pays me to take care of her, but I can’t hold her down and force her to swallow those pills.”
“No. Of course, not.”
She lets out a regretful sigh. “Twenty minutes later, I found her out on the terrace, slumped on one of the chairs. I can’t be certain how long she’d been there, but she wouldn’t respond and her blood pressure was bottoming out, so I immediately called 911.”
Nick curses low under his breath. “You say she’s all right now?”
“As best as can be expected, considering the progression of her disease,” Pauline offers gently. “The doctors are administering IV fluids and pain medications. They’ll monitor her here in ICU overnight most likely, then reevaluate her tomorrow.”
Relieved somewhat, at least temporarily, I swallow the knot of dread that had been sitting in my throat since we arrived. “Can we see her now?”
Tapping a code into the keypad at the entrance of the secured intensive care wing, Pauline brings us past room after room of patients in various states of trauma or illness. Nick still holds my hand as we walk, our fingers threaded together. His grip is firm, and I don’t miss the subtle tightening of his grasp as we make our way deeper into the ICU.
Pauline pauses outside the door to Kathryn’s dimly lit room. “She’s been sleeping on and off for a bit. Stay as long you like. If she wakes up, I know she’ll be happy to see familiar faces.”
She leaves us then, explaining that she needs to speak with Kathryn’s oncologist. Nick and I quietly enter the room. He directs me to the cushioned vinyl recliner in the corner while he seems to prefer to stand, ignoring the metal guest chair situated at the foot of the bed. For a long time, we simply wait amid the steady beep and hiss of monitors.
I notice Nick has hardly looked at Kathryn since we came in. His gaze darts aimlessly from one thing in the room to another. Never at the bed or the machines. Never at her lying so still on the bed. He once cared for Kathryn enough to be her lover for a time and although they had their falling out years ago, I don’t expect it’s easy for him to see her like this.
Resting on the elevated mattress, she looks pale and dramatically frailer than when I saw her just this morning. Her steel-gray hair is thin and matted against her skull, her cheeks sallow and gaunt. An oxygen tube rides under her nose, and taped to the back of her hand and the bend of her elbow are IV lines running from mu
ltiple bags hanging from the pole at her bedside.
She stirs, moaning softly in her drugged sleep.
At her sudden agitation, Nick begins to pace silently near the door while I go to her side and gently comb her hair with my fingers.
“It’s okay, Kathryn,” I tell her, despite that she probably can’t hear me. I need to say the words in case she can. “You just rest, now and feel better.”
When I glance at Nick, I find him watching me. There is a heartbreaking tenderness in his eyes but there is also pain. There is an anxiety about him that he is struggling to keep clamped up tight, yet I see it in the careful set of his jaw. I feel it in the grim tension that’s practically rolling off him where he stands.
Good Lord. He is miserable in this room—in this place. And while I know he understands the gravity of Kathryn’s condition, I sense his distress is coming from a deeper place.
When Pauline appears at the door and quietly enters, he jolts at the intrusion.
“Avery, can I speak to you in the hall for a moment?”
My gaze slides to Nick for a second, but if he feels at all reluctant to stay behind in the room, he doesn’t let on.
No, all I see in his face now that we’re not alone is calm control and confidence. I see the facade of cool detachment that Dominic Xavier Baine presents to the world. The one he presented to me in the beginning, too, before I learned to see past it.
But have I really?
The question clings to me as I follow Kathryn’s nurse out to the corridor.
Chapter 16
A hissed curse gusts out of me the instant Avery exits the room.
Jesus. Get a fucking grip.
Bad enough I nearly pussied out in front of her at the rec center with some pathetic sob story about my less than perfect childhood. Now this?
I don’t realize I’m pacing again until I glance out the window and see her looking my way while she speaks with Kathryn’s private nurse. It’s the only thing that halts my steps—that look that says she’s just as concerned about me as she is the friend who’s slowly perishing day by day before her eyes.