53. Adam

53

ADAM

M y continuing physical misery aside, I feel pretty damn contented to be sitting in the library with Nat. Yesterday was a blur of pain and sweating and even fucking hallucinations. This morning, I’m nowhere near ready to head back in the office, but I’m feeling strong enough to allow her to tuck me up lengthways on the sofa, pillows stuffed behind me and a cashmere throw over my lower half.

She’s sitting at the other end of the sofa, by my feet, her laptop on her knees. To my immense frustration, she refused point-blank to go into work today, just like she refused point-blank to leave my side yesterday after she found me weeping like a baby for my dead sister.

Fuck that was horrible.

And mortifying as hell.

When I continued to drone on about how embarrassed I was, she remarked that it was far less embarrassing than when she drooled all over me during her hypo. I won’t admit it, but I suppose I take her point. At least my little display of vulnerability wasn’t in front of someone I actively despised, like hers was. I don’t like appearing vulnerable to Nat, though. It’s really important to me that I’m someone she can depend on to be there for her when she needs me. Involuntary downtime doesn’t factor into that dynamic.

Nat looks pretty engrossed in her work. She swore blind that she’d get more done from here than in her studio with her team to distract her. She also promised that working out of my library, with its crackling fire and stash of Hermès throws, was preferable to freezing her tits off (her words) at work.

I take advantage of her apparent focus to slowly extract my phone from where I’ve hidden it between the sofa cushions.

‘Put that down,’ she says without looking up.

‘I’m just checking the weather,’ I lie. ‘Anyway, I’m fine.’

’Spoiler: it’s going to be cold and rainy all day. And you need to rest. Put it away.’

The strength of my sigh makes her laugh. ‘Isn’t it annoying when you feel fine but a certain person keeps fussing over you like you’re on death’s door?’ she asks me with a perky smile.

Checkmate to her. ‘Yeah. It certainly is,’ I grit out.

‘Will you be okay for two minutes if I pop into the kitchen? I want to talk to Kamyl about the broth I’ve asked him to make for you.’

‘Honestly, tell him not to bother. I’ll just have some toast or something.’

‘Hmm.’ She pretends to ponder. ‘It’s so frustrating when a meddling busybody overrules what you want to eat, isn’t it?’ she asks now. ‘Like, for example, when you’d love some pancakes and someone keeps asking Kamyl to serve you up legumes.’

I poke her in the side of her thigh with my big toe. ‘Isn’t it just.’

We smirk at each other.

‘I think you’ll live,’ she pronounces, setting her laptop on the floor. ‘I’ll be right back. I want to make sure he’s putting ginger and lemongrass in it.’ She pauses at the door and beams at me. ‘I’ll be back in a second to breathe down your neck once more. Enjoy your reprieve.’

I roll my eyes at her departing back. How the tables have turned. She’s definitely milking this situation to her full advantage.

‘What do you normally do when you get sick?’ she asks me as I carefully sip my steaming hot and truly excellent bone broth. The lemongrass and ginger and fresh herbs are wonderfully fragrant, and it’s light enough not to turn my stomach. The bowl is on a tray which is balanced on my knees, and I’m leaning forward as I take spoonfuls in order to minimise the chances of boiling hot liquid hitting me in the gut—or the nuts.

‘I don’t get sick. I haven’t had a bug like this in years.’

‘But if you did,’ she insists.

‘I dunno. I’d do what most adults do. Dose up. Suck it up. Deal with it. And I’ve got Dyson on speed dial as well as a fleet of staff to tend to me, which makes me luckier than most.’

‘So you wouldn’t have anyone who—’ She stops herself.

‘Who what?’

‘Who cared for you, to look after you.’ She presses her lips together like she’s worried she’s said the wrong thing.

‘I’m a big boy, sweetheart. And I’ve never had anyone to look after me. Not really. Not until I could afford Kamyl and Bal and the rest of them.’ She looks like she’s going to cry, so I press on. ‘Look. I didn’t know my childhood was fucked up for a long time. Kids tend to embrace their own lived experience as ‘normal’. I’ve never been able to decide if that’s a blessing or a total travesty.

‘But as it turns out, I was essentially neglected for a long time—we all were. So this is how I deal with it—by making sure I’m well looked after by people who I can rely on to show up for me, and by making sure that I in turn look after them well. It’s a wonderful covenant. It works for me, anyway.’

I wholeheartedly believe this. You can’t choose the caregivers who bring you into this world. You can’t control their all-consuming demons any more than you can control the relentless work responsibilities they face. My mother and father were both absent for entirely different reasons. I’ve made my peace with that; I understand that none of it was my fault. So when you can cherry-pick the most wonderful employees and lay out to the word exactly what you require of them?

It’s bloody miraculous.

But Nat’s not staring at me as though it’s miraculous.

Carefully, she gets to her feet again and picks up a light mahogany chair from its place in front of the antique roll-top desk. She proceeds to set it next to me and sit on it, placing my tray on her lap.

I blink at her. ‘What are you doing? I’m ill, not totally incompetent.’

‘You need to learn,’ she says softly, ‘that there are people in this world who will take care of you because they can think of nothing more they’d rather do. Open.’

I’m pretty sure the word open should be preserved for me, for my most commanding Bedroom Voice, and that it should refer to her long, slim legs and not my mouth. Way to make me feel like a ninety-year-old invalid.

Nevertheless, I open my mouth and allow her to spoon some clear, fragrant broth in, mainly because her face is so pretty and her expression so earnest that I’d rather die than reject her sweet gesture and risk hurting her feelings. She’s in leggings and a dusky pink sweater that’s seen better days, her hair pulled back and her face makeup free.

She looks like an angel sent to have mercy on the undeserving.

‘If you’re going to do the nurse thing,’ I quip, ‘we should at least get you a proper costume.’

She shakes her head at me and refills the spoon. ‘Very funny. Here.’

‘I’m deadly serious.’

‘There will be no boners today, thank you. You’re recuperating.’

I suspect my poor, flu-ravaged body wouldn’t be capable of an erection even if she did rock up in full naughty nurse mode, but I have no intention of admitting that.

‘What a wasted opportunity,’ I mutter before closing my lips around the warm metal of the spoon.

She studies me. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What do you mean?’

She hesitates and puts the spoon down on the tray. ‘I’ve been getting the distinct impression that you’re uncomfortable having me look after you.’

‘I’m not uncomfortable,’ I hasten to reassure her. ‘I just feel guilty. It’s shitty for you. We’ve only been together for a few weeks—you didn’t sign up for this. And you’re missing work. I look like shit, and I’m all sweaty and snotty and revolting. You should beat a hasty retreat and come back when I’m my usual, sexy self again.’ I wink at her, but she doesn’t rise.

‘You really don’t get it,’ she says, picking up the linen napkin from the tray and twisting it in her hands. ‘Do you?’

‘Get what?’ I ask.

‘I don’t want to be anywhere else.’ She clears her throat self-consciously. ‘I just want to be here with you, in any capacity.’ Her beautiful, expressive eyes keep flitting from my face to the napkin she’s wrecking. ‘I’d rather be here than at work, missing you. And I’d definitely rather be here if you’re ill with only paid employees to look after you.’

My heart contracts painfully at her words, but she keeps speaking.

‘Listen to me. I care about you, you idiot. I’ll take you any way I can get you, and there’s no way on earth I’d leave you when you were ill. I hate that you’re feeling crap, and I’m going to do everything I can to make it all the slightest bit less grim for you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. She cares about me. I hoped it was true—I suspected it was—but I couldn’t be certain that she felt anything beyond a physical attraction and a connection borne out of our common career experiences.

She sets the tray on the coffee table and comes to sit on the edge of the sofa. I shuffle my bum to make room for her. She has her hands on my face when she says, ‘Adam. This is really important. I know you didn’t have anyone to look out for you when you were younger, and it makes me so fucking furious that that’s your frame of reference. But this is what people do when they care about each other. They look after each other because they want to . I promise you, there’s nowhere else I’d rather be today than right here with you. Oh, and you may be sweaty and snotty, but you still have my absolute favourite face. So stop trying to get rid of me, okay? Because I’m not going anywhere.’

Her lips are so soft when she brushes them lightly against mine. She holds my face, and I slide a hand around her neck as we stay like this for a moment.

‘I love having you here,’ I whisper, because it’s true. I may still be feeling like death warmed up, but the contentedness in my heart is real, and it’s complete. ‘Thank you for being you,’ I add, because that’s the crux of it. Somehow, against every single odd the universe has attempted to throw at us, I’ve met a woman who sees me. Who cares for the man I am today and forgives the man I used to be.

If we can be this good, this happy, when I’m ill and we’re tucked up together in my library, how incredible a force can we be out in the world?

I have no idea if Nat can ever bring her brother around to accepting me, and even less idea of what she would do if she were forced to choose between us, though God knows, I’d never let that happen. I’d prostrate myself at Stephen Bennett’s feet and beg his forgiveness for the rest of my life if it meant preserving his relationship with his sister.

Still, Nat’s admission has made me greedy. I want everything for us; I want to give this relationship oxygen. I want to walk down Regent Street with my girlfriend for all the world to see. Both of us have had our fair share of shit, of constraints to deal with, in our lives.

That ends now.

I have infinite means these days, and the world is our playground. I want to woo the hell out of this extraordinary woman and lavish upon her every pleasure her heart could desire .

I wind her ponytail slowly around my fist and tilt her head so I can whisper in her ear.

‘How do you fancy a trip to New York?’