Page 16 of Say You'll Stay

That’s a bridge to cross later, though. He’s thinking too far in advance when he needs to be happy she’s awake and looking better than she has in days.

“Want some dinner? A shower?” he asks.

“There’s hot water?”

“Yep. I was gonna take one but didn’t want to leave until you woke up.”

“You go first. She and I will be okay until you get out.”

He hesitates. The bathroom is only a few feet away, but he’d be unable to help if something goes wrong. These people think he hurts his wife. They could be waiting for him to fall asleep or leave the room to try to get her away from him.

“Go, young man. You smell like the sewer.”

A sassy voice breaks in, attached to one of the women who fussed over Lucy.

“Miss Sally here took a liking to the baby,” Cole explains. “Said she’d come to check in again.”

“You heard her, then.” Olivia winks. “Go wash the sewer off. Leave the door open a crack.”

He does as he’s told. Can’t be smelling awful around Olivia. He’s on edge the entire time but scrubs with that flowery soap on the counter and can’t deny how good it feels to be clean. Even runs a comb through his dark hair for the first time in forever.

Without intending to eavesdrop, he catches a few snippets of conversation. Sally goes on about how cute Lucy is, telling Olivia she had six kids back in the day and she better get some rest…or else.

When he emerges ten minutes later, he’s glad they’re alone and Olivia’s got a tray of food in front of her filled to the brim with muffins, soup, and bread.

“There’s one for you, too.” She points to the corner where his tray waits, her eyes crinkling when she gives him a once-over.

He’s self-conscious about the effort he put in, but she doesn’t comment or make fun.

Half a tray of food later, he’s left alone with the baby as if he’s completely trustworthy while she takes her turn in the shower, and fuck if that doesn’t feel better then it has a right to. That’s a running theme with her, he realizes. Feeling a lot of new things he never expected or wanted, but now that they’re here, he cycles between fighting it and admitting, if only to himself, that it isn’t so bad.

“Just me and you again, kitten,” he says to Lucy, opening a package of chocolate pudding. “Wait until you’re old enough to eat this stuff. It’ll change your life.”

* **

“That’s an interesting nickname you have for her.”

When Olivia returns, all shiny and clean and highlighted by the window light, he has to fight the urge to look away. She was pretty before, but something about her fresh from the shower has him mesmerized.

She’s got nice collarbones. They carve little valleys into her body and he wonders what they might feel like under his fingers if he traced one. Her long, dark blonde hair has gone wavy as it air dries, hanging soft against delicate skin.

Even the slope of her nose catches his attention with how gracefully it glints in the light of the sun. She is like something out of a painting and he’s certain the creator fussed over every perfect brush stroke.

“Fuck this pudding,” he scowls, angry at himself for noticing her like this at all, and lashing out at the food as a diversion. He tosses the empty cup onto the table and flushes a shade of red when he spies her curious, confused stare. “Too much sugar. Not healthy.”

That was lame as hell and she knows it. “For someone who’s not a pudding fan, you sure did eat it all.”

“Can’t waste food.”

“Mhmm.”

“When I first heard her in the subway.” He tilts his head toward the baby, reaching for any conversation that can serve as a distraction. “I thought she was a kitten.”

Olivia shakes her head with a sad smile. “Bet you wish you found a baby cat instead, huh?”

“Must be feeling better if you took your own IV out?”

Cole’s saved by a new voice that startles Olivia into movinga few inches closer. “Andrew’s a nurse. Took good care of you when we got here.”

---