Page 69 of It's Always Been You
“Gladys is with a patient right now, but I’m free,” he says. “Would you like to visit with me for a few minutes?”
She nods and stands. Brandon gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze before they head back to his office together. I watch him walk away, heart racing, the ghost of his touch imprinted on my skin.
If love is a battlefield, then unrequited love is a soggy, waterlogged trench, and I have foot rot. I wouldn’t be able to climb my way back out even if I knew how.
My back throbs as I clamber up off the floor and return to my desk, feeling close to tears. I worry on my bottom lip while I sort through my emails, doing my best to ignore the constant ache in my lower back. No matter what I’m doing—whether I’m sitting or standing, moving around or not—I’m in pain.
I should probably use this downtime to decorate the Christmas tree Brandon brought in over the weekend, but I lose track of time as I click around on my computer, seeing and achieving nothing. It isn’t until Brandon is seeing the woman out sometime later that the sullen, half-zoned-out state I was wading in like water fades away.
I blink against the sunlight as the woman slips out the door.
“Evie?” Brandon prompts, noticing the lethargic look on my face. He steps into the space behind the counter—a pet peeve of mine—but I say nothing. I don’t have the energy to make him feel unwelcome right now. “Are you alright?”
I drop my chin into my hand. “Dandy as a lion.”
“You’re in pain,” he surmises quietly, crouching down next to my chair. His gaze bores into my cheek, willing me to open up as I stare vacantly at my computer screen. “You can talk to me. I’ll always listen. You know that, don’t you?”
I almost moan.Yes, and that’s precisely the problem, you dimwit! Stop being so darn lovely all the time. It’s killing me softly.
But for one brief second, I do consider confiding in him—because I ache to talk about this with someone as knowledgeable as him. And it’s that gentle, inquiring tone of his that’s slowly doing me in. It’s so familiar. Soalluring.But he must know that. He used it all the time back when he was buttering me up to get me into bed with him . . .
“Yes, I’m still in pain,” I admit.Yes, my heart is still broken. Yes, I’m still in love with you. Yes, I’m still trying to process what you did.
“When does it hurt the most?” he asks softly.
All the time, but mostly when I think about how much I trusted you. And how quickly I believed you when you told me you loved me. But perhaps what hurts the most? When I think about how easily you lied to me . . . and how easy it was for you to walk away from me. Like I didn’t even matter.
“When I move around,” I whisper. “And when I don’t.”
“So, all the time,” he concludes gently. His voice is so tender that I almost crack and confide that I need . . . help. With going to see a doctor, I mean.
But I can’t risk opening yet another window into my heart.
Disgruntled, I’m about to tell him to get lost when his hand slides across my lower back unexpectedly. I gasp and jump, tilting my face down to look at him. I’m taken off guard by the vulnerable look on his face. He’s gazing at me as if . . . as if he’s in just as much pain over this as I am.
My brain short-circuits, and my petulant facade glitches, then malfunctions completely. Without thinking, I spin in my chair and slide my arms around his neck, unable to resist him when he’s looking at me like that.
Like he . . . loves me.
Pulling us into a standing hug, Brandon drops his chin to my head. Then he rubs the most soothing circles into my lower back, right where the pain is concentrated. It feels so good that I could purr. I press my ear to his heart and listen to the rush of his blood in his veins, breathing in his comforting scent until I’m certain it has touched the very tips of my toes. “I’ll make the doctor’s appointment for you,” he offers, his voice low in my ear. “And we’ll figure it out together. Okay?”
I nod against him, lost in the moment.
“And I’ll go with you,” he adds in a rush, like I might come to my senses and back out at any moment. But I’m in heaven, wrapped up in his arms. I’d agree to anything he asked of me right now. “Does that sound good?”
“Mmm.”
He chuckles, a comforting rumble in my ears. “Evie?”
“What?” I mumble into his tie.
“What’s gotten into you?” he wonders, smiling as he draws back to look at me.
His question brings me crashing back to reality, as if I’ve just plummeted thirty thousand feet from the sky. I push him away, my ears burning as I retreat. He catches me around the waist before I make it very far. My breath hitches, my heart leaping into my throat as he pulls me flush against his chest. Immediately, I lift my hands, pushing against him, attempting to put space between us again. But he holds me fast, and I stare at the colorful candy canes on his tie as his pulse hammers beneath my palms, torn about what I want.
“What can I do?” he pleads in a low, gravelly tone, knowing the moment is lost. He lifts my chin with his finger, forcing me to look into his eyes. “How can I make this better, Evie? How can I fix this?”
I get the sense he’s no longer talking about the pain in my lower back.
