Page 92 of Ellie Hayes and the Himbos
Unease creeps over me. He’d been quiet on the drive. I wanted to believe it was how he was coping with Diego’s running monologue, but there was a tension to his silence. It was still thick while we got Diego situated in his room, and I hoped it would run its course while I took my time cleaning up. But he turns his frown on me. My stomach drops.
“Why was your doctor talking about a neurologist?” His voice is too calm.
My stomach bypasses the basement and plummets to the subcellar. “How—”
“I looked up the hospital’s directory. Only one Hartman.” He holds up his phone. On the screen is a photo of the good doctor, as well as information about his hours and the number for his office. He has a five-star rating from patients. Good for him.
I cross my arms and lean against the doorframe of the bathroom. “A littleinvasive, don’t you think?”
“Forgive me for having some sensitivity around the woman in my life receiving specialized medical care.” It comes out of him sharp, but then he sighs and closes his eyes for a beat. When his gray gaze returns to me, it’s softened. “I’m sorry,” he says gently.
My heart joins my stomach somewhere subterranean. The hope that had felt so promising back at Firehouse seems like such a fragile thing. That whole scenario it generated was hung on never having to tell him at all; I don’t know that it can support the truth.
I start small. “When we met, I couldn’t see out of my right eye. Optic neuritis. Inflammation on the optic nerve keeping what my eye was seeing from getting to my brain.”
“That’s… that’s why you’d cock your head.”
“You noticed that?”
He frowns. “It’s you, Ellie. Your body. Of course I noticed.” Before I can unpack that, he continues. “You haven’t done that for a while… the vision came back?” He sounds hopeful.
I grab on to the hope and white-knuckle it. “Yeah! It still gets foggy when I overheat. That puts pressure on the nerve. So, a good workout, or particularly athletic sex. We’ve left me half blind more than once,” I say, relieved to be able to contribute some levity. It rouses a smirk from him, but the upturn vanishes a beat later.
I rest my head against the doorframe. “Other than that, I don’t see color as brightly on that side now. And I get a phantom flash in the corner of my vision when I look really far to the right. Which is weird. That’s the only area I could see during the nerve attack.”
“Nerve attack?”
“That’s what it was. It took three doctors to get the diagnosis, but Dr. Hartman”—I nod to the phone still in his hand—“he figured it out.”
He nods, and I hope against hope that this will be the end of the subject. My eye was weird, now it’s not; end of story. But when he meets my eyes again, he wears an expression of such obvious hurt, it’s like I’ve kicked him.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice is quiet. “I asked you, when we talked about your goals at the gym, I asked youdirectlyif you had any medical conditions. You said no.”
“You asked me if I had any injuries or anything that would restrict my movement.”
“You wereblindin one eye, Ellie.”
“I knew how to accommodate it.”
“But I didn’t! The guys and the others working out around you didn’t! Any one of us could have been in your blind spot and interfered with a movement, and you or someone else could have been hurt.”
“But that never happened,” I insist.
“It could have been a liability for the gym. Had you considered that? If something had happened, it could have been on the facility. It would have been onme.”
The oversight dulls some of my defensiveness, and I sag a little, the ridge in the doorframe digging into my shoulder. “You’re right. I’m sorry about that.” I really am. And I also really want to defuse this situation. “I was already the newbie, coming in, knowing nothing. My fucked-up insides have made me the damaged one for years. I didn’t want to be that here, too. And it’s fine now—”
“What if your eye goes out again? Could that happen with this nerve thing? Would you tell me?”
I scoff. “If it happens again, I’ll have different priorities, I assure you.”
I should not have said that.
“What does that mean?” Ian’s question comes out flat. I don’t answer. “If it happens again, will it… will it be permanent? Ellie, oh shit.” He’s at my side before I can react, hands rising to cup my cheeks as he looks down at me. It’s more than worry on his face. “Oh Jesus, babe, I’m so sorry.” He pulls me into a hug. “I hadn’t thought about that.”
“It’s okay,” I say. Tears have sprung to my eyes. Joy and panic war in my chest. He cares. So much.Toomuch. And I want it too much.
He holds me more tightly, and I realize that I’m shaking. One of his hands smooths over my back, and the rush and relief I get from it is cruel.
