Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120165 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
I looked at my toes, embarrassed. “It was just a nightmare.”
He shook his head. “They’re not just nightmares.” He looked away...and then his jaw set, and he seemed to make a decision. “I know,” he admitted. And then he turned and walked out, headed for the bathroom.
He has them too. I stared at his retreating back, stunned. What could give a man like him nightmares?
The next day, I borrowed Jen’s car so that I could move my stuff into Radimir’s penthouse. I was hoping that having my things there would make it feel a little more like home. Jen’s car is a twenty-year-old station wagon that droops on its suspension like it’s permanently depressed, and it still has butterfly stickers along its sides from when it was a rolling advertisement for Jen’s failed home-visit nail salon business a few years ago. But it’s still six thousand times better than my car because I don’t have a car.
The elevator at my place still wasn’t working so packing my stuff into boxes and getting them all down the stairs took ten journeys up and down four flights and by the end of it my knees and ankles were so tight with pain that I could barely push the car’s pedals. With hindsight, I probably should have waited a few more days to let the immunosuppressants kick in. But I was here now, and I wasn’t giving up.
I grimly drove to Radimir’s penthouse, parked in the underground parking lot and started taking boxes up in the elevator, then carrying them along the short hallway to his place. By my third trip, my legs were shot. I kept staggering sideways like I was on the deck of a rolling ship. I was slumped against the wall, trying to gather up the strength to carry on, when I heard a stern Russian voice behind me. “What are you doing?”
“Moving,” I grunted, not looking around. I tottered another few steps. I wouldn’t let him see me being weak.
“I can see that.” Radimir sounded testy. “But do you have to kill yourself to do it?” He stalked over and plucked the box from my arms like it weighed nothing. I glared. “There are people who do this sort of thing,” he told me.
“I can’t afford a moving company,” I kept my eyes on the door of his penthouse and stumbled another step.
“I would have paid for one,” he snapped. Why was he in a bad mood? Was he worried I’d drip sweat on the carpets? Which, to be fair, I was. He marched off into the penthouse and put the box down. I tried to hobble after him, but the first step made my left ankle light up cherry red with pain and I had to grab the wall to keep from falling.
Radimir marched back to me, his face furious. I avoided his eyes. He ducked and—
“Stop!” I yelped as he scooped me up. “You don’t need to—Jesus, you can’t just pick me up whenever you—”
“I can and I will.” He straightened his legs, boosting me into the air and cradling me against his broad chest, and I went a little heady. Just head rush, I told myself angrily. He stalked into the penthouse and laid me gently on the couch. “You will stay there. I will be your moving company.”
“But—”
“No buts.” He glared at me and—
It was the first time I’d met his eyes. I could see something flickering, behind all that frozen gray. A deep, protective need.
He was mad. But not at me, at himself. He thought he’d caused me pain, by making me move in with him. I swallowed and went quiet.
Radimir marched out into the hallway, and I finally listened to my body and let myself just flop on the couch. I was pretty sure that if someone poured cold water over my knees and ankles, steam would billow off them.
He carried the boxes in two at a time, arranging them in precisely straight rows. By the time he was done, I was capable of helping again, even if I wasn’t capable of standing. I crawled over to the boxes, opened one and started figuring out where things were going to go.
Radimir paced around as if he didn’t want to interfere but wasn’t going to leave me alone to over-exert myself, either. “What’s this?” he asked, touching a four foot long something wrapped in towels that was leaning up against the wall.
“Nothing!” I grabbed the bundle and put it protectively behind me. I’d hide it somewhere later.
“What’s in this one?” he asked, nudging a box with his toe.
“Books.”
“And this one?”
“Also, books.”
He nodded politely but he looked bemused. As if reading, relaxing, doing anything fun was alien to him. Does he do anything aside from work?
I dug through the box and pulled out a blanket. It was hand-knitted, a mix of pink, pale green and yellow.