Page 28 of Restoration

For two days I was deeply sympathetic and did everything in my power to help him and make him feel better. I spent hours by his bedside just in case he woke up and needed something.

But on the third day, my patience started wearing thin.

He complained about the light in the room. He complained that his sheets were damp. He complained that everything tasted bitter. He complained that the first piece of toast I made him was burned and the second wasn’t done enough. He complained that his body hurt too much to walk to the bathroom and then gave me a nasty look when I blandly offered him a bottle to pee in.

Eventually I got sick of the whining and left him to his own devices.

When I went to check on him an hour later, he was still in bed but had the covers up over his face.

“Are you okay?” I asked, coming in from the doorway.

He made a grumbly sound that wasn’t made up of any real words.

“Edmund?”

“Everyone calls me Worth. Why do you always call me Edmund?” The question wasn’t angry—just articulated in a bad-tempered mutter.

“Worth Worthing is a ridiculous name,” I replied crisply, pulling down the sheet so I could see his face and verify that he was actually okay. “You might as well call yourself Richie Rich.”

His body shook a few times. Then dry laughter huffed out of him. Then he couldn’t seem to stop, laughing until he coughed and had to wipe his eyes.

“It wasn’t that funny,” I told him.

“Yes, it was. Sorry I’m such an asshole. I feel more like crap now than I did when I was worse.”

“That’s pretty normal. It’s terrible when you’re improved enough to think you should be getting better but you’re still not all the way better.”

He sighed and pushed the sheet down. He’d been wearing nothing but loose boxers for three days, and his normally tanned skin was paler than it should be. His hair was sticking straight up on end, and he had the beginnings of a beard. “Yeah. That’s probably it.”

“Do you feel up to taking a shower? It might make you feel better, and I can change your sheets while you’re out of the bed.”

He nodded, then took a deep breath before he heaved himself up to a sitting position. He sat on the edge of the mattress for a minute, catching his breath before he managed to get to his feet.

“Shit, I feel like I’m going to fall down,” he said as I wrapped an arm around his waist because he looked so wobbly.

“You’ll bounce back soon. Give it another day or two.”

“Why are you always so calm and sensible when I’m in the heights of melodrama?” His voice was slightly hoarse and had an edge of fondness that I liked.

“Because one of us needs to be sensible.”

“When do I get to be the sensible one?”

We’d made it to the bathroom by then. He sat down on the closed toilet lid while I went to turn on the shower spray and adjust the temperature for him. When I was done, I turned around to meet his eyes. “If I ever get caught up in the heights of melodrama, you can be the sensible one then.”

“But that will never happen.” He was smiling just a little as he stood up, the waistband of his boxers so low they almost exposed his groin.

Feeling way too soft and melty, I reached out to yank up his boxers a couple of inches so I didn’t get any wrong ideas. “Then I guess you’ll never get to be the sensible one.”

He sighed as he felt the water and then moved a towel onto a hook, in easy reach next to the shower. “That doesn’t seem fair.”

I was starting to leave the bathroom, but I paused at the door. “Fair to you or fair to me?”

He paused with his lips slightly parted, as if I’d momentarily baffled him. “I don’t even know.”

“Well, you can figure it out while you’re taking a shower.”

I left him alone then while I changed the sheets on his bed, and that particular conversation never resumed.