Page 96 of Mile High Baby

I started to lift his arm so I could hook it around my shoulders to help him in.

"Fuck. Don't touch me."

Immediately, I stepped away.

His expression turned remorseful. "Fuck. Sorry. Shit... That wasn't the first thing I wanted to say. You can help me on my left. It doesn't hurt as much on that side.”

I did as he said, helping him into my home and setting him on the couch.

"Let me get you a glass of water." I hurried to the kitchen, grabbing a glass and filling it from the tap. I returned to the living room where I found him sitting, his hands resting on his thighs, his head reclined back, and his eyes closed. He might've looked like he was asleep except it appeared that he was doing breathing exercises. I wondered if that was how he managed to make it through all the terrible things Dax had been sure to tell me had happened to him while he was in Pitney's grasp.

"Alex, let me call somebody and have you taken back to the hospital."

He lifted his head. "No."

I stood in front of the couch watching him, wondering why he was here.

"I want to find out,” he said, his eyes looking a bit glazed.

I stared at him, uncertain what he was talking about. "What do you mean? Find out what?"

"I told you that we wouldn't work, and you said that we would never find out. But I want to find out."

My heartbeat picked up, but my head warned me not to read too much into this. "Why? Nothing's changed."

"Henry’s changed his tune... I think. He’s still pissed, but now he’s pissed because I’ve made you cry. He wants me to fix it.”

See, this was why I couldn't get my hopes up. "You're here to appease my father?"

His brows furrowed as if he didn't quite understand what I was asking. "No."

"You just said that the thing that changed was my father—”

He shook his head, using his good hand to rub his eyes. “Fuck. I'm not talking right." He shifted, his face grimacing in pain.

"For God’s sake, Alex. Let's get you back to the hospital."

"No!Fuck... sorry.” He let out a long sigh and then patted the cushion to his left. "Can you sit for a minute? Please? I'll get my thoughts in order, and I'll do this right. I promise."

Skeptically, I moved and sat on the couch next to him.

"First, I love you." He could've started dancing a jig and I wouldn’t have been more surprised.

"What?"

His hand reached over, palm up, asking for me to take his hand. It was instinct more than will that had me putting my hand in his.

"I love you. I can't say for sure when it happened, but it was before we left this place."

"But you said—”

"I know what I said. I was a coward. Henry was right, I was afraid to love. And of course, there was the complication of your being Henry's daughter, but mostly, I was terrified. You are a young and vibrant woman with so much ahead of you. I'm an old man, older now after spending some time with Pitney. I’ve felt things I haven’t felt before, but I was afraid to tell you, especially since you saw this whole thing as a fling. A great adventure. You said so, remember? In the drugstore when you bought all those girly products?” He frowned. “This is an aside, but why did you need all that if you were pregnant?”

My lips twitched upward. "I embarrassed you with all those products so that you would go away and I could get the pregnancy test. And I only said that what we had was a great adventure because it seemed clear that it was over. I was going back to Dad’s and that meant we couldn’t be together.”

He thought about that for a moment, but his expression was a bit lost. I wondered if he was foggy from medication or maybe he had a head injury.

"I'm sorry you had to go through all that without me. I should've been there, but I know why you didn't want me to know. I made no secret about how I had set out to live my life."