Solo (Symphony Hall)

by Lauren E. Rico

  I get up and follow his directions, coming out in a room that makes my jaw drop. The vaulted ceilings continue in here, but with a rich, wood plank surface to complement the beams. A river rock fireplace sits in the middle of one wall, flanked by built-in bookcases that go all the way up. On the other side of the room is a baby grand piano, set in front of tall picture windows.

  “Wow,” I murmur under my breath as I make my way to the plush, overstuffed couch facing the fireplace. I’m struck by the fact that there isn’t a television in this room. Either he doesn’t watch, or he’s relegated it to some other space. Of course, with the number of books on the shelves and the small pile on the table by his rocking chair, I’m guessing he prefers to pass the time reading.

  I sit gingerly on one end of the couch with my tea, making a concerted effort not to gawk at my surroundings. It’s just so strange to see Drew Markham in this context. No suit, no briefcase. No snarl.

  Well, okay, maybe a little snarl.

  But this is where he lives, where he spends his hours when he’s not at work. It occurs to me that if I look hard enough, I might just stumble across a few clues as to why he’s such an ass. I hear his footsteps in the hallway and when he appears in the den, he’s carrying a glass of water.

  “Do you have a headache?” he asks.

  “Splitting.”

  He nods as if he suspected as much, taking the mug of tea from me and setting it on the end table to my left. He hands me the water and produces a couple of pills from his pocket.

  “Some Tylenol. And finish the whole glass, you’re probably dehydrated,” he advises.

  I gulp the water and hand the glass back to him. That’s when he extends his hand toward my face. Before I can stop myself, my eyes are shut tight and I’m cringing into the couch cushion, as if bracing for an impact. When none comes, I open my eyes. His hand still outstretched, eyebrows arched in surprise.

  Oh! Oh no! What the hell did I just do?

  “I was just going to feel your forehead,” he assures me very quietly.

  “I—uh—I thought…” I stammer, unable to finish the sentence, because there’s simply no tactful way to recover.

  He straightens up, letting his arm drop to his side.

  “You thought I was going to hit you?”

  He sounds beyond incredulous. He sounds offended.

  “No! No, of course not,” I lie. “You just…you startled me is all,” I say, summoning a little indignation of my own.

  “Well, I’m sorry, Miss Brenner, if I startled you,” he replies coolly. “That was not my intention.”

  Shit. I’ve really pissed him off. Or freaked him out. Probably both.

  “I thought you might like to lie down for a little while,” he says, handing me a thick, fluffy pillow. “There’s a blanket over the back of the couch there. I’m going to have my dinner in the kitchen. Just call out if you need anything, I’ll hear you.”

  He starts to walk from the room before I can speak.

  “Thank you, Dr. Markham. For everything,” I call after him.

  He just looks over his shoulder briefly and gives me a curt nod.

  Well, there’s no un-ringing that bell. I take the pillow and lay it flat on one end of the couch, and stretch out before pulling the blanket over me.

  Ugh. I’ll just have to deal with the fallout from that mess later. For now, I can’t keep my eyes open another second.

  Chapter Ten

  Drew

  I’m not going anywhere anytime soon. And, while that had been a pleasant prospect when I was here alone, it’s a goddamn nightmare now. I’m too pissed off to concentrate on cooking anything so I just stomp around the kitchen, fixing myself a sandwich. I sit at the island, tearing angry bites out of my sandwich, not even tasting them.

  Christ, did she think I would—that I could—lay a hand on her? The idea that she’d think me capable of such a thing is beyond offensive. I think I’d better address this right here and now, because the last thing I need is her going back to school and telling Maureen that she felt threatened. Not only would that squash any chance I have at tenure, it could end my career.

  I leave my half-eaten plate and stalk back down the hall, talking before I’m even through the doorway.

  “You know, Miss Brenner, I have to say that I find it—”

  I stop short. She’s lying on the couch, blanket kicked to the floor. She’s breathing heavily, panting really, her head tossing restlessly from side to side.

  “Miss Brenner?” I ask, moving closer.

  No response. When I bend to pick up the blanket, I notice the perspiration pouring off her face, which seems quite flush all of a sudden. I put a hand to her forehead. She’s burning up. One glance out the window tells me there’s no way in hell I’m getting her to a doctor. And even if an ambulance could get through, the closest hospital is nearly an hour away. Her brain might be deep fried by then. No, I’ll have to handle this myself.

  “Miss Brenner?” I ask, giving her a slight shake. Watery, glassy blue eyes open. “We have to get your fever down, okay? I’m going to bring you upstairs.”

  Her eyes close again with no response. I bend down and pick her up easily. Somehow, she feels lighter than she did when I carried her in from her car. Has she always been this thin?

  She moans in discomfort as we start up the stairs and to my bedroom.

  “Shh,” I say softly, trying to comfort her. “You’re going to feel better soon.”

  When we get upstairs, I set her down on the edge of my bed and go into the connected bathroom. The big Jacuzzi tub hasn’t been used since…well, since Casey used it. I push the memory aside as I bend over to close the drain and turn the faucets on. Once I’m satisfied that it’s the perfect temperature—tepid, verging on cool—I leave the tub to fill and return to the bed. She doesn’t look any better. In fact, she looks worse than she did downstairs.

  “Miss Brenner, we need to get your fever down. I’m going to put you in a tub of cool water. But that means you have to take your clothes off. Can you manage that?” I ask hopefully.

  Her lips are moving, but I can barely hear the words, so I put my ear only an inch from her mouth.

  “Please, I need help,” she murmurs. “I can’t…”

  Okay. Time to get creative. I bend down and pull the socks from her feet. Then I help her to stand up. She leans on me as I unzip her hoodie and wriggle it off her sweaty body. I toss it onto the bed and we walk the few shaky feet to the bathroom. Once we’re standing in front of the tub, I stop to consider how best to proceed.

  “Okay, here we go, then,” I announce, keeping a hand on her shoulder as I walk behind her. “Put your arms up,” I direct and she obeys, lifting her trembling arms above her head as if she’s been caught in a stick up. I tug the T-shirt up gently until it’s over her head and past her arms. At this point I can only see her back, and that’s the way I’d like to keep it, so I hand her a towel to cover her chest before walking around to face her front side again.

  “Here, let’s do this,” I suggest, tugging the towel a little and arranging it so that it hangs down straight from where it’s tucked under her armpits to her shins. I reach around the towel gingerly and tug at the waistband of her sweatpants. There’s some resistance because of the chilling sweat on her body, but I manage to inch them off without seeing any of her pale flesh. Thankfully, her panties coming along for the ride so I don’t have to do this twice.

  As I toss her lightweight, sweat-soaked clothes into the corner of the bathroom, it occurs to me that she came out dressed like this because she was hot with fever. She was underdressed because she was overheated, not because she’s the stupid, foolish girl I assumed her to be. Well, I can apologize later. For now, I have to figure out how to maneuver this. I can’t just stick her in the water unless I’m sure she’ll be able to sit up on her own. Otherwise she could just slip into the water and drown.

  “Do you think you can sit up on your own in the tub?” I ask her, even as she�
��s swaying.

  “I…I don’t know,” she mumbles, then shakes her head slightly. “I don’t think so.”

  The realization of what I need to do hits me hard. I desperately rack my brain for a different solution, but I can’t think of one.

  “Katherine, you have to get into the tub so you can cool off. I’m going to go in with you to hold you up. But I’ll keep my shorts on. Are you okay with that? I can’t do it unless you’re okay with that…”

  She nods. “Yes,” she says in barely a whisper. “Yes, please, help me.”

  Here goes tenure.

  I help her wrap the towel so that it’s all the way around her body, then I quickly strip down to my boxers. I pick her up again and carefully maneuver us both into the cool water, her in front of me so that I’m looking at the back of her shoulders. Her delicate, pale shoulders. They’re speckled with tiny freckles. Beauty marks, my mother used to call them.

  Wait. What?

  I shake my head as if that will clear the random thoughts and try to focus on the task at hand.

  “Are you all right? I just want to get your fever…”

  Before I can finish the sentence, she turns herself around, scrambling into my lap and burying her face in my chest.

  Oh. Oh, Jesus.

  I hold my arms up and out of the water so as not to touch her any more than I have to.

  “Miss Brenner?”

  She whimpers and clings to me.

  With a long sigh, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

  Okay. We’ll do it this way then. I use my hands as a cup, gently shifting water over her back. Her long, narrow back with the alabaster skin and the…

  Jesus Christ, Drew, enough of that!

  I return my thoughts to the sick young woman in my arms.

  “Okay, I’m going to lean you back so we can get your hair wet. All right?”

  She nods slightly.

  “You got your towel there?” I want to ensure there are no wardrobe malfunctions.

  She nods again, her eyes still closed and I lean forward with her in my arms until the back of her head hits the water, as if I’m baptizing her. I’m able to dunk her just far enough back so that her long brown hair floats out around her head like some sort of halo. As the towel absorbs the water, it adheres to her body tightly, forming a perfect cast of her breasts.

  Okay, okay. Look at something else.

  With my hands underneath her shoulder blades, I bring her back up slowly. She immediately wraps her arms around me again and we sit like this in silence for another ten minutes, until I’m confident her temperature has dropped. It’s a little trickier getting out of the tub now that both of us are soaked and dripping. Finally, having carefully extricated us, I set her down on her feet on the bath mat, one arm around her slender waist. With my free hand, I reach for a large, dry bath sheet, unfurling it so it acts as a privacy curtain for her, then I guide one of her hands to my shoulder to steady her.

  “Okay, I’ve got you, go ahead and let go of the wet towel.”

  She allows the wet one to drop with a sloppy, soggy smack onto the tiled floor and I flip the one I’m holding horizontally so I can wrap it around her. “Do you need to use the…do you have to go to the…”

  She shakes her head no, confirming my suspicions that she’s dehydrated. I lower the lid on the toilet and help her to perch there while I grab a towel for myself.

  “Wait here, I’ll be right back,” I call over my shoulder as I walk back into the bedroom, my sodden boxers dripping all over the carpet. I shuck them as quickly as I can, dry off, then pull another pair from the dresser along with fresh jeans and a sweatshirt. Once I’m redressed, I turn down the made bed and rummage for something dry that Katherine can wear, finally settling on a long-sleeved button-down shirt.

  “Arms up,” I say when I bring it back in the bathroom. She does as I ask and I slip it over her head and down her lean arms. Then I help her to her feet again, pulling the shirt down over the towel. I breathe a sigh of relief when the last towel hits the floor and she’s cool, dry, and dressed—without me having seen a thing I wasn’t supposed to see. As long as she remembers that when she’s feeling better, I’m in good shape. Right now, she can barely keep her eyes open so I scoop her up and carry her to my bed, laying her down gently. She sighs contentedly when her head hits the pillow. I’m just leaning across the bed to pull the covers over her, when I feel a light touch on my arm. I look down into her heavy-lidded eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmurs in barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry.”

  She’s delirious with fever and there’s no telling what she’s talking about. That is, until she starts talking about it.

  “I didn’t mean it. Whatever I did to make you hate me, I didn’t mean it,” she says, struggling to keep her eyes open.

  I stare down at her for a long beat.

  “I don’t hate you,” I say finally, more to myself than to her. “Close your eyes and see if you can sleep. It’s going to be okay. You’re going to feel a lot better soon,” I promise, and hope to God it’s true.

  She nods and obediently closes her eyes, her breath slowing into a deep, regular rhythm almost immediately.

  I glance at my alarm clock on the nightstand and realize that it’s been just a couple of hours since I found her out front, sleeping in her car. Well, this evening was just full of surprises, wasn’t it? I go downstairs and throw her clothing into the washing machine and do a quick clean up of the kitchen. I consider sleeping down on the couch, but I might not hear her if she calls for me, so I put up the fire screen, grab my ereader, and head back up. She seems to be resting comfortably, but I check her temperature by putting the back of my hand to her forehead. She’s definitely cooler.

  In the closet, I find an extra pillow and blanket. I take them to the overstuffed armchair and ottoman that sit opposite the bed, making myself comfortable. I try to read some of my book, but I find I’m having trouble concentrating. I just keep going back to her words.

  “Whatever I did to make you hate me, I didn’t mean it…”

  Do I hate her? I mean really hate her? I think so. No, I thought so.

  What I know for certain is that I’ve spent the last six years tormenting her at every opportunity. If that’s not hatred, then what is it?

  I close my eyes before I can allow myself to make that final connection.

  Casey is reaching out for me. She’s so beautiful, her dark hair flowing, fanning out the way Katherine’s was in the tub. Except Casey isn’t in a tub. Her hair is flowing, but she’s standing upright.

  “Oh, baby, I’ve missed you so much,” I murmur.

  She gives me her sweetest smile.

  “Come back to me,” I plead. “We can make a go of it. I swear, this time will be different…”

  She’s reaching out for me, her fingers lightly brushing against my face. I lean in to her touch, reveling in the feel of her skin against mine. That electric current that’s always connected us. I close my eyes. When I feel her pull her hand away, I open them again, just in time to see the twisted smile on her face as she slaps me.

  I wake myself up gasping for breath and it takes a second for me to remember where I am and why I’m there. I’m sleeping in the chair because Katherine is in the bed. Katherine is in the bed because she’s very sick. With this realization, my gaze swings to where she is lying. I’m startled to find her watching me with wide, unblinking eyes. Something is very wrong. I’m on my feet and by her side in a heartbeat.

  “Miss Brenner?”

  “S-s-so c-c-cold…” is all she can get out.

  I see it then, even through the covers. She’s trembling violently.

  Dammit!

  She’s gone from being red with heat to blue with cold. I feel her forehead once again, but this time it’s damp and clammy. I pull another blanket from the closet and lay it over the down comforter.

  “P-p-please…” she begs.

  “What? What can I do for you?” I ask, watc
hing her face intently.

  And then I know. I know exactly what she wants.

  Oh, Jesus. Really? I can’t do that, can I?

  “Y–you want me to get under the covers with you?” I ask, hoping she’ll shake her head no. But she doesn’t. She nods.

  I can only stare down at her as my right hand rakes through my hair. I can’t. There’s no way. It crosses more lines than I can count. But her eyes are begging me, wordlessly, to help her. I shake my head slowly.

  “You’re sure you’re comfortable with that?” I ask her slowly, carefully, one more time, just to be sure.

  “Please,” she whispers. “Please. I’m so c-c-cold…”

  I pull back the corner of the blankets and slide in behind her from the other side of the bed. Once I’m there, I can feel her trembling as it shakes the mattress. Before I can think too much about the logistics of this, she takes care of it for me, turning on her left side and scooting backward toward me until her back is against my chest. I hiss with the icy touch of her skin on mine. She really is freezing.

  I forget about everything except getting her warm, my hands rubbing the outside of her arms from shoulder to wrist. At the same time, I snake my right leg over hers and allow it to move up and down, creating warmth in the friction between our two bodies. Her sigh of relief comes instantaneously. I continue to rub and rub and rub, occasionally allowing myself to run a warm palm from under her arm, along the outside of her chest, hips, and thighs. She groans her appreciation.

  It takes awhile, but her violent shaking eventually subsides and I feel her skin warming a little. As I sense her lapsing back into sleep, I try to move back and away from her slowly, but even in her slumber she seeks the heat of my body, scooting with me, inch by inch, as if we are attached by some invisible seam. Finally, I give up, draping an arm over her waist and counting her breaths until I find myself drifting off.

  This time, Casey is nowhere to be found. And, for that, I am profoundly grateful.