by Lyla Payne
Audra challenges my long-held assumption that nothing and no one can hold my interest. There’s something about her that’s more than her beauty or her sharp wit. As though I can sense layers and layers, secrets and intricacies that lie below the surface of her skin, buried deep in her mind. It’s crazy, because a few weeks ago I would have dismissed her like everyone else. Another rich sorority girl playing at college.
I’m not sure what changed, or when. It might be that she doesn’t look at me the way everyone else does—maybe we’re not that different. She likes spending time with me because it makes her feel good about herself. What if I’m doing the same thing? Being with Audra makes me feel less like the guy I’ve been for the past four years and more like the guy I’m going to have to figure out how to be in the future.
If I want a future outside Rowland Communications. A home that doesn’t exist under Teddy’s thumb.
A thought, fleeting and impossible, tickles my mind. What if Audra could be a part of that?
I clamp down on the idea, kick it hard until it skitters behind a door that closes and locks. Including her—or anyone—in my future isn’t an option. I can barely trust myself at this point. I probably shouldn’t. Trusting her to continue to look for the best in me even when all she sees is shit isn’t smart.
She stirs, mumbling soft, unintelligible words. Warmth lifts off her skin, surrounding me as I tug her tight against me and press a kiss to the back of her neck. When Audra fell asleep last night I’d promised myself this wouldn’t go south. That I wouldn’t get too wrapped up in the sex, because I never do.
But she’s here, and she smells like last night’s escapades and traces of berries and my body has already disregarded my brain, so what the hell. Like she said last night, the two of us together, like this, is stamped with a firm expiration date. No need to worry that she doesn’t get it.
Another sigh escapes her as my lips work their way down to her shoulder and my hand slides over her hip and lands between her legs.
She wakes up squirming and rolls over to face me, her hand covering the lower half of her face. “Good morning.”
A smile crinkles the corners of her eyes and I feel my own lip responding without permission. Too late, I realize my own breath probably doesn’t smell great, either. Such is the downside of having girls sleep over.
“Good morning.”
“I have to admit, waking up this way is already looking like a good decision, too.” She nestles closer, a hand dropping between our bodies to grip me.
“Mmm. I think I might need more convincing.”
She giggles and throws a leg over my hip, pulling our bodies flush together. I revel in the gasp she gives me as I thrust inside her, my hand firm on the back of her thigh, and we move together in silence.
It’s weird the way her eyes find mind. Unnerving that she doesn’t look away, but the last thing I want to do is be the one who can’t take it.
So, we watch each other move. Soak up every gasp, every flicker of exertion and pleasure until we come almost simultaneously, shuddering. Her arms squeeze my neck and hug me close, finally breaking our eye contact as I bury my face in her hair. My mind blanks and pleasure floods every last cell.
The sound of my ringing phone brings me back to the land of awareness, and Audra pulls away, grabbing for the same towel she used last night. I pick up my phone and see it’s an unknown number, then hit “ignore.”
“Do you want to walk me to the bathroom again?”
“Yeah. Hold on.”
I wrap a towel around my waist, thinking maybe we’ll just hop in the shower together, when my phone rings again. And again.
Her eyebrows go up. “You can answer that. I can walk down the hall by myself if you need privacy.”
“No, it’s fine. I’ll walk you.”
The repeated calls concern me—it occurred to me halfway down the hall that it could have something to do with my mother. As much as I hate that it makes me worry, I wish I’d answered.
Audra and I stroll to the large, tiled bathroom next door but when my phone goes off again I nod to the door. “You go ahead. I’ll take this and then be in.”
She waggles her eyebrows but her gaze cuts to my phone, equal parts concerned and curious. “I’ll heat up the water for you.”
I hit “answer” on my phone as the door swings shut behind her. “What?”
“Sebastian Blair?”
My heart thuds to a stop, because the voice on the other end of the phone is not my mother’s.
“Yes?”
“This is Ronald Murphy, I’m a doctor at South Florida Regional Hospital.” He clears his throat. “Your mother has been admitted. We needed to notify someone and yours is the only name on her contact form.”
My stomach can’t decide whether to be worried about my mother or pissed that she went against my explicit instructions not to list me as any form of support on legal documents.
“What’s the problem?” My voice sounds far away. Disconnected.
“She’s sedated right now because of the pain but she came in after vomiting uncontrollably for over four hours. As I’m sure you’re aware, this disease is rare enough that we don’t have a good protocol for treating it, and we’re unable to gauge how serious any attack might be.”
“Meaning you don’t know if she’s going to survive? Should I come in?”
“That would be wise in this situation.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
The call disconnects and I hustle back to my room and get dressed, deciding to skip a shower for now even though I’m going to smell Audra all over me until I do. The doctor’s tone urges me to move faster even more than his words. It was a doomsday tone.
“Is everything okay?” Audra steps back over the threshold to my room, dripping wet from head to toe, wrapped up but shivering in her towel. Concern—without the curiosity now—turns her eyes into hardened jewels. “I couldn’t help but overhear.”
A stab of annoyance overcomes the guilt I’d been feeling about leaving her alone and naked for any of my stupid frat brothers to run across. “I’m sure.”
She winces, a pained expression floating over her face before she twists her lips. “The doors here aren’t exactly constructed to keep out voices. Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’m sorry for snapping at you. I just need to get going.” I pause, my brain slowing down long enough to organize the morning’s new order of events. “Damn, your car is still downtown, isn’t it?”
Last night I’d offered to drive, assuring her we’d go back and get her car this morning so that she could drive home. One more stroke in the broad painting we’re creating. Now, there’s no time.
“I could call you a car? Or you could ask Blair to come get you. I don’t have time for a stop.”
“What’s wrong? Who’s in the hospital?”
“No one.”
She crosses her arms, boosting her tits and leaving me with a brief but intense desire to lick the droplets of water clinging to her skin. “If I take a car or call Blair to pick me up we’re right back where we started. I’m just like every other girl you bone and send packing, so last night was for nothing. I’m gone in less than three months, Sebastian, and have plenty of reason to keep my mouth shut about whoever you’re hiding. I’ll just come with you.”
I close my eyes, a million arguments and rude statements piling up on my tongue. It takes a count of twenty but I swallow them back because the bottom line is that she’s right. And there isn’t time to argue.
“Fine. Get dressed.”
Audra almost skips over to her pile of clothes, a delighted grin on her face. She looks as though she thinks she’s won a round with me, which may be the case, but she’s delusional if she thinks she’ll win the war. If we’re even adversaries, which when I woke up this morning I would have said we’re not.
I locate my wallet and use the mirror over my desk to smooth my mussed hair back into place while she shimmies into her jeans an
d, in an out-of-place but adorable show of modesty, turns her back to me in order to secure her bra.
The sight of her wandering to my closet like that, in a bra and jeans, almost makes me forget I ever had a mother, but when she disappears among my clothes, it snaps my attention back into place. “What are you doing?”
“Borrowing a shirt. That’s what girlfriends do,” she lectures, her voice muffled. “Don’t you have any Whitman shirts or anything with letters on it?”
“I doubt it.” Maybe that makes me a failure as a guy or a frat boy but neither one of those things really concerns me. Allegiance to a college—or any organization, for that matter—that I have to pay money to be a part of isn’t a source of pride. Stupid.
“Oh, here’s one!”
She emerges in a white Whitman tennis shirt, the green lettering stark against the background. It’s big on her but I’m not beefy enough to make it ridiculous.
“Where did you find that?”
“All the way in the back, stuck between two sport jackets. Haven’t you ever heard of casual wear?”
“I don’t have much use for it. The maid must have accidentally tossed that in my laundry last time Quinn and I were both at the beach house.”
“Well, thank goodness for that or I’d be parading around half naked.”
“Are you ready?” Impatience clips my question at the end, but flirting can wait. “It’s an emergency.”
“Yes, sorry. Just let me braid my hair so it’s not dripping everywhere.”
My thoughts should probably be on my mom, and they are, in a way. There’s no way I want Audra—or anyone—to meet her, but there’s no way to get out of it now without looking like a total jerk. Luckily, Audra seems to understand that we both have reasons to keep our mouths shut.
At least when it comes to this.
By the time we pull into the parking lot at the shittiest hospital in Florida, most of my nerves have settled. Acceptance is the key to assessing any potentially hazardous situation without emotions threatening to ruin everything. Anger is my downfall. My Achilles’ heel. But figuring out what mechanisms help me keep it under control have done wonders.
So, I breathe through my nose. Steal glances at Audra from the corner of my eye as she stares out the passenger window, a thoughtful expression on her face. She doesn’t push, doesn’t ask questions even though she must have them, and her willingness to get in a car with me without knowing the destination helps ease my panic over letting her into my life.
We find a spot close to the emergency room entrance and climb out into the chilly late morning. Audra slips her hand into mine as we stroll through the automatic doors, and I give a squeeze before dropping it under the pretense of patting down my hair.
She’s in jeans and one of my T-shirts. I’m in my typical pressed pants and button-down, with a climate-appropriate sweater vest over the top for good measure. We don’t look like we match but there’s no reason we should.
Audra’s nose wrinkles. “I’m such a germophobe. I hate hospitals.”
“I don’t think anyone likes hospitals, but yeah. I always feel like my chances of contracting some truly awful disease triples walking through the doors.”
“I’ve got hand sanitizer in my purse. I might be willing to share.”
“Generous of you.” I give her a tight smile, trying to relax.
The room number the receptionist provided is on the third floor, so we wind around until we find the right color elevator. Audra’s nerves have increased since we got here. I can see them in the slight wrinkle between her eyebrows, in the hunch of her shoulders and the way she’s breathing out of her nose.
I can only imagine the thoughts running through her mind—all the horrible derelicts I’m supposed to be friends with and any one of them could be in this room.
“The last time I was here it was when Kennedy almost drank herself to death. The first time,” I clarify.
“I didn’t realize you and Toby were so close.”
I shake my head. “We’re not. I’m kind of unofficially in charge of PR for SEA, and the newspapers had grabbed the story because of his dad, you know. I brought him some clean clothes and a car, snuck the two of them out the back door with the briefest possible statement. That kind of thing.”
“It was still nice of you not to throw them under the bus.”
“You’re a Kappa. You know national offices aren’t keen on bad press. Or really any kind of press that they don’t generate on their own.” I catch her eye. “You’re definitely going to have to keep that in mind if you decide to run for president. Have you decided?”
“I think I’m going to do it.” There’s a flicker in her eyes that says she’s hesitant. Unsure.
It makes me want to reassure her. Bolster her. An emotion that is foreign to me.
“I think you should do it,” I say, feeling my way. It’s the truth. She’d be really good at it. “It seems like you’d enjoy it, for one thing.”
We’re at the room before she can reply, but my mother’s asleep when we walk up beside the bed. The sound of monitors beeping, oxygen flowing in and out, plays as the background music. My fingers twitch with the desire to reach out and touch Audra’s hand, to have help navigating this situation, but I stop them. I don’t need anyone.
My mother stirs a minute or so later, her eyes, which match mine exactly, fluttering open. It takes her a moment to recognize me before she manages a weak smile.
“Sebastian. You came.”
Confusion swirls off Audra and I can almost hear her mind trying to make sense of this situation. Who this woman could be and why we’re here. My mother notices her then, a distraction that gives me a reprieve from having to reply. It’s obvious even to me that blowing up at a dying woman in a hospital bed for listing me as her emergency contact would be an asshole move.
Which might not stop me if Audra weren’t standing here.
“Audra Stuart, this is Jocelyn Caldwell. My … mother. Jocelyn, this is my friend Audra.” It’s dumb to call her a friend, I guess, since everyone else we know thinks it’s more than that, but I’m not sure how she’ll react to a potential love interest and I don’t want to find out.
Audra startles at the introduction, biting her lower lip and sticking out a hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, ma’am.”
My mother shakes her hand even though it appears to take monumental effort just to lift her arm off the bed. “It’s nice to meet you. Where are you from?”
“Scotland. I’m in the States for college.”
“I’m going to find a doctor and find out what’s going on.” I leave Audra with my mother, which is probably a mistake, but standing there acting as though everything is normal, as though she’s been my mother my whole life and has been looking forward to meeting a nice girl I’ve brought home, is going to give me hives.
Or it’s going to push my anger past the point of control, no matter how hard I try to accept that this is the way my morning is going.
There are four nurses at the station down the hall but none of them appear to be working. I grit my teeth. “I need to speak to the doctor treating Jocelyn Caldwell. He insisted I come down here this morning, and now she’s talking and acting like everything is normal.”
They stop gabbing and look at me as though I’ve interrupted the most interesting conversation ever had about whether the most recent Bachelorette will actually marry one of the idiots on her season.
“Who?” a younger brunette asks, looking me up and down.
“Jocelyn Caldwell. Room 3402,” I reply in a slow enough cadence to get across the point that they’re all fucking morons.
“We’ll let him know you’re here.”
Three of them stare at me while the fourth gets on the phone and spouts some codes into the receiver. They obviously want me to scurry off so they can get back to not working, but they don’t realize who they’re dealing with. Or what kind of mood I’m in.
“I’ll wait here,” I snap.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and scroll through the fifteen emails that have dinged since I woke up this morning. The memory of Audra’s bare skin, the sunlight warming the room, the slow morning sex, have faded so badly that it already seems as though it’s part of some odd dream that must belong to someone else.
It’s more than fifteen minutes before the doctor shows up. Sweat gathers under my arms from the combination of suppressed anger and concern over what crap my mother might be spewing at Audra a few feet down the hall.
“Mr. Blair?” A man in the requisite white coat strides from the direction of the elevator. His hair is thinning on top, the desperate remaining wisps more gray than blond. The expression in his eyes conveys irritation as opposed to concern or knowledge.
Hatred wells up in my chest. It’s black and oily and a familiar comfort. “Yes.”
“I’m Dr. Murphy, we spoke on the phone.” He clears his throat when I don’t say anything, then continues. “Your mother appears to be responding to the pain medication and steroid regimen we started this morning, so that’s good news, but she’s still going to have to remain here for a few days.”
“So, I didn’t need to rush down here, is what you’re saying.”
“There was no way to know that an hour ago. When I called you she was still unconscious and we had no idea how long she’d already been that way. We’re lucky she’s not showing any real brain damage.”
“But there’s still no treatment protocol for her disease. We’re treating symptoms and sending her back home?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Fine. Thanks for the helpful update.” There’s no way he misses my sarcasm, but he doesn’t reply. He looks like he’s been doing this a long time and I’m far from the first family member to be an asshole out of frustration.
My attitude has less to do with the fact that no miracle cure has been discovered in the past two weeks and more to do with my being called down here for no fucking reason, but he doesn’t know that.
“I’m sorry to not have better news, but we can make her comfortable and hope. Pray, if that’s your thing.”
I turn and walk away without answering, taking deep breaths on my way back down the hall. I just want to get Audra out of here. Get back to the beach house and blessed silence for the rest of the day. My last semester of classes is pretty light but there is a paper due in my Ethics seminar next week and an exam in Business Law that I need to prepare for, because although I’m a disappointment to my father in so many ways, I’m a straight-A student and plan to keep it that way.
