Page 39 of Love JD

Her dark, delicately arched brows tilted up in amusement. “What do you want a pass to be worth, Most Honorable Exemplar of Humility?”

I hummed out a thinking sound, drawing her nearer again after she’d stepped away. “How about time?”

“Time?” she queried with a cock of her head.

“One pass is five minutes,” I added, knowing full well I was flirting with dangerous territory. I didn’t care. It was fun, and apparently, I was a thrill seeker.

Isla looked rightfully confused. “Five minutes of what?”

“You,” I said simply.

She gave me a skeptical tilt of her chin. “Care to elaborate on that, Counsel?”

“No.”

She rolled her eyes. “Okay, five minutes of me. You got it. Are you going to cash in on that now, or can I go to bed?”

I released her, stepping away and mentally making plans for making my house more Isla-friendly. I wasn’t sure how long she would be here, but a weak, traitorous part of me wanted it to be a long time. “Goodnight Isla.”

“Goodnight, Yeti,” she waved.

Chapter twelve

Isla

I added a new trigger to the list I kept in my head. Ex-girlfriends (or current lovers?) who looked like lingerie models.

Or…

Social situations in a towel.

It was a tossup which one was worse. All I knew was that I had fainted twice yesterday, and Zev had caught me both times, which was two times more than anyone had caught me in a long time. Not counting the tree incident, which I supposed I should have counted. I’d known about my anxiety about planes, so that hadn’t been a surprise. But the stress of the entire Starla encounter had totally undone all my Zen.

And then, of course, there was Zev himself. “She’s too young for me to date.”

Logically, I had already known that. Logically, and by most social dictates, it pretty much went unsaid that if I was in college and he was turning thirty, we might have reason to pause about making out in his living room. The problem was, it had felt so good. My heart had raced in a good way, and my stomach had fluttered with an addictive sort of warmth. I’d felt trust and desire and admiration all folded up in a package topped with a bow labeled “lust.” And even the morning after those rollercoaster emotions, I still desperately wanted to rip open that Christmas day package in a frenzy. Logic didn’t play into that.

Unfortunately, my autonomic nervous system had different ideas about what I would be doing when I woke up, and I didn’t think it involved frenzied anything. I woke up groggy and tired like I hadn’t slept at all, and little needles of pain stabbed my eyes as I tried to pry them open. It was going to be one of those days, then. I knew that if I ate something salt-heavy, drank a lot of water, and maybe forced myself to go for a walk, then I might be able to sleep off the worst of it with a late-morning nap.

But self-care required energy, and with nothing in the metaphorical energy bank, I couldn’t even afford to invest in my own well-being. I tried to remind myself of what the nurse had told me while she’d been with me; baby steps. One thing at a time. I could start with water.

I forced my eyes open again, only to find that a pitcher of ice water and a glass had been set on my nightstand with a note. I lifted my head and plucked up the stationary with Zev’s name, title, and law firm stamped on the bottom.

I smiled at the name he had used. “Yeti.” Funny. Then I drank a full two glasses of water, my eyes on the window that looked out at the beautiful maple tree and swing. The bright light stabbed at my eyes, so I closed them again and took deep breaths, willing my body to not collapse the second I stood up. Mornings like this made me resent the way my body had been made. I wanted to stand up out of bed without taking forever to acclimate to being alive. It was maddening.

I managed to take my medications, and then realized I hadn’t asked Zev if it was alright that I rummaged through his cabinets for breakfast. I could always pay him back for groceries, I decided. Before I could make my way to the kitchen, I fought nausea and swimming vision while I forced myself into a gray linen jumper that ended mid-thigh and tied with knots to the bib. I sat on the toilet while I brushed my teeth. I skipped the hair brushing and stuck with my messy bun, but I did swipe a bit of mascara over my eyelashes. Then I held onto the wall to keep my vertigo in check as I shuffled in bare feet to the kitchen.

I found a bowl of oatmeal, five strips of bacon, a pitcher of orange juice, and a note on the kitchen island.

I stared at the food and the note in awe. No one had ever done that for me before. Not willingly, anyway. When I’d told my father about my condition, he had suggested I take allergy medicine because my ears might be clogged. When I attempted to explain it to my friends, they often remarked how “I looked fine” to them. They even had a hard time believing that I might struggle with my autonomic syncope diagnosis at all. One girl offered to sell me vitamins she swore by. Before the syncope fainting episodes had gotten really bad, I’d asked my autonomic neurologist about a temporary handicap pass so I was less likely to faint while walking long distances. The first time I’d used it—the very first time—a student from one of my classes had said, “I should start fake fainting so I can park closer, too.”

Their friend had laughed, and I had ripped the tag off my mirror.

But Zev… he’d known me for less than two weeks, and without question, he’d accepted what I’d said without flinching. He’d done that even from the first moment he’d met me. He hadn’t freaked out or approached my odd fainting episodes with trepidation. It was simply a fact about me that he accommodated. Not only had he clearly spent some time researching my illness, but he had also gone out of his way to make sure I felt welcome.

Tears blurred the bowl and note and juice into a blotted mess, and I swallowed against a tight throat. I hadn’t done anything to deserve this much care, and it put me in seriously dangerous territory.

Infatuated territory.

---