Page 60 of My Heart Before You

What did he live on, sunshine and coffee?

“I usually have microwave dinners in there, but I ate the last one yesterday.”

She chuckled at his response. “Okay then where are your sandwich bags?”

“Umm.” He stared at her. “I don’t have any.”

“Plastic wrap?”

His sandy locks swayed as he shook his head.

“A towel, then?”

He seemed relieved to have an answer to that one. “In the drawer to the right of the sink.”

After finding the towel, she collected a good amount of ice from the freezer. He’d taken off his boot and sock, and she could see that his ankle was not only swollen but bruising as well.

A frown turned her mouth as she handed him the ice-towel bundle. “Where do you keep your ibuprofen?”

“Emilie, I’m fine. It’s just a sprain.”

She placed her hands on her hips, and he exhaled, gesturing to the doorway beyond the kitchen. “It’s in the medicine cabinet.”

A large floor-to-ceiling window was in the bedroom as well, bookended by automatic looking blackout curtains. In front of it, plaid pajama pants were carelessly thrown over the back of an old wooden chair. An odd tenderness rang in her chest at the slack orientation of those pants, one leg splayed over the back and the second draped off the seat almost to the floor.

A king-size bed with a masculine navy comforter and a wooden headboard was situated against the solid wall in front of her. Beside it stood a single nightstand with a small lamp and phone charger. Outside of little touches like the headboard, everything else seemed sterile and impersonal. The bathroom was beyond the bed with the closet. She opened the medicine cabinet and found the medication, trying to ignore the overwhelming scent of him emanating from the closet.

“I’m sorry that the place is a mess,” Colin said as soon as she reentered the room.

She chuckled. “It’s not messy.”

“Incomplete then.” His eyes looked so grey as they moved from hers to scan the room. “This is the first time in my life that I’ve put together something that slightly resembles a home. My apartments always looked like glorified call rooms before. I had a bed and a kitchen and a bathroom. That was all I needed. I worked a ridiculous amount of hours, so it didn’t matter what it looked like where I slept. My father’s house was always my home,” he paused with a deep breath. “That’s where all the living happened. I worked and slept at my place. I lived at his.”

Her body froze with the medication in her hand, not wanting to move to the kitchen to get water for fear of breaking his focus.

“After my mom died, my dad and I formed a strong bond. He was my dad, but he was also my best friend. He took care of me, and I took care of him. We made things work just the two of us, and when I was accepted to medical school in a different city, he moved with me. He moved with me, changing his job again, when I was in residency. I studied or worked and slept in an apartment by myself, but I would eat dinner with him whenever I wasn’t working, and we’d do things together as often as we could.”

He glanced at the piano. “Our family piano was always at his home. It looked very similar to this one. He’d have me play whenever I was there to keep me fresh and to remind him of Mom. She was the one who insisted I take lessons and who loved music.”

A jolt ran through her that the recliner must have belonged to his father. Possibly also the books and photos on the bookshelves. This man owned nothing that was his own. There was a reason Colin was one of the best surgeons she’d ever met; outside of the time he’d spent with his late father, surgery was his entire life.

His gaze drifted to his hands before his head snapped up with wide eyes. “Wow, I’m sorry. That was a lot. I was just trying to explain why there are no chairs for you to sit on.” He winced as if his words had been painful.

Emilie’s heart squeezed. Crossing quickly to him, she stood beside the only item of furniture in the room for a fraction of a second before pulling the piano bench next to him. She set the pills beside her, reached for his hands, and was grateful when he let her hold them.

“Tell me more about him,” she said, focusing her eyes on his.

He seemed to be warring with himself as to whether to say more or to close the subject.

“He would have liked you,” he said quietly to their joined hands.

Letting the words hang in the air, Emilie counted her breaths as she waited for him to say more.

“Could I have those?” He nodded to the pills on the piano bench.

Letting go of his hands, she gathered up the medication and handed it over silently.

“Thank you.” He swallowed them without water. “I’m sorry that ice skating was a bust. Thank you for your help getting back here.”

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