Page 36 of Love Unavoidable
“I know something we can have fun with,” I tell him wiggling my eyebrows.
“There is no one who is more surprised by my suggestion to wait than me. And it’s totally out of character. It does kind of feel like we’ve switched roles, doesn’t it?”
“I told you!” A sharp pain shoots through my skull when I yell. “Oh, fuck.” I grab my head in both hands and squeeze my eyes shut.
Ethan picks me up and brings me inside. He lays me down on the couch and disappears for a second, coming back with a cool cloth that he lays over my eyes.
“Maybe now you’ll listen when I tell you to rest and stay quiet,” he whispers. I wish I had the strength for a snappy comeback, but instead I lay there and focus on deep breathing. Ethan closes the blinds in the room to darken it, then leaves quietly.
He comes back with one of the pain pills from the hospital and a bottle of water. I take the pill and lay back down.
* * *
By the time I wake again, a few hours have passed and I’m starving. I finish the glass of water Ethan left for me on the coffee table and set out to find him.
He’s sitting on the steps of the back porch, talking on the phone.
“Yeah, it was an unexpected visit,” he says. “I didn’t realize I would have to entertain her while she was here . . . I know, I’m sorry too. I’ll call in a couple weeks we’ll set something else up . . . yep. Goodnight, Lori.”
He disconnects the call and lets out a deep sigh, then crosses something off a list on the step next to him. Then dials another number.
“Yeah, hey, is this Amy? Hi, it’s Ethan . . . good, how are you? . . . Yeah, that’s why I’m calling, I have to cancel, I’m so sorry . . . I know, I have family in from out of town and I need to entertain them while they are here. So, hey, I’ll call you in a couple weeks and we’ll set something up. That cool? . . . Okay . . . you too. Bye.” He disconnects the call and crosses another name off the list, then rubs his hand back and forth across his forehead.
Wow. Is he really going through alist of datesfor this week and canceling them?
I push the screen door open softly. “So, let me get this straight,” I start. He jumps at the sound of my voice and turns around.
“You scared me,” he says. “How long have you been there?”
“Long enough to know I’ve graduated from one person you have to entertain for weeks to an entire family you have to entertain. Do I have that about right?”
“Entertain? No.” He shakes his head. “No, I was pretending it was my grandmother visiting in the first two calls, then the last one I just said family.”
“You are canceling three dates for this week?”
“One is just coffee after my shift, so not really a date-date.”
“I thought you weren’t working.”
“Before you got hurt, and I took time off work, I’d arranged to meet a girl for coffee after my shift,” he says.
“Coffee is still a date.”
“Well, regardless,” he says. “I wasn’t referring to you when I said I needed to entertain someone. I mean, I was, but I wasn’t. Plus, you should be happy I’m cancelling dates to spend time with you. I don’t have to, you know.”
“Well, welcome home, Mister Charming, I wondered when you were going to resurface.” My voice is snottier than I intended it to be.
“Is that really necessary?”
I shrug.
“Wow. Okay, then.”
“Fine. Sorry.”
“If you were going for sincere, that sure as shit wasn’t it.”
“Sure it was.”
