Page 61 of Gamble
Finally, moving with the careful precision of a man defusing a bomb, he rolled onto his good side and then slowly, agonizingly, crawl the few feet to the outdoor sectional sofa. Getting onto the cushions required a Herculean effort that left him sweating and nauseous, but at least he wasn’t lying on hard stone anymore.
His phone had somehow survived the fall without a cracked screen, and he pulled it out with shaking hands. For a moment, he considered calling 911. The smart thing to do would be to get checked out, to make sure he hadn’t done any serious damage to his spine or joints.
But the thought of spending his Friday night in an emergency room, with doctors and X-rays and huge medical bills, made him feel even sicker. He knew his body well enough to know that while this was bad, it probably wasn’t life-threatening. What he needed was to get inside, take the strongest pain medication he had, and hope like hell that rest and time would put him back together.
Moving like a man three times his age, Elijah levered himself off the couch and hobble toward the back door. Each step sent fresh waves of agony through his hip and knee, and by the time he made it to his bathroom medicine cabinet, he was worried he might pass out.
The bottle of prescription pain medication left over from his last surgery rattled as he shook out two pills, then thought better of it and added a third. He dry-swallowed them before hobbling out to sink onto the edge of his bed. Collapsing back, he closed his eyes and waited for the medication to take the edge off the worst of the pain.
Twenty minutes later, the crushing agony had dulled to a manageable throb, but Elijah knew there was no way he could take Reagan out to dinner. Hell, he could barely walk to his own kitchen, let alone drive across town and pretend to be a charming dinner companion.
He was going to have to cancel. The question was how to do it without sounding like a pathetic old man who couldn’t even clean his own patio without injuring himself.
Elijah stared at his phone for a long time, trying to come up with the right words. He could tell her the truth—that he’d fallenand hurt himself and needed to reschedule. But the thought of Reagan pitying him, of her seeing him as the broken-down has-been he sometimes felt like, made his chest tight with shame.
Or he could lie. Make up some work emergency, some crisis at the club that required his immediate attention. But Reagan deserved better than lies, even well-intentioned ones.
As the pain medication settled into his system, making his thoughts fuzzy around the edges, another option occurred to him. Maybe this was the universe’s way of telling him what he should have realized all along—that he was kidding himself thinking a relationship with Reagan could work.
She was young, beautiful, successful. Reagan deserved someone who could take her dancing without worrying about his joints, someone who could keep up with her energy and ambition, someone who didn’t carry the baggage of a kinky lifestyle she probably wouldn’t understand.
She deserved someone who wouldn’t fall off a fucking ladder while trying to impress her.
The thought made him feel sorry for himself in a way he hadn’t allowed since his divorce twenty years before. But maybe self-pity was exactly what he needed right now. Maybe it would give him the courage to do the right thing and let Reagan go before she got too attached to someone who would only disappoint her.
Before he could lose his nerve, Elijah typed out a long text message:
Reagan, I’ve been thinking about our situation, and I realize I’m too old for you. You deserve someone who can give you the kind of future you want. I wish you all the best, but you should find someone your own age. Take care. - E
He stared at the message for a long moment, his thumb hovering over the send button. Once he sent this, it would be over. No more daily texts, no more late-night phone calls, nomore imagining what it would be like to fall asleep next to her every night.
But it was the right thing to do. The kind thing to do.
Elijah closed his eyes and hit send.
Then he turned off his phone, pulled a pillow over his head, and tried to convince himself he’d just made the best decision of his life instead of the worst.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
ELIJAH
The pills weren’t working anymore.
Elijah stared at the collection of amber prescription bottles cluttering his coffee table—Percocet, muscle relaxers, anti-inflammatories—and wondered if he’d built up a tolerance or if the pain had simply evolved beyond what modern medicine could touch. His hip throbbed with a deep, grinding ache that radiated down his leg and up his spine, a constant reminder of his stupidity and the surgery that loomed in his future.
The living room had become his world for the past week. Empty Chinese takeout containers shared space on the coffee table with his medications and a stack of unread books. The television droned in the background—some mindless talk show he wasn’t watching—providing white noise to fill the oppressive silence of his self-imposed isolation.
Dr. Jennings had been blunt during Tuesday’s appointment: the fall had done significant damage to joints that were already compromised. The hip replacement Elijah had been dreading was no longer optional. They were just waiting for the swelling to subside enough to make surgery viable. Until then, he wastrapped in his own body, dependent on pills that barely dulled the edge of his misery.
This is what fifty looks like, you pathetic bastard.
His phone buzzed against his leg, and Elijah’s chest tightened with the familiar mixture of longing and dread. He didn’t need to look to know it was another text from Reagan. They’d been coming all week, evolving from concerned to hurt to increasingly angry as his silence stretched on.
At first, she’d been worried:Are you okay? Did something happen? Please just let me know you’re safe.
Then, confused and hurt:I don’t understand. I thought we had something real. Can we please just talk?
And now... now her messages carried the sharp edge of betrayal that made his chest feel hollow:You’re a coward, Elijah. I trusted you, and you’re treating me like I’m nothing.
