Page 81 of Bad Seed
Aubry doesn’t wince. He’s still staring off into space while holding me. I place my palm to his bare chest and trace along the lines of the tattoo. The nurses had offered him a gown, but Aubry brushed it off. His only concern was me.
But he’s got to be cold in just his jeans.
It’s also three in the morning.
“You should head home,” I tell him.
“No. I won’t leave you.” He tightens his grip and swoops around me.
“It’s fine. They’re going to keep me under watch for six hours. Or probably twelve this time. Got to make sure the allergen’s out of my system and all.”
“Of course,” he mumbles.
“It’s really boring. And you’ll have to feed Astin.”
Aubry gives a little chuckle. “Very well.” He folds in around me, snuggling me to his body until I could pass out against his bare pecs. As he bends down to kiss the top of my head, he whispers, “But I’m staying until dawn.”
My fight is gone. I could insist that he head home now, get some sleep. But the truth is, I don’t want him to go.
And I want to be with him…for as long as I can.
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CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
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SADIE
“No, mom. I didn’t eat—”
“Sadvhi, you need to label your food.” Her voice cuts over the wind as I drive down King road on my way to Aubry’s. As I’d feared, the hospital kept me for twelve hours. They threatened that I couldn’t leave unless I scheduled another allergy test, but the only local specialist was booked until next December. Rather than keep me for a year and a half, they let me go with a stern warning.
I’m getting far worse from my mother.
“It wasn’t eggplant,” I shout to be heard over her usual tongue wagging.
“Keep a food diary. I keep telling you, you must keep a food diary. It’ll also help to curb all of those unnecessary snacks.”
I don’t know which my mother’s more obsessed with, making sure I don’t eat eggplant, or making sure I don’t eat anything at all. She’s been fighting to slim me down since I was a six year old whose belly poked out of her starfish tankini.
What’s worse—me slowly choking to death thanks to a bite of eggplant, or having a fat ass?
I know someone who’d be very sad if I lost said ass.
Even though I shouldn’t, I take my eyes off the road and glance to my phone. My mother’s still berating me, jumping from one fad diet to the next. I stare at my text conversations with Aubry.
When they let me out of the hospital, I told him I was home and going to take a nap.
That was two days ago.
In all that time, he never responded. He read my text, then nothing.
So I told him I’d stop by after work and bring a present. I pat the basket filled with kitchen gadgets and a jar of barbecue sauce. It’s a home warming gift…for me.
Trapped in the hospital doing my best to assure the nurses my body was flushed of all evil allergens, I had a lot of time to think. About him, about me, about us. About what taking that next big step would mean. The pro column kept racking wins after wins. While all that sat in the con was “he could leave me.”
My smile dips and I scroll back through our conversations. So many pictures of Astin. His filthy pleas for me to squash his head with my thighs. I land on the rules.
