Page 3 of Accidentally Mine
The room blurred around the edges.I pulled on my collar and found the tendons in my neck tense, slick with sweat, a vein bulging.
As I continued to reach for and shake hand after hand, a dark-haired woman slipped through the crowd and came to a stop in front of me.“Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour,” my sister said, her smile cautious.“Nice paperweight you’ve got there.”
Oh, thank fuck.
“Time to leave,” I mumbled.
“Not really, but we’ll make an exception.”Claudia nodded graciously at the people I had yet to greet, took my arm and began to steer me toward the exit.“I’m sorry.Mr.McKee thanks you, but he really needs to be on his way.”
Even a head and a half shorter than me, my sister made a hell of a bodyguard, deflecting arguments, parting the crowd.We took the elevator down to the lobby, the four walls closing in the lower we dropped.It was only when we burst out onto Charles Street that I could finally breathe.I stood on the sidewalk for a moment, drawing the air into my lungs as Claudia watched me, eyes wide.
“Geez, Brent.You okay?”
I scowled at her.“Didn’t I look okay?”
She shook her head.“You were wavering on your feet like a drunken sailor,” she said.“You were about two seconds away from kissing the dance floor.”
I was?Fuck.I’d known I was in trouble, but I didn’t think it was that bad.I looked up at the sky, happy to be free.“Let’s get out of here.”
Ernest had double-parked the black Cadillac XTS with a Red Sox license plate frame, as usual.
Claudia dragged me to the car, ripped open the door, and motioned me inside.“What you need to do is get some rest.Your doctor told you not to work full days at the office.”She waited a beat before adding, “Remember?”
I glared at her.“Ha ha.”But that was the most sarcasm that I could muster before collapsing into the seat.
“Hey.What are you two doing out here so soon?”Ernest asked.“It’s too early.Didn’t you want to trip the light fantastic?I just started to get into my reading.”He held up an issue ofPlayboy.
“I nearly did some other kind of tripping,” I muttered, yawning and staring out the window at the traffic breezing past.It was early.Probably not even ten yet.It would be nice to get my life back, when I could stay out until two without blinking an eye.I was only thirty years old, but I felt like an old man.
When I looked up at Ernest, who liked to call himself my “valet” since he’d started getting into British television, his concerned eyes were on me through the rearview mirror.I could feel Claudia’s eyes on me as well.They’d been babysitting me ever since the accident.I wished I didn’t need them to.
But I did.
That didn’t make me hate it any less.
“Look, you two,” I said, stiffening.“Stop trying to coddle me like I’m some toddler.I’m fine.”
“Are you?”Claudia asked, leaning closer and studying me as Ernest pulled out into traffic.“Because you look like you’re about to puke.”
“I’m not,” I insisted, just as the dull throb behind my eyes became a slicing pain.I squeezed my eyes closed and massaged my temple.“Just a headache.”
“There’s no such thing asjust a headachewith you,” Ernest said, echoing something my neurologist had said.“If you have a headache, log it in your Key.”
Right.I pulled out my phone and went to my headache log, typed it in.
Type of pain: throbbing
Location of pain: All over head
Severity of pain on scale from 1-10: 4
That number would climb higher if I didn’t pop some medication soon.I scrolled back and realized I’d had at least one headache every day this month.
Claudia placed a hand on my knee.My elder sister by six years, she loved mothering me, especially since I never knew our real mom, who died when I was just three hours old…because of me.
“When was the last time you saw your neurologist?”
I forced away the guilt and waved a dismissive hand.“A week ago.He said everything was fine.”
