Page 37 of Hired for Research
“Oh.”
She looked down as if she’d forgotten the food in front of her already. Putting her fork down, she pushed the plate away and grabbed her glass of water. She sucked down about half of it before meeting his gaze again.
“No, it’s fine, I’m just not hungry. My stomach doesn’t feel right.”
Her hand settled on her belly as she grimaced. They’d had the same thing for dinner at Community, so he didn’t think it was something like food poisoning, but she clearly didn’t feel well.
“I think you should take today off. Go back to your room and rest, maybe work from your laptop if you feel the need to, but there’s no reason to go in if you don’t feel good.”
She straightened and started to shake her head, but he cut her off when she opened her mouth to speak.
“I’ll go by and put a notice on the exam room for anyone who comes by to come back tomorrow. I doubt there will be that many today anyway with the weather.”
Her lips closed and she grimaced again before nodding.
“Okay. Hopefully whatever this is will pass by tomorrow.”
He made a noncommittal sound as he waived at the waiter, signaling they were done. He came over with the check and boxes for the food, but Jett waived them away as the first drops of rain splattered on the window.
“Shit. We’ve got to go.”
Standing, he pulled his coat on before taking Evelyn’s from her and holding it open. She got her arms in and he pulled it closed around her, tucking her hair back from her face as she worked on the zipper. By the time he got the gloves on her and they made it to the door, the random drops had become a steady mist, and Jett cursed under his breath.
“If we move fast, hopefully we can make it to your hotel before it really starts coming down.”
Evelyn pressed her lips together and nodded, but he could tell she didn’t like it any more than he did.
Tugging off his cap, he pulled it over her head. Her coat didn’t have a hood, and while his didn’t either, he had less hair to soak than she did, and he wasn’t already ill.
He pushed the door open, holding it for her to walk out ahead of him, but the wind ripped it out of his hand, slamming it to the end of its range. He lurched forward to stop it from swinging back into her when the gust released it, taking the hit on his shoulder with a grunt when the wind came from the opposite direction, giving it more force than he’d been prepared for.
Evelyn gasped, stumbling into him, and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders to steady her. The drizzle was already turning into real drops, and he knew they weren’t going to make it to her hotel.
“My apartment isn’t far. We can go there and wait this out.”
He had to yell to be sure she heard him with the wind ripping the words away, but he felt her nod into his chest where she was pressed against him. He kept his arm around her as he rushed her down the sidewalk as fast as her legs could go. They were the only people on the street, and he wanted off of it as soon as possible.
They had turned the corner and were two blocks from his building when a thump on his shoulder jerked him to a stop. A grey blur streaked from the sky in front of them, bouncing off the pavement before rolling to a stop at the tip of his boot. The little chunk of ice sat there, mocking the distance they still had to cover as another landed close by.
“Fuck.”
He didn’t stop to think. He needed to get them under cover. Immediately.
Evelyn was cradled in his arms mere seconds later, Jett sprinting the last two blocks as he hunched over as much of her body as he could cover. Hail pelted his back and head, the stings fading into the background as Evelyn hissed and jerked in his hold when one missed him and hit her instead. He didn’t have the breath to cuss the way he wanted to, saving it to push himself as fast as he could safely go as more chunks of ice collected on the sidewalk.
They made it under the awning outside his building just as the chunks increased from the size of his thumbnail to something closer to the size of his eye and came down faster. He was panting, but it was more from stress than the exertion.
“Are you okay?”
He carefully sat Evelyn on her feet, looking her over. There was a pink welt rising on her cheekbone, just below her glasses, and his gut clenched at how close it was. He couldn’t image what would have happened if it hit the lense covering her eye.
He brushed his thumb beneath the mark and Evelyn hissed again, pulling away and raising her gloved hand to cover it.
“Oww. Don’t touch it.”
He almost chuckled at her petulant tone, relief finally letting him take a full breath. She wouldn’t be pouting if she was truly hurt.
“Let’s get up to my apartment so you can dry off and get warm.”
