Page 25 of Made For Me

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” I say as I open the door and jog down the flight of stairs. I open the glass door and grab the two brown bags in my hand. “Thank you.” I wait for the door to click closed in front of me before turning and walking up the stairs.

“You need to just drop off the food and leave,” I mumble to myself. “You came and saw she is okay, sort of.” I walk up the stairs toward her apartment and my heart speeds up even faster than it did when I walked in the first time. I stand at her door for a whole thirty seconds before I grab the handle and open it up again. “Just drop the food and go,” I tell myself, but then I walk to the doorway of her bedroom and see she has turned on the lights in her room.

There is what looks like a tablecloth over her bed covers. “I don’t have the energy to eat anywhere else,” she admits to me, patting the cloth in front of her. Walking to her side of the bed, I hand her the bags. “What in the world did you order?”

“Burgers, and then they had the fried pickles I know you like.” She opens the bag and looks inside. “I might have also gotten some onion rings because, well, you always eat mine and they had curly fries.”

She looks up at me and smiles, and I know I’d order her the food every single day if it makes her happy. “I don’t eat all your onion rings.” I tilt my head to the side and raise my eyebrows. “Okay, fine, I let you order them in case I don’t like them.” She takes a container out, opens it, and squeals, “Stuffed mushrooms.” She puts it down on the bed. “Take your shoes off.” She looks at me.

“You can eat on your bed, but you draw the line at my shoes.” I shake my head, and instead of slipping out, I walk to the other side of the bed, kicking off my shoes. I shrug my jacket off me and place it at the end of the bed.

“Do you usually eat after the game?” she asks as I sit down and wait for her to open all the containers.

“Not usually, depends on how the game is, to be honest.”

“Michael eats as soon as he gets home,” she shares and I laugh.

“When isn’t Michael eating?” I ask her. “He eats as soon as he gets to the rink. Then he makes the peanut butter and banana toast before he suits up.”

She hands me the foil-wrapped burger. “He also stays up until like midnight sometimes.” She unwraps her own burger and takes a bite.

“It’s the adrenaline.” I unwrap my burger and take a bite of it. “So how was your day?”

She grabs a packet of ketchup and opens it on the foil while she dips one of her fries in it. “Pretty shitty,” she says softly.

“Did you go see Penelope?” I ask her, and she nods her head as she chews another bite of her burger.

“I did”—she grabs a stuffed mushroom—“and her grandparents got emergency custody of her.”

I watch her as she eats. “Is that a good thing?” I ask her, not sure what the circumstances are.

“Time will tell, I guess.” She shrugs and puts down the burger on the foil in front of her. “There is no father listed on the birth certificate, so they were going to get custody anyway.” She grabs an onion ring and takes a bite, tossing the rest of it on her foil. “It is what it is.” Her voice trails off and she gets out of the bed. “Do you want water?” she asks, and I nod at her before she walks out of the room. I look over and see she’s barely made a dent in the food I’ve ordered. I ordered everything I know she likes with the hopes she would devour it.

She comes back and hands me a bottle of water as she slips into bed on her side. She leans back and doesn’t touch anything in front of her. “Are you not hungry?” I point at the containers in front of her. All of them are open as the food stares back at her.

“My eyes say yes.” She looks over at me and I can see she’s exhausted. Her eyes are less red now, but when she blinks it takes her a couple of seconds before she opens her eyes again. “But my stomach says I’ve had enough.”

“When you don’t eat for a couple of days, it’s usually recommended to start slow with soup,” I say as I finish my burger.

“Is that so, Dr. Grant?” She smirks at me as she puts her water bottle on the bedside table as she wraps up all the food. She places the food in the brown bag. “Do you want to take the leftovers home?” I shake my head as she walks from the room and I hear her in the kitchen.

“It’s time for you to go,” I say to the empty room. Instead of getting up and grabbing my jacket, I stay in my spot. My head knows I need to leave, my body—on the other hand—is staying exactly in this spot.

She walks back into the room, grabbing the tablecloth off the bed, rolling it into a ball. “Are you tired?” I ask her and she shrugs.

“I’m exhausted,” she shares as she tosses the ball in the corner of the room before walking to her side of the bed. “Mentally and physically.” She gets into the bed, turning the light off. “Emotionally.”

She grabs the remote from the side and presses play, and the sound from the television fills the room. I lean back on the pillow behind me, stretching my legs on the bed. She takes a couple of pillows from behind her and tosses them at me in the middle of us. I grab them and tuck them behind my head. She lies down and watches the television. I know I should leave but something inside me stops me.

I’m going to go when she falls asleep,I tell myself. I don’t know how long I lie here, but when I hear the sound of her softly snoring, I look over and see she’s sleeping. My chest contracts for a second as I watch her. “Time for you to go,” I say softly to myself, “she’ll be okay.” It’s almost as if I have to convince myself. My head tells my body to get up, but my heart says just one more minute. It takes two more before I drift off to sleep beside her.

CHAPTER15

Julia

The soft sound of bells chiming fills the room and my eyes slowly drift open. I blink for a second and the weight of his arms around me makes me want to drift back to sleep. I snuggle deeper into the pillow and feel his heat at my back, the sound of bells goes off again, and this time I can’t help but groan. I feel him pull away from me and then the sound goes off. “What is up with you and that alarm?” I ask him, and then he turns back to me and his arms go around me again.

He's still on top of the covers and I’m under so I feel like I’m pressed in. “It’s my alarm,” he mumbles and I want to turn around in his arms, but instead I just stay here. This is the second day I’ve woken up in his arms. My stomach flutters thinking about it, and all I can do is push it away. I’ve been in bed with men before, some even in the morning, it’s not a big deal. For a minute I think I can hear my head laughing at myself.

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