Page 33 of Life To My Flight

“Owww,” I whined.

He looked at me sympathetically. “You can take some more ibuprofen.”

I nodded, getting up to do just that.

I washed the pills down with a glass of milk, and sat down at the table again, studiously ignoring his probing gaze.

“I have to go to work in the morning. You’ll be okay?” He asked.

I looked up and shrugged. “Yeah.”

Picking his phone up off the table, he sent a quick text before sliding it back to the middle of the table and resuming eating his massive helping of soup.

“Were you hungry?” I asked with raised eyebrows.

“You have no food,” he said simply.

I snorted.

I didn’t. I hadn’t been to the store in a week. I’d taken my last salad, and then left it to rot in Cleo’s saddlebags.

“I haven’t been able to get to the store this week. No time,” I said by way of apology, before I started forcing myself to eat.

I stuck mainly to the broth, occasionally slurping down a noodle or two.

I kept my face down so he wouldn’t see the lie that had lit up my face. Cleo was a master at reading me, and I didn’t want him to ask questions and figure out my real reasons.

Mainly the one where he found out that I didn’t have the money to buy any food this week.

I picked up dinner with Nonnie during the week, when I got home it was a tie between a cheese sandwich and cereal most days.

“You have shitty cereal, too. I ate all that around four. I’ll go get you some more tomorrow,” he said just before upending the bowl and drinking the last dregs of his soup down.

My eyes started drooping again, but I didn’t want to go to sleep just yet.

I wanted to spend just a few more minutes in this lie.

I wanted to feel like I did a year ago.

Happy and content.

“Watch a movie with me?” I asked.

He stood and took our bowls to the sink. “Go get it on. I’ll grab your blanket off the bed.”

I complied with his instructions, and went to the couch and fired up my DVR.

I inserted the first Die Hard DVD, and sat in the very middle, giving him no other choice but to sit directly beside me.

Which he did thirty seconds later, wrapping the blanket around us both.

I curled around him, pushing until he was leaned back with his body length wise across the couch, and my body alongside his.

We’d been in this position many, many times.

So many times, in fact, that it felt like almost second nature.

I sighed as the movie started playing, and matched my breathing with Cleo’s.

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