“You must be feeling better.”
“Yeah. Sort of.” I try to read his face and fail. He’s wearing his inscrutable business expression, which means whatever he’s been tinkering with on his laptop is work-related and not necessarily good news. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” He closes his laptop and props his chin in his hand. “So. Do you want more soup, or something else?”
He’s way too close to that envelope. I want him as far from it as possible. “Why don’t we go out and get something to eat?” I can probably manage an hour or so of outing.
“Actually, I thought we should do delivery.” He comes over, puts a hand on my forehead and nods. “Better. But I don’t want you to overexert yourself.”
“No, no, it’s really no problem. At all. Really. I just want to make sure the weekend isn’t a total loss for you.”
He looks insulted. “Why would staying here with you be a total loss?”
“Isn’t it?” Rick certainly would’ve been annoyed. Actually, any of my ex-boyfriends would’ve been less than thrilled if I got sick and they had to cancel a trip. They’d also hint—if not outright whine—about the fact that they lost money, since it was a same-day cancellation. And they’d expect me to do something to make up for it, which I would, since I’d feel guilty. I feel bad about Emmett missing out on the trip, so I should do something—or at least encourage him to enjoy Napa on his own or something.
“No. You make me sound like a, a…” He thinks for a moment. “A soulless insurance adjuster or something.”
Shame comes over me. Emmett deserves better. But I also need to pull him away from that package from the Blaire Group. And getting delivery will mean spreading food out on the table.
So…
“Why don’t we order a pizza, and we can watch a movie while eating?” I give him my most winning smile. Perfect. It’ll force him to park himself on a couch in front of the TV and give me an opportunity to hide the mail.
“Okay.”
Whew.
He stands up, and his hand brushes the pile. Everything falls, landing in complete disarray.
Shit!
“Sorry,” he says, bending down.
“No, no!” I fall over the mess like a football player diving for a fumbled ball. Since I don’t have any athletic grace, I land on my face. My whole body jars at the impact. But it doesn’t matter. I manage to block Emmett’s view.
“Are you okay?” His tone says that he’s now worried about my mental health.
“Yeah, fine. Totally good. Lemme just, uh, pick these up, and why don’t you order the pizza?”
“Um. Yeah. Okay. What do you want?”
“Anything,” I say. “I’m not picky.”
“Pepperoni good?”
“Perfect. Excellent.”
He pulls out his phone. While he’s tinkering with a delivery app, I grab every piece of mail under my torso, dump it into Sasha’s bedroom and shut the door firmly.
Disaster averted.
I wouldn’t be as happy, though, if I knew another disaster was just around the corner.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Amy
I hear Sasha curse from the next room on Tuesday morning. We’re both getting ready for work when her “Shit!” comes through the wall quite clearly.