“I’ve been sleeping for weeks, Dr Campbell. I won’t get tired.” Jess smiled. “Don’t make them go. Not yet.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Cal squeezed her hand. “You sure know how to run from a guy. If you didn’t want to chase whatever this is, you didn’t have to try to die on me.”
Her cheeks pinked. “So…you still want to see where this goes?”
I shouldn’t be here for this.
I was the third wheel. The unwanted watcher.
Swallowing past the ball in my throat, I backed away only for Jess to snap, “Don’t you think about leaving, Jinx.” She untangled her gaze from Cal’s and looked at me. “I’ve been dying to share, and I’m annoyed that Cal told you instead of me.”
Her face spoke of flirty, fanciful things, but her gaze was sympathetic and understanding. This wasn’t an overshare when she’d literally just woken from a coma, but her attempt at distraction.
Fine.
I needed a distraction.
I needed her to help me stay sane when that sanity had frayed to the point where I could no longer hold on.
I glanced at Calvin. He sat stiff and chilly, but a smirk teased his lips. He was in on the attempt, both of them pitying me, pitying Sully, pitying us.
Bracing my shoulders, I met their courage with my own. “Okay, tell me everything.”
He nodded, accepting my agreement to be distracted and looked from me and back to Jess, speaking to her. “Sinclair guessed. He gave me hell.”
Her eyebrows vanished into her blonde hair. “He guessed? How?”
“Said I’d never provided aftercare before.”
“Ah, yes well. That wasn’t exactly planned.” She blushed again. “But I’m glad you finally opened your eyes and saw me.” Her gaze sought mine, and her face glowed as if she’d woken full of vitality and gossip instead of a body weak from sleep and drained from haemorrhaging from Drake’s bullet. “I’ve been kind of in love with him since I arrived. Men, huh? Blind as bats.”
I hugged myself, attempting normal conversation when this was anything but a normal topic. “But…serving in Euphoria with different men and—”
“I’d rather not be reminded, thanks,” Cal muttered.
“When?” I asked. “How?”
“The night I slept with Markus Grammer as you,” Jess said. “Cal came to check on me after he helped Sully put you to bed.”
It was my turn to blush.
The caveman fantasy.
The first time Sully took me, wearing his masks and telling his lies.
I’d fallen that night and never gotten off my knees.
Sully, goddamn you, wake up!
“Elixir hadn’t quite finished with me.” She laughed, only to stop suddenly, wincing at the pain no doubt in her lower belly. In her womb that no longer existed thanks to fucking Drake.
“Hey, it’s okay, you can tell me later,” I rushed. “Focus on yourself instead of—”
“I kissed him when he tried to tuck me into bed.” Her eyes glowed with pure affection as she glanced at Cal. “He didn’t kiss me back, but…it got him thinking.”
“You were high,” Cal muttered.
“I wanted you.”
“Elixir wanted me.”
“No…I did.” She looked at their joined hands. “Every guest. Every Euphoria session…I was with you. When you didn’t notice me, I figured I might as well make everyone else happy because that way…maybe I could make you happy. Maybe we could all be happy.” She flicked me a glance. “Maybe I could make Sullivan happy so he’d give me the opportunity to sleep with the one guy who I actually wanted and to be his equal.”
Her motivation.
Her hidden agenda.
So much simpler than her sinister plots that I feared. The age-old fatalistic hope of matchmaking in order to find her own freedom.
“You’re a brave, brave woman, Jess.” I smiled.
She blushed. “Just stubborn.”
I pushed away tears that still leaked, attempting a joke. “And to think I ever suspected your motives.”
“Well, I was rather persuasive.” She grinned but then turned serious. “I knew how you were feeling when you first arrived because I was feeling it too. You wanted Sully, but he kept refusing you. I wanted Cal, but he didn’t see me. I figured…if I could help, then someone might help me.”
Cal stood and bent over her.
He kissed her hard.
Hard enough to make the heart monitor spike and Dr Campbell to growl from the next room. “Get your tongue out of her mouth, Moor.”
Cal pulled away, his nose nudging hers in sweet affection. “I see you now, woman. And I’m not going anywhere.”
Once again, the intimacy in the room was a dagger to my heart.
It took a mallet to my legs and swept them from under me.
I tripped and rubbed at my chest.
The craving to be next to Sully cracked my bones with need.
I needed to touch him, kiss him, murmur to him, even if he couldn’t reciprocate.
“I…I—” I choked on a sob and swallowed hard. “I’m unbelievably happy for you guys, but…I have to go.”
Jess looked tired, her body no longer willing to ignore her injuries. “I’m so sorry, Eleanor. He’ll wake up…you’ll see.”