The Bride (The Boss 3)

“What do you want, bitch?” she answered.

“You sound bored.”

“Totally bored. Deja is at some bullshit thing with Rudy.”

“How soon can you get here?” It was awful and hypocritical of me, because I hated when Neil was away, but I loved it when Deja had to work and I got Holli all to myself.

“Well, it depends on where ‘here’ is,” she said with snort. “I mean, I’ve never gotten the invitation to Fifth Avenue.”

I ignored the hoity-toity accent she sometimes affected when talking about my new lifestyle. For a while, it had seemed funny and I’d rolled with it out of a healthy sense of self-deprecation, but now I was beginning to wonder if she really did dislike the way I lived with Neil. I gave Holli the address and asked, “So, how long, do you think?”

“I don’t know. Give me an hour.” She perked up at the prospect. “Should I bring anything?”

I thought of the lovely, light dinner we’d just had. I wanted to be conscious of what I was putting into my body, and the impact it would have on my health later in life, I really did. “A pizza. Bring a pizza.”

After I hung up with her, I went looking for Neil. I found him in the library, his laptop open in front of him. Whatever he was working on, there were a lot of numbers involved, and I looked away from the screen out of pure math-phobia. He’d changed into a t-shirt and sleep pants. There’s something about the way a t-shirt stretches across a man’s upper back that makes me just ache to touch… Or maybe it was just because it was Neil’s back.

He looked up, distracted. “Is Holli coming?”

“Mmhm.” I trailed my fingers across the back of his neck. “But she won’t be here for like, an hour…”

A smile touched the corners of his mouth, but his eyes never moved from the screen. “Unfortunately, I am quite busy.”

I dropped to my knees beside his chair and rested my chin on my forearms on the armrest. I batted my eyes up at him. “Too busy to get your dick sucked, Sir?”

He turned in his chair, but when my hands went to the button fly of his pajama pants, he brushed them away gently. “I can’t.”

I sat back on my heels. He hardly ever turned me down.

“Not because of anything you’ve done,” he hurried to console me. Then he uttered a resigned, “damn,” under his breath and said, “It takes around thirty minutes for a pill to kick in, and that’s on an empty stomach.”

I frowned and tilted my head.

“Remember when we first started having sex again after the chemotherapy? The, er, difficulties I had?” Neil rarely blushed, but his face was furious, ashamed red now. “They didn’t magically clear up.”

His meaning became fully clear. “Oh. You’re… Are you taking boner pills?”

“And of course you pick the most charming possible way to phrase it.” He covered his face with his hands and pulled the skin out of shape. “I am a walking cliché.”

“No, baby.” I put my own feelings aside for later examination. Right now, Neil was hemorrhaging dignity. “It’s not a big deal. I just can’t believe you didn’t tell me.”

“I don’t even want to take the damn things.” He shook his head. “Of course I didn’t want to tell you. You’re twenty-five. Men your age—”

“Are not marrying me,” I reminded him.

“I know.” Defeat clung to those words. “It’s a matter of vanity.”

I leaned my elbows on his knees. “I know it makes about zero difference to you, but if it helps…I don’t think it makes you any less sexy.”

His closed mouth smile told me my words had helped, a little. “They must not interfere with my appeal too badly.”

“And it’s not vanity. You were a healthy, in-shape guy before.”

“As healthy as someone can be with secret leukemia for four years,” he reminded me.

“True. But you couldn’t see the l

eukemia.” I paused, considering. “Maybe that’s your problem. This is the first time you’re carrying around real, physical reminders of your illness.”