The Girlfriend (The Boss 2)

I will never find it not funny that vaginas turn into objects of torture immediately after a guy comes and is still trapped in one.

Neil lifted his head and kissed me, slow and sweet, propped up on his elbows on either side of me with his hands in my hair. When our mouths parted, he said, “I wasn’t intending for this to happen tonight.”

“Me neither,” I confessed. “I thought you’d break up with me.”

“Because you’re pregnant?” He sounded horrified at the thought.

I shook my head slightly. I didn’t want him to stop stroking his fingers through my hair. “No. Because you were all freaked out about me choosing you over the job.”

“I’m very glad you did. I will probably feel guilty until the end of my days, but I’m selfishly happy that you picked me.” His lips brushed my cheek.

His word choice made a lump rise in my throat. The end of his days might be a lot sooner than I would like. “Um. Can you let me up?”

He slipped from me, and a gush of wet followed. More leaked out when I sat up, and I scrunched my face in embarrassment. “I think I just made a mess on your couch.”

“It was an accepted risk.” He pulled me to his side and reached for the cashmere throw on the back of the sofa, wrapping it around my shoulders. “One moment, it’s a bit chilly in here.”

When he stood, he pulled up his trousers, and I saw the wet smears from my body on the fabric. Fuck, that was hot. Probably less hot for the dry cleaner, though.

“Neil...” I didn’t know how to broach the leukemia subject in a tactful way. “This cancer... It’s bad, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think any cancer is particularly good.” Neil stooped to turn on the gas fireplace, then came back to sit beside me. “But the oncologist I spoke with at Presbyterian told me that a man my age, in relatively good health— as I am— has a ninety percent chance of survival over five years.”

Holding in my sobs, my tears, hurt too much.

He watched me, wary. “Sophie?”

He put his arms around me and squeezed me tight. I felt awful for crying in front of him. I wasn’t the one who’d been told I had a ten percent chance of dying. I wasn’t the one looking at five more years of life on an if. It was selfish and stupid of me, but I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t be strong in that moment.

“Listen to me.” He took my face in his hands and looked into my eyes. “I am very fortunate. I can afford the very best doctors and treatments available. I have a far better chance of surviving than some patients. I am extremely lucky.”

“You have cancer! That’s not lucky!” I wasn’t mad at him, I was mad at the fact he was sick. He just happened to be the nearest convenient target to shout at.

He was entirely unfazed. He actually smiled. “On the contrary, I think I am quite lucky. I have you.”

Well, for the moment he had me. In just a few days he would be gone, out of New York, out of my life, at least in the physical sense. He would leave, Holli had left... I thought of my apartment, how much I had reveled in being alone earlier in the day, but how boring and quiet it had become. In England, Neil would have Emma, but she had a job. She couldn’t drop everything to tend to her father. Would he be just as lonely over there as I would be here?

It seemed like there was only one solution to both of our problems.

“Let me go to England with you.”

Had I said that out loud? I didn’t know if it was the stupidest, or the greatest thing my brain had spontaneously ambushed me with, but in the blink of an eye, it all made perfect sense. I didn’t have a job. Nothing was holding me in the city. I could leave for a while.

“I had hoped you would visit at some point while I was away,” he began, and I held a finger up to his lips to silence him.

“That’s not what I’m asking for. I want to go with you when you leave next week, and I want to stay with you while you’re undergoing treatment. You want to stand by me through this—“ I gestured to my stomach. “I want to help you, too. I wouldn’t be able to function knowing you were battling some deadly disease all the way across the ocean.”

“The situation is somewhat different. You’re going to be settled in a day. I’m going to be in the hospital for weeks, potentially,” he argued.

“That’s just another reason I want to go with you. You wanted commitment? There’s your commitment. I’m willing to move to a foreign country for you, because I can’t stand to be without you.” Tears rose up again, in my eyes and my voice. “I know you said you’d doubted us. But I don’t have any doubts now. I want to be with you. If you don’t want me to go with you, tell me. But don’t try to keep me away from you because you think you’re helping me. I need you.”