Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 484(@200wpm)___ 387(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Only?” He scoffed. “It’s all I need.”
I’d had no idea that Matt was such a morning person. Or a not-sleeping person. What the hell had I gotten myself into?
“To be clear, you do not expect me to get up this early every day, right?” Because that was going to be one of those limits he would need to respect.
“No. I get up this early to work out.” He grimaced. “Okay, these days, it’s for physical therapy. But that’s a workout in and of itself.”
“Physical therapy? For your leg?” I had no idea he was still trying to fix it. I thought the cane was a part of his life, now.
He sat on his side of the bed and opened the nightstand drawer. There was a distinct rattle of pill bottles as he pulled them out. “My hope is that within a couple of years, I’ll be back to my old self. But that’s going to take a lot of work, considering the damage to my muscles from that blood clot.”
He popped the tops off the bottles and counted out what he needed, while I watched like I was intruding on a sacred ritual.
“I didn’t realize you took so many pills.” I didn’t know why I said it; it made it sound like I thought it was a bad thing.
He must have worried about that perception as well, because he responded, “I kept it to myself. But now that you live with me, I don’t see why I should sneak around.”
“Now that I...” I guessed I never thought of what we were doing as serious cohabitation. I came back to New York, but it never occurred to me to call this what it was: we were moving in together.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Were you planning on getting your own place? Because I can do that for you, if it’s what you need.”
“No. No, I want to move in with you.” That shocked the hell out of me.
“Good.” He grabbed a bottle of water from the nightstand, took a big drink, tipped his head back and popped the handful of pills in, all at once.
“So, are those for pain or...” The number of medications concerned me. Of course, I wasn’t a doctor. I should have minded my own business.
“Pain, inflammation, neuropathy—that’s fun—, blood thinners because I’m more prone to clots now, a cocktail of various psych meds to deal with the PTSD of almost dying, and an anti-convulsant for the epilepsy I’ve had since childhood.” He half-turned to watch my reaction. “And erectile dysfunction meds, due to all of the above.”
“You never mentioned epilepsy.” Why would he have? We’d been fuck buddies in a whirlwind romance. There hadn’t been time or a reason to discuss our medical histories.
“I haven’t had a seizure in over a decade.” He paused. “Well... I’m not counting the ones I had in the hospital. I think bear attacks and blood clots and tons of surgery gave the epilepsy and unfair advantage.”
“These are the kinds of things we need to know about each other.” I padded toward the bathroom. “What would happen if you had a seizure, and I didn’t know to expect it?”
“You would call the ambulance, and it would be a big-ass hassle.” He stood and stretched. “Don’t walk around worrying about me like I’m a gun about to go off, okay? Like I said, a decade.”
“Are you supposed to be drinking as much as you do on all those pills?” I highly doubted the answer was yes.
“No, I am not,” he admitted, but in a tone that suggested it wasn’t up for debate.
I circled back around to the original question I’d posed. “All right, so you get up earlier than God, have a hearty breakfast of pharmaceuticals, do your physical therapy, and then what?”
“Then I have breakfast, usually while simultaneously watching and reading the news, check my schedule, shower, get dressed, do whatever I want before work.” He eyed me suggestively. “For example, I could incorporate waking up my girlfriend with my head between her thighs into my routine.”
“I would be fine with that,” I said with a sly smile. “Then, you go to work?”
“I like to get there at around ten or eleven. There aren’t any meetings until lunch time, usually.”
“Why’s that?”
“Clients like a free lunch.”
That made sense enough to me. “Is that what you do all day? Meetings?”
“Meetings, paperwork, reading reports.” He paused, as if he never thought through his day before. “My job is super boring.”
“Honestly, I’m surprised you have a job at all. If I had thirty-billion dollars, I wouldn’t do shit.” There was no reason to pretend I was some kind of go-getter. I had nothing in the way of career aspirations, and I didn’t want to give him the accidental impression that I was about to climb the corporate ladder.