Chapter 14 14
Harmony's POV
Foster settled back against the pillows and watched me pull my notepad out.
"I was actually hoping to get at least one more opportunity to let you manhandle me before I got discharged." He joked.
I frowned. "Did I disappoint you then?"
"Oh, not at all. You grab my leg, my arm, you basically just dragged me across the room by my bicep. Most people have to pay for that kind of thing."
"Can you be serious for five minutes?" I looked up at him. "Must every single thought that comes into your head, come out of your mouth as a joke?"
He made eye contact with me for a few seconds, and his expression had mellowed. "I take it you've heard I'm leaving soon?"
"Dr Sherman told me this morning."
"Yeah." He looked down at his hands. "My mom wasn't too happy about what happened the other day. She doesn't really do well with people who push back at her, you know. She never has. She is pulling me out because of it."
"I gathered that," I replied.
"She's not a bad person," he tried to reassure me. "She just has a very um... special way of doing things, and she expects the world to fall in line with it."
"You don't have to explain her to me, Roman."
He was quiet for a moment, then he looked up. "I'm sorry about what she said to you, all of it. That was out of order. And I want to say thank you for what you said. You didn't have to do that."
There was a tiredness behind his eyes that had nothing to do with the injury. I had caught glimpses of it before, in some moments between our arguments, but right now it was right on his face where I could see it clearly.
I wanted to ask him what it had actually been like, growing up in that house with a mother like that, and a brother that the whole world adored. From everything Foster had said about Aaron, he sounded like a genuinely good person, everything a big brother should be. And the Aaron I had briefly known at Loyola had not contradicted that picture. He hadn't seemed like the kind of person who would have lorded his success over a younger sibling.
But I was not going to ask. It wasn't my place, as Dr Sherman had impressed upon me.
"Don't mention it," I finally replied, and went back to my notes.
"Hey! What happened to your phone?"
I looked down. Foster was pointing at my hand, where I was holding my phone with the cracked screen facing outward, a long jagged line running from the top corner all the way down.
"Oh, I dropped it," I quickly lied.
Foster glanced at the crack, then looked at me. "You dropped that?"
"Yes."
"From where, the roof?"
"It fell out of my hand, Foster, it happens." I grunted.
His eyebrows slowly traveled upwards. "Miss Sinclair."
"What?"
"You threw it, didn't you?"
I said nothing, which was practically a non-verbal confession. And Foster knew it because he started laughing.
"Oh, damn." He chortled. "Why did you fling it?"
"Well, you are not the only person with a problematic, meddlesome family member." I replied briefly. "Can we move on?"
He stopped laughing, but the warmth stayed on his face. "Fair enough." He looked at the cracked screen again. "Let me buy you a new one, alright?"
I was horrified at the prospect of receiving anything from Roman Foster. "Absolutely not!"
"Just consider it a thank you for gallantly saving me from my mother."
I shook my head sternly. "I don't want your money, Foster."
"It's just a phone. Don't worry, I won't go beyond $500."
The fact that he thought $500 wasn't a lot of money baffled me. "No, Foster. I will discharge you from this clinic right now and you can go hobble around your mother's house on that knee for the next two weeks. Do not test me."
He raised both hands in surrender and said nothing more about it.
I finished writing my notes and stood up. "Alright, I need you on your feet. I want you to flex the knee to a right angle so I can see where your range is before you leave."
"Finally!" His face brightened up immediately. Then he started shifting toward the edge of the bed. "Do you know how many hours I laid in this thing this week? I think I might have bed sores."
"You do not have bed sores," I told him, but I felt a smile pull at my mouth before I could stop it.
He got to his feet carefully, and I positioned myself in front of him. "Put your hands on my shoulders for balance," I instructed. "And I mean for balance, not for anything else."
"Would I?" he said innocently, and placed both hands on my shoulders.
I kept my eyes on his knee. "Okay. Slowly raise the knee and keep the movement controlled. Stop if you feel sharp pain."
He started to lift the knee, and I watched the angle carefully, tracking the flex, and for about four seconds everything was going exactly as it should. Then, out of nowhere, his standing leg started to wobble and he instinctively gripped my shoulders tighter. I was absolutely not built to be a counterbalance for six feet of hockey player, because my legs started to shake too.
"I hope you know I'm not doing it on purpose." He said.
"You are literally crushing me—OW!"
I felt myself going sideways and grabbed the front of his hospital shirt on instinct, which didn't help. Then his hands dropped from my shoulders to my waist and grabbed me before I hit the floor.
We ended up face to face. His hands were locked on my waist, and mine were still holding on to his shirt. I was close enough to see every detail of his face: the crooked bridge of his nose, that small scar cutting through his left eyebrow, and the icy blue of his eyes. All of a sudden, they were my favourite shade of blue.
I was suddenly and overwhelmingly aware of exactly how close we were standing, how tightly my breasts were squished against his chest.
I was also aware of something really hard pressing against my waist. Warmth rushed up my neck and into my face immediately. Was he really hard for me?
Foster's eyes dropped to my mouth. "I'm going to kiss you, Sinclair." He murmured. "Don't move."
I didn't move as he leaned in. I was not even sure I remembered how to.