Six Feet Under (Mad Love Duet Book 1) by Whitney Barbetti

Author:Whitney Barbetti [Barbetti, Whitney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Whitney Barbetti
Published: 2018-04-22T16:00:00+00:00

19

The following morning, Brooke waited until nearly noon to exit the room. When she did, her eyes were red, the skin under them and around her nose raw. I wasn’t going to ask her how she was doing. It was the most selfish thing about me—I couldn’t carry the burden of someone else’s grief. I could help them, from a purely external place.

She gave me a sad attempt at a smile and I pointed to the mug beside the coffee maker. “I know you don’t drink full caffeine coffee, but one cup won’t hurt.”

She didn’t even argue, pouring the coffee into the mug and holding it up to her face. I thought the smell alone seemed to have an effect on her. She looked sideways at me and then quickly back to the coffee.

“What do you want to do today?” I asked.

Brooke glanced down the hallway.

“Six is gone, working,” I said, as if I was reading her mind. “He’ll be back by dinner.”

“Okay.”

Awkwardness settled around us. I didn’t know quite what to do with her. My mission had simply been to remove her from the environment she was in, but now that she was in my environment, I was completely clueless. I’d never babysat before, but I approached this circumstance as if I was babysitting her.

“Wanna paint? Or go for a walk, or something?” My eyes slid over her swollen belly. “I don’t know if you can do long walks or whatever.”

She ran a hand over her stomach. “She’s not going to fall out if I go for a walk.”

“But doesn’t that put people in labor or something?” I scratched my head.

“If they’re near their due date, I suppose it does. I’ve got a four or so months still.”

Since she hadn’t argued against the walk idea, I grabbed my coat off the rack and tossed her hers. “Great, let’s get some delicious vitamin D then.”

She followed me outside of the building, onto the sidewalk, and I watched her take in the area now that it wasn’t pitch black. “This is a nice neighborhood.”

I nodded in agreement and led the way down the block. “Yeah, it’s not the slums, that’s for sure.”

“Thanks. I didn’t really get to say that last night. But,” she stuffed her hands into her coat pockets and lifted them away from her body, “I appreciate it.” She rubbed a hand over her face as the brief spring chill flew across our faces.

I didn’t say anything, not necessarily to invite her to continue talking, but because I didn’t know what to say. The only woman I’d ever spent any meaningful time with had been my own mother, and I couldn’t really hold up those moments as guidelines on how to behave with my own sex.

“It’s been bad, for a while. I didn’t want to admit it, but I didn’t have much choice, either.” She sighed and closed her eyes a moment as the sunshine washed over her face. She was the kind of woman who wore everything on her face, plain as day, her hurt and her anger and her exhaustion all echoed back to me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.