Climbing Fear by Leisl Leighton

Author:Leisl Leighton [Leighton, Leisl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Escape Publishing

Chapter 15

Reid stared at the document he’d printed out, the words blurring. Printing things out always made it easier to read them than when they were on the computer screen, but it wasn’t working this time and now he had two piles of pages to go through, emails and contracts and invoices and offers, which made it all seem worse somehow. He wiped his hand across tired eyes.

Jesus fucking Christ. Why was this so hard? Luke used to do all this shit with his eyes closed—well, that was how he made it seem. He’d always been so good at school when he’d turned up, where Reid had always found it so difficult to concentrate, to sit still. Ants in his pants syndrome, that’s what Gran had called it, but now he’d probably be diagnosed with ADHD. Not that he wanted a diagnosis. He knew what he could and couldn’t do. Physical activity helped, so that had become his thing, the thing he was good at. Luke had always told him that it wasn’t the only thing he could be good at, that he could do anything he put his mind to. Luke had always been into all that holistic, ‘you can change it if you believe it’ stuff. Neuroplasticity he’d called it.

Reid had almost come to believe him, but then the prick had gone and overdosed and killed himself and dropped all of this in Reid’s incapable hands. He raked said hands through his hair. ‘I can’t do this shit!’ He shoved the papers in front of him so hard they spilled off the desk, fluttering like a mass-migration of one-winged birds across the polished wood floor. ‘Ah crap.’

‘Reid? I was wondering if I could have a shower before we go...’ Reid’s head snapped up to see Nat in the doorway, her gaze going to the mess on the floor. ‘Everything okay?’

‘Fine.’ He jumped up from his chair but hadn’t pushed it back far enough. His leg banged the desk. ‘Bloody hell!’ he said, rubbing the sharp pain.

She raised her brow at him. ‘I can’t remember you being such a klutz. Or having a temper.’

‘I’m not. A klutz. And everyone has a temper sometimes.’

‘And now you have a mess.’ She bent to start sweeping up the pages nearest her.

‘One you don’t have to clean up.’

She met his eyes. ‘I want to. You helped with my mess last night.’

‘That was hardly your mess.’

‘Still.’ She kept picking up the pages scattered on the floor. ‘I want to help.’

‘Thank you.’

The silence was almost companionable as they tidied up, the shuffle and crinkle of paper a friendly sound filling the space between them, his frustration of before fading away. He glanced up at her a few times, wondering if she would mention anything about last night. But she was too focused on the task at hand and showed in no other way that she even remembered having the nightmare and asking him to hold her, sleeping in his arms. It was all he could think of, now she was here.

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