“Juliet,” he growled in warning.
“Let me out, Paxton.”
“If you keep going, you won’t like what I’ll do when I come back home. Stop.”
“Actually I’m quite hot in here. Maybe it’s the anxiety rising from being stuck in such a small place…”
“Juliet, please…”
“What, you don’t want to play anymore?”
She faked a dramatic pout and heard him grunting in annoyance. Reaching the last button, the elevator suddenly jolted back to life.
“You have two minutes to reach your car before I get there,” he said slowly.“If I catch you,…”
I jump with a yelp when a hand grabs my shoulder, sending my sketchbook and pen rolling on the deck.
My eyes meet Jack’s wide one and my hand lands automatically on my racing heart.
“Fuck, Jack. You scared me.”
“I’m sorry, didn’t see the earbuds from behind you.” He winces. “How was your run?”
“Like a visit through the furnace of hell.”
He rolls his eyes, but my gaze catches movement on the side, where I dropped my sketchbook and pen. My heart misses a few beats when I seehim. Leaning down to grab it from the floor and examining the picture I was drawing. Our eyes meet.
“I guess you remember Nate?” Jack says finally, voice a little shy, bringing my attention back to him. “He actually owns the house we’re staying in and the other ones on the private beach.” I try to swallow the knot that formed in my throat. “And he also is the physiotherapist who will be treating me.”
My eyes are fixed on Jack, trying to ignore Nate’s gaze burning my cheek.
How is it that I thought about him for the first time in a while today, and now he’s here? Is it some kind of weird karma joke?
“Does that mean… Did you guys make up?”
“Well… I did apologize, but I think Nate here is just happy to see me suffer through physical therapy. So I guess we’re working on it.”
I frown and turn my head sharply towards Nate, who’s still staring at me with inscrutable blue eyes.
“Happy to see him suffer?” I grit out.
A beat of silence. Two. Finally he answers without looking away.
“Physical therapy for Myotonic Dystrophy patients is always painful, especially for someone who’s been sick since childhood.”
“I fail to understand why that would make you happy.”
“It doesn’t.”
Jack clears his throat uncomfortably, and pulls on my arm softly.
“Come on, Prue. I was joking.”
“He was not,” Nate adds flatly. “I did mention that he was going tosuffer anyway and that if someone was to do it, it was going to be me.”
I straighten up on my lounge chair, ready to stand up. My hands are fists by my sides.
“What’s wrong with you?” I say through clenched teeth, focusing my attention back on him.
