Page 43 of Renegade Rift
Eight-thirty-two.
I’m over an hour late to Ford’s for our planned decluttering session. Today we were supposed to tackle his closet of baseball memorabilia—aka, take it all out of the boxes he hasn’t bothered to unpack since moving to New York. This has been a constant theme since I started helping him last week.
In his mind, all his things are safe and secure since he hasn’t touched them. My mind automatically worries about his memories being squished, jostled, and mishandled by careless movers and how they need to be accounted for.
Clearly, we are not the same.
But none of that matters if I can’t will myself to get out of bed.
Stupid autoimmune disease.
Stupid hormones.
Stupid being a woman-and-bleeding-for-five-days-straight-without-dying.
My phone dings for the umpteenth time from where I left it last night charging, in the kitchen. I’d bet money it’s a certain baseball player—who I absolutely owe an answer to—but the bottoms of my feet are so swollen, and my uterus has my insides wanting to become outsides, and the very thought of crossing even this closet-sized apartment has me pulling the covers up over my head.
Lodhi meows and curls up next to me as if he knows today is not the day for orange cat antics.
“Thanks bud,” I whisper and close my eyes, silently willing sleep to take me and maybe keep me under until my body decides to give me back control.
* * *
“Fuck.”
I’m not entirely positive how long I’ve been asleep, but I know for damn sure Lodhi didn’t learn to cuss while I was out.
My eyes flutter open to two crystal blue eyes staring at me with nothing but unfettered concern.
“Oh, thank God,” Ford exhales, flipping back the stray hair that fell across his forehead. “For a second, I thought you were dead, and your demon cat wouldn’t let me get any closer to check.”
I blink the sleep from my eyes and glance up at where Lodhi has taken a defensive stance on my pillow, the hair on the back of his neck standing straight up. “That’s a bit dramatic, don’t you think?”
“Are you talking to me or him?”
“Both of you,” I admonish as I push the blankets down from my shoulders and take stock of my body.
Foggy brain? Check.
Revolting uterus? Yup, still there.
Achy fingers, knees, and feet? Check, check, and check.
The consensus? Sleep did nothing. Everything still hurts.
Ford crosses his arms over his chest, his concern replaced with annoyance. “Why didn’t you show up? Or answer my calls? Or I don't know, answer the door?”
He knocked?
“I had to track down the building super and spin a story about how I was your brother, and we were FaceTiming, and you fell and couldn’t get up.”
I wince as I sit up in bed and prop my pillows behind me. “And he believed you?”
Considering the guy didn’t ask questions about Earl or any of the other enforcers showing up at my apartment, it shouldn’t surprise me that he just let someone in without checking to make sure the story was true. But what could I do? This was the only apartment I could find that wasn’t astronomically priced.
“Clearly,” he says, waving his hands down his body. “Now, are you going to tell me why you’re still in bed, and what I can do to help?”
I arch a scrutinous brow. “Help?”
