Within These Walls (22 page)

“You did research, Mom?” I asked, holding up my hand to silence her.

“I Googled him.”

A small snort morphed into full-out laughter, and I wrapped my arms around my sides in an attempt to control the roaring inferno. “You…used Google?”

My mom was a teacher, a professor, but she hadn’t quite graduated to the twenty-first century. She carried a cell phone for emergencies. It flipped open and had exactly three numbers programmed into it—the hospital, our home, and Dr. Marcus. The laptop I owned had been given to her by a colleague when he decided to upgrade. My mom had taken one look at the thing and cringed. She used a desktop computer at work and considered it punishment.

According to my mother, all research should be done in a library. Google was for morons and perverts. The fact that she’d used it to look up Jude meant she was flustered and seriously frustrated.

“Yes, I was curious about the boy you’ve been spending so much time with.”

“Mom, he’s twenty-five. He’s hardly a boy.”

She ignored my comment and continued to watch me from her tattered blue throne. “Do you think he’ll take care of you? Is that what this is all about? He’s wealthy and powerful, so you think he’ll protect you?”

I stared at her, my mouth agape, before I let the shock wear off. “Is that what you think of me? What you think of him?”

“I don’t know him,” she answered.

“No, but you know me. Do you think I’d do that? Hand myself over on a silver platter?” I spit.

“I did,” she said softly.

“What?”

“Men promise all sorts of things when they want something, especially when it involves a woman. Your father was no different.”

My breath hitched when I heard her mention him. In my twenty-two years on this earth, she’d only ever spoken about him a handful of times. She never brought him up herself, and she always quickly dismissed the subject of him. The majority of what I knew about the man were small things I’d learned from medical records.

“From the moment we met, I was completely infatuated with him. He made me feel reckless with his constant pursuit. He promised me the moon and the stars, and I believed every word. He said he’d always protect me, but when I became pregnant, he vanished, just like his false promises.”

“Mom…” I started, my voice hoarse from the unshed tears I was holding back for the pain my mother had suffered. “Not all men are like my father.” I realized then that even after that heartfelt story, she still hadn’t revealed his name to me. The only father I knew was faceless and without a name.

“How can you be so sure?” she asked, leaning forward to take my hand in her own.

“I don’t think anyone can be. But isn’t that what life is all about? Taking a risk on something? Someone? Jude is a wonderful person, Mom—a very poor, penniless person,” I added.

Her eyes went wide. “But I thought…he looks so much like…” she stammered.

“He is. That is him. Your Google skills are fine. It’s a long story and one you should probably ask him yourself, but just know that I don’t expect anything from him, and he doesn’t expect anything in return. I know this is stressful for you. I understand that I’m disrupting your sense of control, but please, Mom, let me take this risk, let me love someone.”

She nodded, rising from her seat to join me on the bed. I willingly let her pull me into her arms, loving the way I still fit into her small frame. She was controlling and overbearing at times, but she was my mom. She was my home, and everything she’d done since the moment I came screaming into this world had been because she loved me.

“Just be careful, my little angel.”

I smiled against her chest, remembering how Jude had called me that same sweet thing mere hours earlier. Mom had named me Lailah after the Hebrew angel of pregnancy. When she’d discovered my heart defect during a routine ultrasound, she’d wanted to give me a name that was strong and hopeful. She might not be a religious person, but I thought it was somehow her way of asking for a bit of help to whoever might be listening.

“I will, Mom, I promise.”

She gave me a small squeeze, and I closed my eyes, knowing I’d lied to my mother.

There was nothing careful about falling in love.

IT HAD BEEN a little over a week since that horrible day Lailah’s fever nearly took her from this world. A fever was so simple for most but extremely deadly for her. It was no wonder her mother had become so controlling regarding every minute detail of Lailah’s life. Her mother had gone over the deep end to ensure Lailah’s safety, but standing on the opposite side of parenthood, I would wager a mother would do anything and everything to keep her child from dying even if it meant keeping the child from living a normal life.

For the most part, life at the hospital had returned to normal. After my forced few days of vacation, I had been allowed to return to work after I’d shown no symptoms of Lailah’s virus, and then Lailah and I had fallen back into our late-night pudding visits. The only difference was the addition of my off-hour daytime drop-ins. A one-hour lunch break wasn’t enough anymore, and I didn’t have an endless bank account to fall back on. I needed my job. Now, more than ever, the hospital had become my home. I would be here morning, noon, and night, only running home to shower, crash for sleep, and plan.

I was always planning.

Movie night hadn’t been the only trick up my sleeve. Since that night, I’d managed to pull off a few other place holders in hopes of making Lailah’s prison sentence a bit more palatable.

We’d had an ice cream parlor one afternoon where I’d brought in ten different flavors of ice cream. We’d proceeded to make a sundae worthy of the cheesy name I’d created for my fictional ice cream endeavor.

“A Dude Named Jude’s Ice Cream Parlor?” she’d asked with a snarky grin.

“Hey, it took me a really long time to think that up. I lost precious hours of sleep.”

“It’s cute.”

“You mean, it’s sexy,” I said with a waggle of my eyebrows as I scooped mint chocolate chip onto a cone.

“Mmm…yes, that, too.”

I’d managed to keep her laughing all afternoon while I served up ice cream cones to the entire staff who managed to find their way to the ice cream without any directions or invitations. Lailah was ecstatic for the commotion and welcomed everyone, talking to doctors and nurses for hours as I played host.

Who knew Jude, the loner, could be so charismatic?

She’d brought that back—the old, lighter version of myself, the part I’d thought died when I watched Megan take her last breath.

I still visited the hallway. It wasn’t often, but I’d been down there briefly—hovering and waiting…for something. For what, I didn’t know.

Am I waiting for a divine sign from my fiancée, telling me everything is as it should be? To hear her voice saying it’s okay to love again?

Fuck, I don’t know.

I still felt the pull between my old life and the new one that seemed to be surfacing, but the guilt was shifting. When I walked the hallway and sat on my bench, looking at the closed door that had belonged to Megan for a brief few days, I would feel guilty for being there, for not sharing this part of myself with a woman who I was supposed to love.

When you love someone, you tell her everything, including the fact that you love her.

But I hadn’t had the courage to do so.

It was still there, on the tip of my tongue.

I’d had so many opportunities over the last few days, yet as I lay in bed, holding her in my arms, I knew I’d let the moments slip by like dust in the wind. Each time I had, I would picture myself back in that lonely hallway, and I hated it. I hated that I was still stuck when everything that lay ahead of me appeared so crystal clear, yet felt so damn murky.

The ice cream parlor had been such a huge success that I’d waltzed into the hospital today, ready for another one. It was my first day off after six nights straight. After a brief stop at a nearby strip mall, I’d arrived just a few hours before lunch, ready to spend the entire day with her.

“You want another one?” She placed her latest paperback down on the bed as she swung her feet over the side.

Her toes dangled in the air, and I caught a flash of lavender nail polish glinting off her big toe. She watched me drop the white paper bag near her bed, but she didn’t say anything.

“Yep, hit me,” I answered with a grin.

She looked up at me, her hands resting close to her knees, as her feet continued swaying back and forth.

She’s so damn cute.

“Okay, number forty-three—dance in the rain.” Her eyes sparkled with unshed laughter.

“You want a place holder for that?” I asked in genuine shocked.

“Yep. I mean, you brought an entire ice cream parlor, complete with sprinkles and cherries, here yesterday. How hard can a little rain be?” She threw in a flirty wink at the end just to spite me.

My nervous babbling girl had quickly transformed into a quick-witted temptress, and I liked it.

“You couldn’t have picked something easier? No, you had to go with rain—in the hospital,” I added.

“Well,” she started, drawing out the word with her melodic voice, “if it’s too hard—”

I didn’t even let her finish. I just stepped forward, closing the small gap between us, and I grabbed her hand. Her eyes widened, and laughter came bursting out of her.

“What are you doing?” she yelped.

I briskly walked us into the bathroom. “Making it rain,” I answered.

I kicked off my shoes and pulled out my cell phone and keys, remembering I still had yet to reveal the contents of what lay hidden in the mystery bag I’d brought.

I mentally shrugged.
That can wait. It’s time for some waterworks.

I turned toward her, and she had this what-did-I-get-myself-into look.

I smirked and lunged, hauling us both into the shower. I reached for the handle and turned. Cold water immediately fell onto our heads from the showerhead above.

“Oh my God, you’re nuts! We’re completely clothed and drenched!”

“Well, if we were naked, it would just be a shower.” My eyes raked over her soaked body, loving the way her clothes clung to every inch. “But now that you mention it, a shower sounds really good right now.”

Her breath hitched, and her crystal-blue eyes met mine.

There were so many possibilities in that single moment.

“But you wanted to dance in the rain, so the clothes stay on—for today,” I added with a wolfish grin.

Not pushing her against that ugly white tile and showing her everything I wanted to do to her in that moment was physically painful. But I’d made a promise to her and myself. This was not how I would be making her mine. Angels didn’t swoop down from heaven to be treated like something ordinary. I’d never been given a gift like the one Lailah was choosing to give me. Until now, I hadn’t really considered virginity much more than a drunken interlude one leaves behind in high school. That was how mine had come and gone. Megan had seriously dated someone through much of high school, and although I’d never wanted specifics, I knew they had been intimate.

Lailah’s life could pretty much be summed up within the walls of this hospital. Her illness—this defect she’d been born with had soaked up and stolen almost every minute of her existence. I’d be damned if I was going to let it take anything else.

Sliding my hands down her arms, I grabbed her hands and tugged them up around my neck. Warm, wet fingers grasped my shoulders as I found her waist and pulled her closer.

“I hope you don’t mind if I dance with you?” I whispered, loving the feel of her body against mine as I began to gently sway us back and forth under the cascade of water.

“Never,” she answered, placing her head on my shoulder.

I didn’t know how long we stayed like that, slow dancing under the false rain of the shower, while we pretended to be somewhere else.

“Ahem,” a stern male voice startled us from our dreamy waltz in the mist.

Lailah’s head jerked up from my shoulder as mine turned to find Dr. Marcus standing in the doorway. His eyes were trained on mine with a look that was anything but friendly.