N9ne: The Tale of Kevin Clearwater (King, #9)(12)

“I didn’t think so either, but it’s a lot. It’s even more when you don’t have any money coming in,” I answer, rolling myself tighter in the blankets. I have savings, but only enough to last me for about a year more, although I hope to find another job before then. Twelve hundred dollars a month for health insurance isn’t exactly in my budget. “Apparently, being a woman of breeding age makes the powers that be at the insurance company think that you’re going to shoot expensive to birth babies out of your vagina like a t-shirt gun during halftime at a basketball game.”

He doesn’t laugh at my joke, but he does cringe at the mention of babies, which is no surprise. He’s not a fan of them, never has been. He stands and grabs his jacket off the back of the chair, draping it over his arm. He heads to the door then pauses. “That’s what I don’t get, Lenny. If you are so…crazy, then how can you still make jokes and be funny?”

I cringe at his use of the word crazy. “I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity,” I mutter to myself. It’s one of my favorite EAP quotes.

“What was that?” Jared asks.

“I was just saying that I’m not crazy. And apparently, I’m not funny either, because you didn’t even laugh. Besides, I’m not dead. I’m just not functioning at a hundred percent right now. Go to work. I’ll be fine by the time you get home. Better than fine. I promise.”

He glances to the comforters, which are now halfway up my cheeks as if to argue his point.

“I know what you’re thinking, but what I have going on here isn’t crazy,” I explain. “This is called coping. I read something about gravity blankets, but they cost a ton, so this is plan B. Plus, anxiety doesn’t strip me of all my funny, it just makes me feel all the things, and this cocoon is supposed to keep all the things at bay. It’s a barrier. A warm comfy wall of fluff.”

Jared sighs and shifts his jacket from one arm to the other. “Only you can crack jokes while having a meltdown.”

“I can be more and do more than one thing at a time.” I lower my voice and mutter, “Don’t put Baby in a corner.”

Jared rolls his eyes. “You just need help.”

And you need a sense of humor.

I roll over to face him once more. “Fine, if you think I need to go back to therapy, then put me on your company policy, and I promise I’ll go see another headshrinker.”

“We’ve talked about it. You know I can’t do that.” Jared looks down to his crocodile or alligator or pterodactyl skin shoes.

I push part of the blanket down that’s covering my lips. “You own the company, Jared. You can do whatever you want. In fact, you’re the one who tells me that all the time.”

“It doesn’t work that way, Lenny.” He says as if his hands are tied on the matter.

Actually, it does work that way, Jared.

Jared seems to forget that before my family’s real estate company came crashing to the ground, and I became painfully unemployed, that I was the CEO and in charge of over a hundred employees. I’m familiar with how health insurance works. I’m the one who decided on our company’s policy but only after interviewing and grilling dozens of agents in various companies. But my relationship with Jared has always been a separation of church and state. No business with personal lives. And I get it.

Sometimes.

“When I can afford it, or when I get a new job, I’ll get new insurance,” I offer, “I promise.”

Or he can offer to pay for your insurance, or therapy, since he owns an investment firm, and makes millions of dollars a year. Meanwhile, you’re broke, slightly intoxicated, and wrapped up in three hundred fucking blankets, trying to cope with crippling anxiety while cracking jokes to lighten the mood all to make HIM feel better about your problems.

Not that I’d accept his help. I’m too independent for that. Half of the reason I can’t afford insurance is that Jared insisted on this mansion we live in, and I insist on paying half of all the bills.

But an offer would be nice.

“Good,” he says with a curt nod. “I gotta go. I’ve got a meeting.” There is no emotion in his voice — no kiss good-bye. “I’ll be back around six, and then I’ll spend the rest of the week up in Orlando. I’m meeting with the German investors Sheff has on the line.”

“Okay, good luck,” I say, trying to sound cheery. Jared is away more than he is home these days. With the market the way it is, he needs every investor he can get to make his projects come to fruition, and he’s been working around the clock to make that happen. “I’ll be right here when you get back.”

“I hope you don’t mean that,” he calls over his shoulder. It’s not Jared’s fault he doesn’t get it. It’s like trying to explain the wind to someone who can’t feel it on their skin or in their hair. I gave up on trying to make him understand it a long time ago.

“Not here here! You know what I meant!” I shout after him.

A few seconds later, I hear the roar of his super expensive new sports car that I’ve haven’t bothered to learn the name of the make or model yet. I call it the ninja turtle car because of it reminds me of Michael Angelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Bright orange, shaped like a weird, pointed turtle shell, and completely lacking any sign of a penis.