Love Beyond Words (City Lights, #1)(64)

“It’s all Natalie’s doing. She was my muse, if you could call it that. Just being in her presence made it so easy to connect to the part of me that produces all this.” He waved his hand at the stack of books.

Julian took out the box and opened it, holding it up even though David was too far away to see much more than the glitter of diamonds.

David stopped whatever he was doing. His face was colorless, his mouth hung open like a door torn half off its hinges.

“I know it’s another adjustment,” Julian said, “but I’m showing this to you first. I want you to understand that your inclusion in the new life that is about to begin is not a fluke or lip service.”

David seemed to recover himself. He traversed the space between the kitchen and living room, carrying the two coffees. He handed one to Julian and peered into the box.

“It’s a beaut.”

“Do you think she will like it?”

“I don’t think she’ll be able to help herself. Look at that rock!” David chuckled and took a sip of his coffee. “Mmm, that’s good stuff.”

“It’s not too much?” Julian inspected the ring again. “She has such delicate hands…”

“She’ll love it.” And then Julian found himself engulfed in David’s embrace. “Congratulations.”

Julian was careful not to show his discomfort. He had never minded David’s physically exuberant manner before, not even after David had confessed he was attracted to him a year earlier. But now David’s embraces hummed with a strange tension, and Julian had the notion that his friend would just as soon strike him as he would hug him. He recalled the night of David’s confession, and a pang of guilt dimmed his joy. Is it still hard on him? To see me with someone else? He started to ask David if perhaps it was too much; if it would be better if David worked elsewhere, as he had asked that night a year ago. But David retreated to his office with a broad, parting smile.

Julian retired the ring to his pocket. He had only the faintest idea about how he would propose to Natalie and it wasn’t in San Francisco. There was a lot planning left to do but that would come later. His book waited.

He sat at his desk in the library and started up his laptop to begin the work of transcribing the hand-written work into the electronic, editing it as he went. He had toyed with the notion of doing this at the café but he needed to focus. It was well and good to have the buzz of the city around him—and Natalie’s intoxicating presence—as he put his story down for the first time, but now he needed silence and to look at it with a critical eye. He drank the coffee David had bought—a vanilla-flavored latte—and set to work.

The digital clock on his desk showed eleven-thirty when Julian’s stomach churned uncomfortably and drew him out of his story. He took several deep breaths but the nausea came fast and quick. He hadn’t even time to run for the bathroom, but scrambled for the wastebasket under his desk. He got it just in time. A second, violent surge immediately followed the first, and dizziness assailed him. Blood rushed to his face with pressure as his stomach clenched to empty itself. He gasped for air and then swallowed—a mistake as his stomach wouldn’t tolerate even his own saliva.

Julian fell to the floor and rolled his weak, jelly-like limbs into a ball to wait until the nausea passed. For ten minutes he lay still, willing his body to right itself and settle from the vicious episode. When he thought it was safe to move, he stumbled to the sofa and hauled himself on it. Unthinking, he swallowed again—the acrid flavor of soured vanilla. With shocking immediacy, he vomited again but there was nothing left in him, only air and bile and saliva that dribbled off his lip. His heart galloped in his chest and his hands shook as if electric current ran through them.

“David,” he called when he could. “Help me.”

#

David laid a cold compress on Julian’s forehead and dabbed his mouth with a washcloth. “The flu is still going around,” he said. “That must be it. You have all the symptoms.”

Julian nodded weakly. He lay on his bed, one arm flung over his face. Earlier, David had watched the effects of the ipecac syrup take hold from the cover of the hallway. Of course, Julian had called for him, and David rushed in; the valiant hero who could stand the sight and smell of vomit—anything for his beloved.

He helped Julian to his bedroom, helped him change into an undershirt and pajama pants, his eyes lingering over Julian’s body when he wasn’t looking. He set him up with ginger ale and soda crackers, and another dose of ipecac just when Julian started to improve. Good friend that he was, David held the wastebasket and wiped Julian’s mouth with great care when it was over.

Julian slept and in the early afternoon, felt strong enough to try to eat again. The diuretic David laced his soup with had him stumbling to the bathroom, and then more vomiting with another dose of ipecac-laced ginger ale. By early evening, Julian’s skin was a ghastly ashen color with bright flushes of red on his cheeks and neck. He couldn’t get out of bed by himself and so David held off on the diuretics. No sense in getting too messy.

Around seven o’clock, his cell phone on the nightstand rang. “It’s probably Natalie,” Julian croaked. “Tell her…”

“I’ll handle it.” David answered the phone with a curt, “Yes?”

“Uh…David?”