Ruin(41)

An exasperated sigh exploded from Kiersten’s lips.
“The toilet,” I finished. “That’s all I ask.”
“Fine.” She laughed and moved fully away from me, probably the most alone and lost I’d felt in years. Irritating to think that one person had that much power over my attitude.
“Why don’t you go get ready in the other bathroom, and we’ll meet downstairs in a bit for some awesome breakfast?”
“Okay.” Kiersten slowly shuffled across the large rug that covered the hardwood floors in my room. “Wes?” She turned.
I stopped, my hand on the doorknob to my connecting bathroom. “Yeah?”
“Thank you.” A bright blush stained her cheeks. “For last night. For chasing the monsters away…”
“Anytime. It’s kind of my job to protect you.”
“A job sounds like you’re forced.”
“Nah,” I argued. “Saying it’s my job just means it’s my identity in a way. You know how people go, ‘Hey, I’m Rick. I’m a janitor.’” I smiled. “Now I can say, hey I’m Weston, and I kill monsters on behalf of my very sexy girlfriend so she can sleep at night.”
“Lame.” Her laugh hit me in all the right and wrong places, making the idea of using the restroom a moot point. I wanted to stay pinned, preferably beneath her.
“Nah, heroic.” I argued. “Now, go get ready so we can eat cinnamon rolls.”
Apparently that’s all I needed to say. Her eyes widened, and then she was running down the hall. Good to know she was a fan of breakfast. That could have been a deal breaker right there. I hated it when chicks refused to eat the most important meal of the day. As if they didn’t realize how much it helped. I knew, mainly because my pills ripped my insides to shreds if I didn’t eat.
I closed and locked the door behind me and opened the cupboard under the sink. Fifteen bottles all with my name on them. Hell, I almost wished I was a druggy. You know, one of those guys who stole oxy and morphine to get high.
Right. I never even touched my pain pills. They numbed my senses so much that it wasn’t worth it, and it wasn’t like I was in any pain. My doc said it would help me with the anxiety.
Clearly he’d never heard of exercise. All oxy did was turn me into one of those zombies from Walking Dead, only I was pretty sure I looked more haggard and scary.
I popped the lid off of my first pill bottle, dropped the pill into my hand, and shook my head. It was a powerful little bitch. I actually nicknamed it bitch because it was so small that you’d think it wouldn’t do much damage. Wrong. The first time I took it, I was sick for a week straight. I became so dehydrated from puking I had to go to the hospital. Now I know how to take it. I had to take it with my anti-nausea pill, which worked only sixty percent of the time, and then pop my giant ass white pill — the special chemo pill that’s made specifically for me.
I had five more pills to take, but I needed to eat first. I quickly jumped in the shower, brushed my teeth, and was dressed, all within fifteen minutes.
I checked my watch. Kiersten was probably just getting ready. I didn’t want her to see me taking any pills — I didn’t feel right lying to her face when she asked me why I was taking an entire medicine cabinet full of rainbow-colored chemicals, so I stuffed them in my pocket and told myself not to forget to take them after breakfast.
If I did… well, I’d be absolutely no fun for the remainder of break, not to mention it just gave that cranky tumor one more day without a defense, meaning it would grow… and the idea that its tentacles were slowly choking parts of my heart was a mental picture I could really do without.



Chapter Thirty-Two

I would never get the mental picture out of my head — Wes was hot, his body was ridiculous, and I’d slept plastered against him all night. Oh gosh, I probably even drooled. Well here’s to hoping he still wanted to be my boyfriend after I clung to him like a twelve–year-old Justin Bieber fan. Yay.

Kiersten
I got lost twice on my way down to the kitchen. The first time I went left instead of right, the second time I was distracted by the middle of the stairway where a few family pictures hung. Wes and his brother stood side by side. They almost looked like twins. My heart clenched a bit when I thought of how awful it would be to lose your brother to something like suicide. You’d probably live to regret every single conversation, every single moment you could have said something different, possibly changed the outcome. I shuddered and went down the wrong side of the staircase leading into the master bedroom.
Crap. Finally, I made my way back up the stairway and down again to the other side, where I could smell the cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. Yeah, I could learn to live with Wes’s life. Waking up to fresh rolls in the morning after I sleep in a mansion. Right, life should be so hard; the guy had no idea how lucky he was.
Laughter floated from the kitchen.
Feeling like I was interrupting, I cleared my throat while I walked in. Wes was standing in the corner with Melda, both of whomm were frosting rolls and joking with each other.
The kitchen was full of food. Everywhere I looked the granite counters were covered with different boxes of things, plates, silverware, chips, dips. Crap, were we throwing a Thanksgiving party?
“Kiersten!” Wes crooked his finger. “Come here.”
Smiling, I made my way over and stopped right in front of him. He lifted his frosting covered finger to my lips and whispered, “Open.”
Well, I wasn’t really in a position to say no. My stomach clenched, it was so hungry. I opened my mouth as his finger swiped frosting across my lips and then my tongue wrapped around the frosting, sucking on his finger until it was gone.