Wounded (In My Dreams) (8 page)

“How bad on a scale of one to ten?”

“Twelve,” I whispered, tears filling my eyes. “At least a twelve.”

“Then you lost your best friend.”

“Yeah, during all of that. He was sick and I missed it, and I wonder if it was because I was so distracted.”

“Do you really think that?”

I shrugged and took a drag of my smoke. “I don’t know. Hindsight isn’t always twenty/twenty and I know I did the best I could when it came to pup. After that I just went numb. I’d already been upset and gaining back the weight I’d lost, I didn’t care about much of anything for months though I was able to write again, and I think I just gave up, going through the motions because I have to.”

“You’re a survivor,” he praised.

I snorted as I put out my cigarette and stood, lifting the grill cover and flipping the burgers. “No, just that stubborn.”

“Same difference,” he chuckled as he stood too. I didn’t flinch when he hugged me from behind, sighing even that he obviously forgave me. “You just need time to heal.”

“Maybe, or maybe I’m just wounded to the point of being broken,” I replied, finally voicing my greatest concern in the world.

“If you were broken, you wouldn’t still have such a kind heart and take the chance to help someone like me. I don’t believe you’re broken at all, Lily.” I shrugged, too tired to hope for such things. “Anyone I can beat up for you? Who was mean to you?”

“Oh god, there would be such a list,” I snickered, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. “It would take you years to track them all down.”

“I’ve got time.” He kissed my cheek as he pulled away. “Is work still bad now?”

“No, but I took a big hit. It’s getting better. One day it will be great again. I’ll fight for that. I just don’t know I have the fight in me for anything else.”

“You went for a walk this morning,” he argued and I raised my eyebrow at him. “You heard me say it might help and let me drag you out there. There’s fight in you, Lily. You just need someone to care enough to give you a push.”

“Maybe. It sounds good in theory. I’d like that to be true.”

“It is,” he promised, smiling at me. “I’ll show you.”

We would see.

* * * *

The first week, I lost ten pounds. No pills, no radical diet, nothing besides a couple of short walks, actually sitting down for meals, and a
lot
less stress. I cooked and did laundry—and of course worked. Jasper did
everything
else.

In that time, he hand washed my car, detailed it, and
waxed
it. It was a 2008 and it had never been hand waxed, only that spray seal shit from the drive-through car washes. He also had the oil changed, tires rotated,
and
talked to the dealership about ordering parts for the recalls on my car. Funny, when I had
showed up
there, they had ignored me, totally blowing me off that I had my information wrong even though I had the GM mailers telling me what I could get replaced for free.

But they listened to Jasper. I blamed it on his lack of tits and blonde hair. Honestly, I was just grateful it was getting done.

He burned all the rotted wood on the property, dragging in branches and piles of sticks after he sprayed them for bugs. It was actually really endearing the way he’d wait to light all the day’s collections until we were sitting outside to eat dinner so I could enjoy my fire pit. He fixed the toilet, cleaned the deck, washed the grill and wood rack stand covers, re-soiled the strip of dirt for the garden—which we planted together—and even found a spot and dug the holes so I could plant the calla lily bulbs I’d gotten.

He even vacuumed and
scrubbed
out the fireplaces.

I was in heaven. He cared about my work too. He saw me writing on a massive calendar one day and plopped down next to me.

“What’s this? You don’t leave the house enough for these to be your social engagements,” he teased.

“It’s my release, blog, and promo schedule,” I muttered, not looking up so I didn’t lose my place. Once I planned out what I had needed to, I walked him through it.

“And you put this all on your Google calendar for your fans to see?”

“Yes. I put it on the internal calendar, run it by my editor and promo person to make sure they can make it work, then we flip it to the live calendar. I sit down every time I finish a new book and start marking it up.”

“You finished a book? Why didn’t you tell me?” he exclaimed, leaning over and hugging me. “That’s awesome, Lily! We should go for ice cream tonight.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I chuckled, his joy rubbing off on me.

“Okay, you write on the calendar, because I know you like to see it live, all organized and detailed like you are, and I’ll handle Google and emailing your peeps.”

My jaw dropped open. “You want to take over my schedule?”

“No, you’re still the boss. I’ll just do the follow up and informing people.”

“Awesome. I
suck
at that part. I always get distracted.”

“The talented authors always do,” he teased.

“Know many of those?”

“Only one.”

“Who? Do I know them?” I asked, batting my eyelashes at him.

“Brat.”

After a month, I’d lost twenty pounds. We went on one walk in the morning that was much longer now, and before dinner, we’d work out on the Bowflex in my garage. It was great. We’d joke around, add to his list and mine on the white boards, plotting how to take over the world and organizing our lives.

Plus, he did it shirtless. Apparently that was the trick to getting me to work out. Hot shirtless guy and I was there. Yes, I was a total cad. I embraced it.

By then he’d fixed the shed and had it half full of wood for the winter. He repaired the broken blinds I hadn’t even noticed
were
broken. He figured out a way to stop the mud pile that formed on my front steps every time it rained. Jasper took over mowing the lawn and joined my Facebook group of advisors and ultimate fans. He’d get online and chat with them, asking them all kinds of questions and making sure they reviewed every book of mine to try and help my sales.

They loved him and he had a blast. It was kind of like I wasn’t needed much since he had the inside track to everything me.

“You’re starting to be a better author than I am,” I teased, bumping his hip as we cleaned up dinner one night. “If only you could write.”

“Actually I was thinking I could start doing some research on SEO and maybe help out your sites rankings, write a few articles for your blog even.”

“Go for it,” I agreed, hating that kind of crap. SEO made my head spin—though anything I didn’t like to do that wasn’t as formulated as math normally did.

“You’re losing weight,” he mentioned nonchalantly as if he were commenting on the weather.

“Yeah. I’m down twenty pounds.”

“Do you feel better?”

I thought about that as I handed him another dirty dish. “I go longer before I want a nap. I still fall asleep at my desk sometimes and it’s not like I’ve cut my caffeine intake. But I feel lighter, not just physically. Life’s easier with you here and I have more fun.”

“Good. We’ll keep going then.” He shot me a bright smile and I rolled my eyes.

“Cool. Soon I’ll only be morbidly obese instead of forklift required heavy!”

“Why do you do that, Lily?” he snapped, spraying water at me as he turned towards me. “Don’t be that person. Don’t be that whiny girl who’s always fishing for compliments!”

“That’s why you think I pick on myself?” I whispered, grabbing a towel and wiping off the water. My heart sank when he nodded. “I thought you knew me better than that, Jasper. Guess I was wrong.”

“Then explain it to me! Why are you so mean to yourself?”

I threw down the towel and narrowed my eyes at him. “Because saying it myself before others do numbs me to the hurt the words cause. If I pick on myself, it takes the fuel out of what others can use against me. I learned early that there will
always
be bullies in this world. The quicker you express your own faults the less likely anyone else will because the joke has been made.”

“It’s so sad you see the world that way,” he muttered, rinsing off his hands.

“See, it wouldn’t hurt to hear you say that if I’d said it first,” I bitched, hating that he’d just proven my point and that my eyes burned from it. “Fuck you, Jasper. You’re
gorgeous
. You eat enough for three people and gain nothing but muscle. You have
no
idea what it’s like to always struggle to not being the ugliest person in the room. You have
no idea
.”

I grabbed my smokes and stormed out into the garage.

The second month was over and I was down thirty pounds. We went on shorter walks in the morning and added one of the 10 Minute Trainer workout DVDs we’d ordered. I swear most of our workout was laughing at each other and mocking the people in the videos, but we really did do it and it was
fun
.

Probably because we weren’t doing it alone. We were together.

Jasper had taken to waking me up on my release days and promising to make me an omelet. The man knew my weaknesses, that was for sure. I loved a good bacon and cheese omelet. It was funny because it was the one thing he
could
cook without burning and it was the one thing I
couldn’t
make.

And I was running out of jobs for him. He’d refinished a bunch of the doors and wood around the house that desperately needed some TLC. The stairs for the back porch were replaced, and done the
right
way. We had a storage shed and wood rack full and ready to go. He replaced the upstairs sliding door that had the gaps and let in all the bugs. He even cleaned every light fixture in the house and made sure all the blubs worked
along
with mowing, grocery shopping, taking out the trash, and all the normal chores.

He also started going to his counseling sessions twice a week on his own. Jasper liked the guy and he hadn’t had a night terror in a week finally. I was glad he was making progress and dealing with what he needed to.

After month three, I was down forty-five pounds and I’d found out that male PMS wasn’t just a myth. There were four or five days a month he was a growly grouch. Yes, I really called him that too. He was distant, short-fused, and just a
bitch
. Whatever, everyone needed their crabby time now and again. I just learned to avoid him and tread lightly.

It turned out Jasper had studied computer engineering in college before he became an officer in the Marines. He took over my websites and they never ran smoother, always updated and backed up.

But he wouldn’t let me pay him.

“Lily, you buy the food, my clothes, pay for my phone, gas so I can go to counseling—let me help you!”

“You
more
than cover that with everything you do around here,” I argued, rubbing the back of my neck. I hated fighting with him or even
touching
this subject but it was getting ridiculous how much he did for me and wouldn’t take anything for it. I kept having a knot in my stomach that I was taking advantage of him. It was the only true stress I had left since he’d
also
taken over doing my damn taxes, even sitting down with a new accountant and filing last year’s since I’d gotten an extension for them.

“No, Lily. I’m not taking money from you!”

“One day you’re going to resent me because you do
everything
around here and for me and you don’t have any money of your own. It’s not fair to you and I don’t take advantage of people like that.”

I walked away then, not willing to keep debating with him. My book sales were up because I was writing more of them and actually had time to help promote them with everything Jasper took off my plate. I was even paying back my parents again for the money they’d loaned me years ago. If he took over the job I paid someone two hundred dollars a month for, he should get that money.

It was that simple to me. I decided to set that amount to the side, hide it in my safe so if he ever did need something he wasn’t too broke to get it. I felt like an adult going behind a kid’s back, but I shouldn’t have. Jasper was too generous for his own good. I just didn’t want that to be what came between us one day.

But even when we fought, we didn’t stay mad long or beat stuff to death. He plopped onto the couch next to me that night and waited until I paused the show I was watching.

“I talked to your landlord about the master bathroom. He’ll pay for the supplies if I tear everything out and redo it.”

“You can handle that much plumbing or whatever?” I asked, not looking at him yet, trying to get over being peeved with him.

“Yeah, the plumbing’s all in place already. It would be tiling, new shower doors, that kind of thing. I know how to do that and caulk. I helped my family a few times with stuff like that. I got this.”