"Excellent. I'm glad to hear it. Now, up you go. That's it."
He offered me a hand and helped me up, catching me in his arms once I was standing. He kissed the top of my head, my eyelids, the tip of my nose. He kissed me so lightly it felt like I might have dreamed it and there was a good chance I would have forgotten the bath completely if we hadn't both heard Sophie snickering behind us.
"You guys like each other now."
"Yes," he said as he glanced at me to make sure it was okay, "I suppose we do. Is that okay with you?"
"Yes! I like her too!"
"Good, Sophie, I'm really glad. Now go see to that bath, Kayla. Dinner will be waiting for you."
I nodded and headed slowly for the stairs. Pulling myself up each one felt like a chore. I felt like I had aged one hundred years in just a day. I was split down the middle, completely torn about what to do. I felt like I knew David, like I knew his heart, but Dr. Johnson made a compelling argument against him that made everything confused and blurry for me. I needed to know. I needed to know that it wasn't just my desire for David that had me convinced that he was a good guy who couldn't have done the things Dr. Johnson insisted he had.
I cautiously opened the door to David's master bedroom, feeling very much like I was breaking in. It was ludicrous. He had given me permission to be in here, but it was so much nicer than the bathrooms I was used to. Nevermind that, this place was better than my last apartment! He was right, a bath in that massive jetted tub was going to feel pretty good.
But there was something else, something I couldn't get out of my head once the idea wormed its way in. This was his bathroom, where nobody but him ever went. He didn't need to hide things in here because he didn't think there would be anyone to find them. This felt like my best chance to find the evidence I needed. If there was actually anything to find.
I crept towards his vast medicine cabinet, hardly breathing as I moved. I didn't know what I would find in there but I knew now that I was hoping not to find anything that took David away from me. I didn't want to let him go.
I opened the door and there it was, a bottle of Oxycontin screaming out at me with David's name plastered across the front. I picked it up and sank to the floor, feeling like someone had just knocked the wind out of me. It was exactly the kind of thing Dr. Johnson had said I would find. I pulled my phone out of my pocket with shaking hands and started to type a text. It was time to let him know that he was right, David was taking pills. I would tell him and then everything would be over.
"No," I said to myself with a conviction I hadn't even known I felt. I didn't want it to be over. I couldn't imagine this being the last night I was here with Sophie and David, the three of us happily existing in this little bubble of safety we had created just for us. I knew now that David had been injured and that it had been bad. Maybe that's what these pills were from. Maybe it wasn't, but there was that possibility and that was enough for me. It was enough to make me erase the text one letter at a time and slip the phone back into my pocket.
I couldn't do it. I liked him too much, wanted him too much. I had to make a real decision right then and there and I decided to believe in David, even if not all of the evidence was good. I couldn't straddle the fence anymore and so I chose his side and all of the possibilities that might include.
I slipped out of my clothes and into the large jetted tub David had loaned to me. The feeling of the hot water running over my skin melted the stress out of my body. It felt like it was cleansing me of my confusion and my sins against David. I wasn't going to think about it now. All I would think about now was the food that would be waiting for me when I got back downstairs and the feeling of David's lips brushing against my own.
Chapter Twelve
Kayla
"Thank you so much for the dinner. That was amazing. I'm truly impressed, Dr. Wyatt. I didn't think you could make something like this. In fact, I seem to clearly remember you assuring me that you would be getting takeout."
"Ah, so you doubted me?"
"Well," I laughed breathlessly, "I wouldn't say I doubted you per se, but after watching you make breakfast I thought something like this might be just a little bit out of your reach."
He grinned his beautiful grin at me and I felt my stomach do a little flip flop. Even though I had been here for weeks now, the experience of having David look at me was still an exhilarating one. When he wanted to he could be a formidable, intimidating man, but there was so much more to him than that. He could also be warm and exciting and incredibly sexy. There seemed to be no end to the different layers he had.
Take this meal, for example. I had watched him try and make something as simple as eggs and fail miserably, and now it turned out he was capable of making a these amazing steaks and decadent sides. He certainly seemed to have a whole lot of tricks up his sleeves and I was enjoying being a part of them.
Or I was mostly enjoying it. There was still that nagging little voice in the back of my head telling me not to trust this man, reminding me of that little bottle of pills, but I wasn't going to listen to that. I had made my decision up in the bathroom only a few hours before. I had made the choice to trust in David, to be a part of his and Sophie's lives, and I wasn't going to go back on it now. I couldn't. I was too invested. The absence of my sister in my life still left an invisible gaping wound inside of me, but I just couldn't believe that David was at fault. Not anymore. Not after having gotten to really get to know him.
"Confession time?"
His voice roused me out of my own thoughts, his choice of words rattling me a little bit. Confession. Did he have a confession? Was there something he was hiding? God, I hoped not. I was afraid that losing these two would be the thing to really break me.
"Okay, sure. What do you need to confess?"
He leaned towards me in a conspiratorial manner, his eyes twinkling with mischief. I could smell the earthy scent of his cologne and it made me feel almost dizzy. We had already put Sophie to bed and now it was just me and him. Nobody to walk in and interrupt us. Nobody to use as a buffer. Just the two of us in this vast room with a bottle of wine that had to be the best I had ever had. It felt dangerous and completely delicious at the same time.
"I looked it up."
"You what?" I couldn't help laughing, although I had the decency to try and cover it up with one hand. It was just the last thing I had expected him to say.
"Don't laugh, the internet is our friend! That's right, I looked it up. We had a bunch of food in here so I looked up what I could make. Then I looked up how to make it."
"But why? I would have been totally fine with delivery. Just a pizza or something would have been great."
"I don't know. I wanted you to have something better."
"You did?"
"Yes. But it's more than that. I wanted to impress you, Kayla. I wanted you to be impressed."
He had such an earnest look on his face, shy and slightly embarrassed, and I reached out and put one hand lightly on his shoulder. It floored me to think that a man like David would be thinking about how he could impress me. He was a doctor, for god's sake. Wasn't that impressive enough?
It was so sweet, though, the image of him on the internet trying to figure out how to cook me a fancy meal. He was a super fast learner, too, because the food was truly delicious. I probably would have told him it was good no matter what, but this really was. This guy must really be able to do just about anything he wanted to. It must be nice. I couldn't help but be a little bit in awe of him, not for the first time.
"That sounds sort of pathetic, doesn't it? Kind of makes me sound like a sixteen-year-old boy."
"No! No, don't say that. It's sweet. It might be the sweetest thing a man has ever said to me. I like it. I like how thoughtful you are."
"Do you?"
He was looking at me with deeply intense eyes and I could feel my face growing hot. All of the sudden it was kind of hard to breath and I couldn't figure out the best place to look. I felt very, very exposed, like I was vulnerable to him in a whole new way.
"Yes," I said, hardly able to speak above a whisper, "I really do."