I snorted. “More frustrating? I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“You know me, don’t you? It’s entirely possible.”
I nodded. “Oh yes, you’ve cornered the market on frustrating.”
“Besides, you’ve unlocked it but you haven’t solved it. And you don’t even know what the quest is supposed to accomplish.”
“Yes, I do… Save the poor, helpless elf princess Ally—uh—Alloreah’ala—or however the hell you pronounce it. How do you pronounce it, anyway?”
He shrugged. “I have no idea. I jumbled a bunch of vowels and apostrophes together to make it look Elvish. Do you know how to pronounce half the Elvish names in Tolkien’s books?”
I smiled. “Nope. But I do know this quest is a standard save-the-princess type of quest.”
His sensual mouth turned up at the corner. “You don’t know that for sure.”
“What else could it be besides that? She’s been captured and dragged away, imprisoned under the mountains by big, nasty trolls. Of course the quest is to go and save her.”
He leaned back against the wall, watching me. “Okay. If you want to think that.”
I narrowed my eyes at him and his smile grew. “You suck,” I said.
That gorgeous dimple I loved so much appeared just below and to the left of his mouth. “Sometimes, yeah. And I like it.”
I smacked him on his hard bicep with the back of my hand and went back to my blog post—a commentary on another game that I’d been beta testing. That article had been started and left unfinished due to recent chaotic events. I was almost done when Adam, who appeared to have finished whatever he’d been working on, turned to me.
“There’s something I want to talk about…” he began. I held up a finger to finish typing my thoughts before hitting the save button and closing my computer.
I turned to him. “You want me to move back to your house,” I said matter-of-factly.
His dark eyebrows rose. “Umm, yeah. That’s a neat trick. Do you read minds now?”
I smiled. I wished. I’d have loved to know what went through his mind most of the time. He hid his feelings and thoughts so well.
“Nope. But I know you well enough to predict that you’d be angling for this soon enough.”
“I’m not ‘angling’ for it. I wanted to know if… Well, I’d like to take care of you.”
I hesitated. Things had not gone well between us the last time we’d lived together and I didn’t want to upset the shaky ground we seemed to be standing on now. “I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
His jaw tensed. “Bullshit.”
“Maybe I’m tough enough to get myself through it okay.”
His mouth thinned and irritation flashed in his dark eyes before he looked away. “Maybe you are. But maybe there are people here who want to help you anyway.”
I sighed. “Let me think about it. The last time we lived together…”
“This won’t be like last time. I’ll do everything I can to make sure of that.”
He was tense for while and I rested my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know you want to take care of me. But I’d like to think I have my independence for a little while longer.”
Despite what I’d just said to him, I knew that soon I’d be very sick and at the mercy of anyone willing to help me.
***
On the night before my procedure to insert a port for the chemo—and to have a portion of my ovarian tissue taken out to be frozen for possible later use (since this procedure was still experimental), Adam had to work. I assumed he was clearing the deck and setting things in motion so he could take more time off later to spend with me.
I sat on the couch and read the latest Game of Thrones novel while Heath banged about the condo. He appeared to be organizing—moving things around. After he removed his fourth box of crap to take out to the garage, I looked up. “Hey, what’s going on?”
He shrugged and didn’t look at me. “Just making some room in here. It’s getting pretty cluttered up and my storage unit is almost full.”
I raised my eyebrows. Heath was not the tidiest of people and he usually spent his free time playing games instead of cleaning. He paid someone to come in and clean his place every week.
I cleared my throat. “You okay?”
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”
“Just wondering. I haven’t seen Connor in the last few days. Everything okay?”