The Billionaire's Nanny

Friends lift each other

Lucas thanked the doctor and offered to see him to the door. My eyes drifted to his hand over mine, wishing to tell him not to leave, but I frowned at the horrible state of his fingers. His knuckles particularly. Red and rough, and strewed with tiny marks I had never seen before. It had been two weeks since Lucas beat the living daylight out of Baron and while I knew he was working tirelessly to find Sarah and bring Baron to justice too I imagined he did that by working with the cops. A wave of nausea hit me as the thought that he was fighting his way through this violently crossed my mind.

No. Lucas would never do that. Sarah and Baron were both the most horrible pair I had ever met, but I knew Lucas would do the right thing. He would not take these things into his own hands.

I could not get a chance to ask about it before the hand disappeared to my hair, pushing back a few strands so he could press a soft kiss on my forehead.

It took every ounce of restraint to keep myself from asking him to stay back even if that was what I needed most at the moment.

Thankfully, I did not get to dwell on the thought too long as Celine strolled in right after Lucas left to see the doctor out.

She stood at the doorway, legs crossed and arms folded across her chest, and eyes regarding me with the same look I had seen every day for the last two weeks.

"No!" I raised a hand, "you will not give me that look today."

She raised one shoulder, shaking her head, "what look?"

"That look that makes me feel like I'm dying. I am not dying and I am absolutely fine."

With a sigh, she strolled in, settling next to me on the bed, "do you even believe that lie?"

I opened my mouth to tell her I was fine and there was no use worrying about me but was met with a stern look, "when it was my turn you would not leave my side at all. You actually delayed your vacation by 2 weeks to help me settle in." her face softened as she dropped one hand over mine, "why won't you let me do the same for you bess?"

"Because I'm..."

"If you say one more time that you are fine, I'll assume you really don't care about our friendship, Chris." she cut me off harshly.

My brows scrunched up in an incredulous look. "you know that's not true."

"I also know my best friend might shut everyone out but not me. Not after all we have endured together. We used to be each other's shoulder to cry on. What's going on this time?"

What happened this time is that I got tired of crying. Especially because this time it was every bit my fault. But I couldn't tell her that. Biting the insides on my cheek, I looked away as I tried to fight the tears that were already brimming around my eyes. "I am fine Bess." I latched on to that notion because anything else would open a floodgate of emotions I was sure as hell not ready for yet.

I was half sure Celine would be pissed and walk out but to my surprise, she pulled me into a hug instead. A long, warm hug that I had not realized I really needed. "I know you, Chris, you should know better than to lie to me."

It took a moment to realize the shaky sobs filling the room were from me and an even longer moment to finally wrap my hands around my best friend too.

There were no words as we stayed like that, holding on to each other over the next few minutes. I had not realized how much I needed to open up, to talk to someone about this crushing pain building in my chest and threatening to explode any minute. And when she finally released me what felt like an eternity later, the floodgates broke open and the tears came down like an unpredicted storm.