Like Real People Do - part fifteen

“Just delivered, bed three.” The tech yells down the hall, and Simon takes the turn so sharp he nearly crashes into you, while trying to move in the same direction. Your hands are full, blankets, tiny oxygen mask, vial of Pitocin.

“Shit. Sorry.” You blurt, catching your balance as you glance up.

He freezes. The things he’s thought about asking you are all mixing together and he can’t sort one from another.

Hi Daisy, how are you? Are you okay? I’ve been thinking about you. How is Riley doing? I’ve been worried about you. You look so tired, are you getting enough sleep? Do you need anything? Can I help?

It’s been years since that day in the NICU, maybe a year since you lost Tess, he’s not sure. He’s stopped counting, tried to stop fixating. Obsessing.

Days, weeks, months, they all feel like miles… but he still remembers every fleck of color in your irises.

So when you look up at him with a blank expression, something void of color, of life, of, his stomach twists. He wants to drop everything, drag you into his arms, shelter you, comfort you, care for you.

“Hey,” he tries. As gentle and careful as he can, the two of you still charging towards the code. You give him a bewildered look. Something confused, uncertain, blinking twice with your eyebrows creasing together.

It’s almost like you don’t recognize him and the idea is a cold plunge, a knife straight to his heart. He doesn’t blame you. Riley’s NICU stay was traumatic, stressful, emotionally and physically draining for everyone. He never managed to catch you on the unit either, maybe once or twice in passing but it was always wrong place, wrong time, wrong shift, working hours flip flopped. The brain has ways of changing those memories, shifting them, blocking them out. And he doesn’t think you even knew he was in the room with you the night Tess and Liam died. It stings, but there’s nothing he can do about it right now.

He motions to the vial in your hand. “For bed three?” You nod and rush right into the room, right past him without another word.

Fuck.

“The donors, Simon. I don’t need to remind you.” He grits his teeth.

“I know.” Makarov picks up the paperweight from the corner of his desk and rolls it in his palm before putting it down.

“HR tells me you’re married now. I assume your wife will be your plus one?” He almost laughs out loud. The idea of getting you to go to the gala is like the idea of trying to give a cat a bath.

“I will see if she has plans.” A knock on the door saves him, and when John steps through, his normally neutral expression turns cold and blank.

If anyone hates the CEO of the hospital more than Simon, it’s John.

“John.” Makarov sneers. It’s all that’s needed to send the slimy git packing, and he glares at John on his way out.

When the door clicks closed, he sighs.

“You ask her yet?” Simon rubs the back of his neck.

“No. Trying to figure out a way to prevent her from gettin’ out of it first.” John snorts.

“Good luck wit’ that.” Simon’s chair leans with his weight, tilting away from the desk.

“Could help me out you know.” John raises an eyebrow, crosses his arms and rocks on his heels. Waiting. “You could ask Ava.” He chuckles, but goes quiet, thoughtful. Simon watches him mull it over, toss it back and forth before finally deciding to catch it.

“Don’t think she’s quite ready for my expectations but I’ll do it, for you.” Expectations. Ava’s chaotic, messy life makes her almost as wild as Daisy, but with a lot less responsibility, the sense of which she has absolutely none.

She’ll have a hard time adjusting, but he’s sure John will get her right eventually.

“Appreciate it.”

“She wants to take the training wheels off her bike.” Your voice floats up the stairs and he stops in his tracks.

“That’s big.”

“I know.” You almost sound like you’re being strangled. Held back, stuffed into a straitjacket but desperately trying to break free. “But I… I wouldn’t let her. I told her she wasn’t ready even thought she is. And she… she was so upset but I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it, Liv.”

“Daisy…”

“It’s not fair.” He shouldn’t be doing this, lurking, listening. Soaking up the echo bouncing off the concrete, rising in the stairwell to where he stands a floor above you. “It shouldn’t be me. She should have parents. Parents do these things. They teach their kids to ride bikes.”

“I know.”

“I’m not her mom.” Your voice cracks. The pain is a serrated blade sawing through his stomach. Agony, fear, frustration. A wound still bleeding. “Her mom should be here, showing her how to do things, teaching her. How am I supposed to take her place like that?”

“Tess is gone Daisy, and Riley only has you, which means you’re going to have to do it. You’ll have to teach her how to ride a bike and ride a horse, do her hair, her homework… all of it.”

“I know that.” You snap at the calm voice, someone clearly trying to comfort you, and he’s grateful when they don’t respond in kind.

“It’s a lot, but the only way you’re going to survive is if you take it one step at a time. You can’t just stop her from growing up because you’re afraid, because you wish Tess was here.” There’s silence. If he focuses, he can hear you breathing, the sharp draw and release matching his own.

Something smacks against the concrete, once, twice, and Liv gasps.

“Daisy! Stop!” Every muscle in his body turns to ice, and he can’t stop himself from charging down the stairs to the landing of the second floor where you’re standing with your back to him, rigid and stiff as a board. Olivia’s eyes widen and she clears her throat, but you don’t turn around.

“Everything alright here?”

“Doctor Riley, uh. Hi. Yeah, we’re fine.” Your friend angles her body in front of you defensively, shields you. He can just barely see the wall, and his stomach pitches at the small splatter of blood and the way you’re cradling your hand to your chest.

You punched the wall.

You don’t turn to face him, acknowledge his presence, and he bites the inside of his cheek to keep himself in check, settling for a short nod before jogging away up the stairs.

Away from you.

His suit is too tight.

It’s tailored correctly, or so he’s told, but the fit of the whole thing, shirt, pants, jacket, makes him feel like he’s crawling out of skin. Just as events like this usually do.

But this one is different, because you’re seated at his side.

You’re not immune to him. Your pupils dilate when he gets close, your breath shortens with a quick inhale, and sometimes your swallow is loud enough it rings in his ears.

And he’s not above using it to his advantage.

“Come with me, Daisy. Just for the gala.” You lick your lips.

“I can’t. I shouldn’t. Riley-”

“Olivia will stay with her.” You frown at him, and he quickly smooths over the confusion. “Ava already asked. Let me take you out sweetheart. No stress, no worrying, and you can let go for a few hours.” He cups your cheek, and your breath sharpens. He can’t help himself, can’t stop himself from trying to touch you, feel you, study you down to each individual eyelash, and it works in his favor. You don’t pull away when his fingers graze yours, or strokes your cheek. You’re not so easily spooked by him now, and he revels in it.

“Maybe for a few hours.” Your whisper is hoarse, and he nods encouragingly, tamps down his urge to kiss you.

“I’ll pick you up at six.”

He’s half convinced he dreamed you walking down the stairs towards him earlier in that purple dress, a cross shade between plum and lilac, white lily and rose drifting from a dab of perfume on your neck, mixing with your usual warm leather and honeysuckle. Intoxicating, dreamlike.

Always beautiful. Always taking his breath away in every iteration, and tonight his blood is hot, too heavy in his veins, trying to flood his cock every second his control slips and his mind wanders away to familiar fantasies.

Plates have been clears, donors have been placated, speeches have been made. He’s hardly paid attention, too distracted by you in his peripheral, nodding and smiling, perfectly polite, dodging questions about the marriage left and right.

It’s too much to ask for you to embrace it in front of a crowd, and he knows when to pick his battles, so he chooses a different one instead.

“Take a walk with me.” He murmurs in your ear as he stands, fingers stroking across your bare shoulder blades. “C’mon.” Your lips twitch with a refusal. “Unless you’d rather stay here and chat with everyone.” That gets you, and you rise beside him, taking the hand he offers.

The hotel is on a creek. It babbles gently as the two of you walk slowly along the sidewalk, street lamps illuminating the shine in your eyes, the ethereal glow of your skin.

It would be too much if he pressed you against the fence and kneeled between your legs. He wants to push your dress up, taste you, kiss your clit and make you squirm, shiver, come on his face. He wants to lick you clean and do it all over again. Pull you down onto his cock, bounce you on his lap with your panties stuffed in your mouth so no one can hear you scream and his hands on your hips, a tear trickling down your cheek as he tells you what a good girl you are, how pretty you look with his fat dick inside you even though it’s too big and you’re too tight, your little pussy stretched around him, stuffed full. He’s been fucking his hand raw over dreams of you, dreams like this, but patience is a virtue, even though obsession knows no bounds.

“This was nice.” You snap him out of his spiral, the admission unexpected.

“Did you have fun?” These are small steps. Small, tentative, tip toe steps, but they’re all leading the same place. To him.

“Not really.” It comes as a laugh, and he joins in.

“I know, these things are bloody boring.” He takes a leap, stopping to face you, dipping into your line of sight, directing your gaze to his.

“Yeah.” Your hands fold together at your stomach, mouth tipping up in a small smile. “But… it was nice to… you know. Hang out.” He holds himself still, a hunter in the trees, scope zeroed in on a deer. “For appearances sake.” You follow up quickly, and he sighs. You were almost there baby. You almost let go.

“For appearances sake.” He invades your space because he can’t help himself, moves in, slides his hand to your shoulder, tracing a line down to your elbow.

“Y-yes.” Your lips part like you’re waiting for him, for something, unsure if he’ll give it to you, still not trusting or not understanding that he’ll give you everything.

“Daisy,” He drags his fingertips to your waist, barely there, and goosebumps race across your chest as you teeter on the edge of tipping forward. “Nothing about this is for appearances sake.” You don’t pull away as his mouth finds yours, open and wanting, eager, and it feels like you’re ready to fling yourself off the cliff and into his arms when the two of you breathe in sync, his hand cupping your jaw, tongue behind your teeth.

“Simon,” you whisper against his lips, fingers knotted in the front of his jacket, “I’m confused.”

“I know.” He kisses your forehead. Slow, sweet comfort and assurance, trying to soothe this plague of worry and stress that has been a part of you for so long. “I know you are.” He doesn’t offer anything else, he can’t debate the truth. You are confused, and it’s his doing, an endless, messy knot of should have and could have twisting him up and catching you in a net. “I’m sorry.” Sorry I let you suffer for so long, sorry I didn’t do anything when you needed help, sorry I wasn’t there when you were drowning, sorry I wasn’t paying close enough attention, sorry I let you think you meant nothing to me, sorry I let you think I didn’t remember you. Sorry, for all of it.

You’d balk. Run, take off over the hills, never to be seen again.

It would be too much.

He traces the shell of your ear, trying to stretch the moment, make it last, make it permanent, but he knows when enough is enough, and trying to draw it out, pull your poison and position you for a fight, for a release won’t do him any good.

You yawn, and he’s grateful for the opportunity to pivot. “Tired?”

“Mhm.” Frustration bubbles beneath his skin. It’s too hard, and only getting harder to resist taking over completely.

“You need to get some rest.” He knows you can’t. You have Riley, a full time job, a farm that he’s sure includes a long list of chores. As soon as he gets you more settled, he’s hiring someone to handle it, whatever needs to be done for the barn and the horses so you can take a second to breathe. Relax. Sleep.

“Can’t. Got a lot to do.” You curl around his elbow, resting your cheek on his bicep, the two of you slowly walking back towards the hotel. You’ve lowered your guard, allowed some small piece of you to come out uninhibited, and he soaks it up, fully aware it may be gone by tomorrow.

For now, he’s happy, elated, and he’ll hold onto this moment until the next time.

You sigh, and he slides his arm around your shoulders, pressing a slow kiss to your temple. “Come on baby, let’s get you home.”