Deliciously Obedient (17 page)

Jeremy
felt like a completely useless bag of flesh in situations like this.
All he could think to do was to fetch coffee and give sympathetic
looks. Hugs for Lydia, too. Lydia’s grandmother was Madge—
the
Madge from Jeddy’s—and a pang of reminiscence from his college
days kicked in. When did she get so…old?

Running
a hand through his hair in frustration at his own lack of power to do
something, he remembered the grays he’d seen in there recently.
You’re getting old, too.

The
thought used to terrify him, and likely drove all the sand-hopping
adventures he’d indulged in this decade. Old. Who wanted to get
old? Your body began to break down, your mind dulled, you ended up
unable to eat anything that required chewing and in the end you
watched reruns of
Matlock
and
Murder, She Wrote
on TV
after
Wheel of Fortune
was over.

No
thanks.

Madge
was different. Lydia and Sandy seemed to handle their worry with two
speeds: funny stories about Madge, or quiet sobbing. He could handle
the former better than the latter.

“
Remember
when Grandma called us from jail? She got arrested at that sex club,
the one where the lion got loose. They thought she was a dominatrix.”

Sandy
stayed silent, cheeks turning pink.
Uh-oh
, Jeremy thought, the
discomfort level in the waiting room shooting up to a screaming
level.

“
Mom?”
Lydia hissed, eyes wide and intrigued. “You always said she was
just goofing around at Halloween and that she was there to protest
the abuse of the animals.”

“
You
were too young to explain it to,” Sandy muttered.

Jeremy
stifled a laugh. “She sounds like quite the character.”

“
You
don’t know the half of it,” the two women said simultaneously,
then chuckled.

The
young doctor who was Madge’s boyfriend’s grandson—Adam?
Ansel?—came over, his eyes sad and down turned. Oh, shit.

All
three stood, and as the doctor scanned their faces, his expression
shifted and he put his palms out. “Oh, no—no worries. I don’t
have new information. I’m not even on the case.”

Sandy
blew out a sigh of relief and Jeremy saw Lydia’s eyes change from
alarmed to warm, a look passing between her and the doctor that made
his throat tighten. What was this?

“
Alex,”
she said fondly, and he reached out to touch Lydia’s arm, a
friendly touch of acknowledgment that made Jeremy want to go back in
time and feed him to that lion in the sex club.

Where
was this coming from?

“
Hi,
Lydia.” Alex turned to Jeremy and offered a hand, which Jeremy
accepted, his grip like steel. Alex returned it in full, dark eyes
suddenly on guard. They were at eye level to each other, though
Jeremy was about an inch taller, both of them looming over Sandy and
Lydia.

“
How
is your grandfather?” Lydia asked, genuinely concerned. Jeremy
couldn’t help himself, taking a step closer to her and putting his
arm around her. It felt like an eighth-grade move, a primal instinct
and a display of possession that was laughable.

But
he really couldn’t control it.

Lydia
leaned into him, her cheek against his shoulder, and he relaxed,
tension draining out of him as Alex focused on her question.

“
He’s
confused. Keeps asking what happened to Madge. He has Alzheimer’s,
though it’s under reasonable control with medication. Madge is his
rock.”

“
And
he is hers. She talks about him all the time,” Sandy interjected,
placing her hand on Alex’s forearm. “I’m sorry I haven’t been
in the city more lately. We really should have met before this.”

A
forty-something woman tapped lightly on the doorway to the waiting
room, interrupting the four of them. “Hello?” Wearing flowing
clothing that looked like something between an Indian sarong and a
high-end Newbury Street outfit, she had a natural beauty to her, a
woman who aged with grace, with twinkling eyes and a sophistication
that wasn’t pretentious or showy.

And
her eyes were all on Sandy and Alex.

“
I’m
Meribeth Derjian. Ed’s daughter,” she said, aiming for Sandy.
Relief filled Sandy’s eyes as she took Meribeth’s hand, then
pulled her into an embrace.

“
I
have wanted to meet you for so long!” Sandy said, her voice muffled
in the woman’s shoulder. Stepping back, she looked at Meribeth,
then at Alex. “I see some resemblance…”

“
Not
much,” Alex said through a smile.

“
But
you look exactly like a young Ed,” Sandy insisted.

“
He
really does,” Meribeth said, now looking at Lydia and Jeremy. “Are
these your kids?”

Jeremy
choked, the sound a sputter that was so socially awkward that a pain
formed between his eyes, making him pinch the bridge of his nose.
Could he add to the enormity of this awful occasion any more?

Lydia
snickered. “I’m Sandy’s daughter, but this isn’t her son. If
it were, our relationship would be illegal.”

Alex’s
eyebrows shot up, but he said nothing.

Meribeth
stepped forward to shake Lydia’s hand. “So you’re the famous
Lydia. Madge’s roommate. Dad and Madge talked about you. Madge is
so proud of your career accomplishments.” Meribeth flashed her son
a look that said the same. Who wouldn’t want a handsome, successful
doctor for a son?

His
own parents, for one. They’d pushed, but computer science had
trumped medical school, much to their chagrin.

“
And
I’m Jeremy. Jeremy Forster. Nice to meet you, circumstances
excepted.” As their palms touched he caught a whiff of perfume that
made him think of a bakery and spices from a foreign land. Her
necklace was a complicated strand of gold and gemstones, with
dangling earrings color-coordinated with flecks of earth tones in her
clothing. He could watch her for hours, like a work of art in human
form.

And
she was motherly, to boot. Nothing like his own mom, who had thought
the height of fashion was Christmas lights with a battery pack on her
seasonal sweatshirt. Being a late-in-life baby meant having a mom who
had gone completely gray by the time he graduated high school and who
began collecting Social Security before he graduated college.

Alex’s
mother was the polar opposite.

“
Nice
to meet you as well, Jeremy, though you’re right.” She frowned
and made careful eye contact with each of them, a studied,
compassionate series of movements. Her sad eyes were riveting.
“What’s Madge’s prognosis?” Her eyes settled on Alex.

“
Wait
and see,” he muttered, shrugging.

Meribeth
rolled her eyes. “We’re at one of the best cardiac facilities in
the world and that’s the most medical science has to offer?”
There was no bite to her words. Just resignation. Her sigh punctuated
it.

The
four of them sat, while Jeremy’s legs turned to tree trunks.
I
have to get out of here.

“
Anyone
want coffee?” he asked in a forced, neutral voice.

Three
yeses. Thank God.

“
I’ll
come with you,” Lydia said. An equivocation bounced inside him,
rippling like a chime intoned at an off angle, making the
reverberations a source of unease. Did he
want
company?

No
choice. She stood and they walked out, her dry hand catching his, the
fingers interlacing.

Take
that, Dr. Perfect.

“
Nice
guy,” she said under her breath as they walked down the hallway,
the scent of antiseptic overwhelming, the glare of the fluorescent
lights taking him back to his own mother’s hospitalization.

Her
last one.

His
hands broke out in a sweat.

“
You
seemed to think so,” he said in a flat voice, too overcome by
competing emotions to measure out his response. His heart sped up and
her hand felt like a dry noodle in his slippery palm as she turned to
him slowly, brow creased, eyes confused.

“
What
does that mean?”

Her
tone should have been prickly and pissed, but instead it was
perplexed and, he noticed, a bit hurt. Ah, fuck. Open mouth, insert
foot.

He
wasn’t the jealous type. Ever. Live and let live. Move on if a
woman wanted someone else. Let people be with whomever they wanted to
be with. Those were his mottoes. Hell, he’d watched Mike with Dana,
and with the women back in Thailand that one time, and not felt even
the tiniest tinge of envy or possessiveness. In fact, what he’d
felt most was pure lust.

Right
now?

He
didn’t know what the hell he felt.

“
I’m
sorry.” The words came out clipped and rushed as he pulled his hand
away and wiped it on his jeans. Lydia’s vulnerability lulled him
and made him feel like even more of an asshole. Being open was the
only way to handle this, wasn’t it? Just be truthful.

“
I
don’t know why I’m like this,” he added.
Yes, you do.

“
It’s
okay,” she said in a voice that told him it wasn’t. It really
wasn’t.

“
Lydia.”
Bending over, he put his hands on her shoulders. As she tipped her
face up to his he could see her struggle, how her eyes were just a
little too shiny, the red rims of her lower lids raw from crying, how
she thought she was just going on an errand to get coffee and now
they were…arguing? Over a doctor they’d just met?

Closing
his eyes, he took a deep breath and decided to leap. “The last time
I was in a hospital was the day my mom died.” There. It was out.
The flash of ICU, of his mother’s ventilator, of being the only
person in the room who had to make the agonizing choice to remove her
from the machines as ten thousand eyes, all dressed in scrubs and
white coats seemed to stare him down with a mixture of pity and
practicality, his mother’s life in his hands.

At
least when his dad had died, those decisions had been his mother’s
to make.

“
Oh,
God.” The whoosh of her breath, the way tears pooled in her eyes,
how the prickliness between them dissolved as if it had never been
there, gave him a rush of emotion he couldn’t name. Telling someone
anything about his inner life—someone other than Mike, that is—had
been taboo for so many years.

And
now it wasn’t.

She
wrapped her arms around him as she stretched on tiptoes. “I didn’t
know. You’ve never told me anything about your family.”

“
It
hasn’t come up.” Warmth. Softness. Lush body with loving embrace.
Lydia’s presence and her willingness to reach out didn’t just
comfort him. It aroused him in a sensual manner that felt so
appropriate, yet connected with a deeper layer he couldn’t name.
Breathing in her neck, the light scent of her soap mixed with the
desperate fear she’d carried on her skin for all these hours, he
wanted to strip her naked, climb under the sheets and bury himself in
her, finding solace where no one else could wrench him away from
being lost in her.