Instead he said, “I know about you.”
“You don’t know a thing about me,” I retorted acidly.
He just smiled and I’d never really seen him smile, not full on. I’d seen him grin. I’d heard him chuckle at something my father said. But not a smile.
It was lazy, it was slow and it was glamorous.
Then he said, “I’ll give you time, you’ve been through hell but, when the time is right, I’m gonna pull her out.”
At his words, The Ice Princess (who never let go), started slipping. I held onto her by my mental fingernails and pulled her back.
“Maybe you need to get some sleep,” I suggested.
Hector didn’t respond. He stared at me and I stared at him.
Again, I waited for him to back down, to look away.
He didn’t.
So for the first time since I could remember, I did.
My eyes slid to the side and then something even weirder happened. While I was looking away, he leaned in deeper, I felt his hand cup the back of my head, he lifted it gently and he kissed the top of my head.
I froze.
No one but no one but no one had touched me like that. No one, not since my Mom left. No one.
Did I say no one?
He left his hand there with his lips pressed against my head not for a second but for a long time.
It felt like eternity. It felt like a sweet, wonderful, lovely eternity.
Now, seriously, no kidding, how bizarre was that?
Before I could get myself together and jerk my head away, the door opened and I heard said in a country twang, “Oh, damn! Sorry.”
It was then I jerked my head away, got up on my elbows, looked across the room and saw Daisy and Marcus Sloan standing inside the door.
*
“Ralphie, it’s me, Sadie,” I said into the phone.
“Sadie? Where are you?” Ralphie asked, sounding concerned as he would do. I was never late for work, much less a no show.
I sat in the bed with the phone to my ear, my eyes on the door and I didn’t know what to say.
*
I’d had a small stroke of luck.
The minute Marcus and Daisy appeared was only a moment before the doctor appeared. For privacy, Marcus and Daisy quietly left but weirdly, Hector did not.
Hector grabbed the control thingamabob on the side of my bed and did the whole lifting the back of the hospital bed thing for me. I sat up and as Hector stood beside my bed (for all the world like he was my loving boyfriend or something), the doctor told me (or, more accurately, us, acting for all the world like Hector was my loving boyfriend or something) what was wrong with me (like I didn’t know) and said I would be released that afternoon but, even so, someone needed to be around to keep an eye on me.
Then he turned to Hector and asked for, “A word?”
Hector nodded to the doctor then (no kidding), leaned down and kissed the top of my head (again!) and they both walked out.
I stared at the door, trying to figure out what was going on.
Then I realized I might only have moments so I twisted, grabbed the phone and put it on the bed.
Then I dialed Ralphie.
*
Ralphie was the closest thing I had to a friend.
He probably wouldn’t describe me as a friend, more an employer which was what I was.
Three years ago, I opened an art gallery. The Feds didn’t get that either as I’d opened it with my trust fund and my father didn’t launder money through it though they looked and looked to find some nefarious purpose for my gallery so they could seize it, like they did everything else, but they didn’t find anything because there was nothing to find, I made certain sure of that.
I opened it because I needed more to do with my time than just be Daddy’s Little Princess which was getting old and I had an art degree from Denver University so why not?
It turned out, I was good at it. I had an eye for art and I could put on a really good opening. I’d had years of practice at being a good hostess always standing next to my father’s side so you could imagine how pleased it made me that something he taught me eventually came in handy.
I hired Ralphie and in my gallery, which I named “Art” because I really don’t have much of an imagination and it kind of said it all, Ralphie and I had fun. He knew he was my employee and everything but he was good to be around, he was a bit crazy in a nice way and we’d have a laugh.
Ralphie was a tall, slim, blond-haired, blue-eyed, ultra-elegant, unbelievably beautiful gay man. Swear to God, he could be a male model. Not kidding.