Fix You (10 page)

As if to add insult to injury, the bathroom was her least favorite room in the house and Robbie knew it. If she weren’t in the midst of chemo hell, she’d demand that Robbie finally do something in there to fix the room up. Unfortunately, there was no way they could plan to remodel at this point in time. She spent too much time clinging to the freaking toilet right after her treatments.

She glanced to her side and studied Robbie’s face as he slept. He looked so peaceful. Sleep was the only time when the shadows around his eyes disappeared. She knew she was to blame for the stress lines that had formed around his lips and in his brow, but she didn’t know how to take them away.

Laura assured her time cured all ills. She’d said leaving her husband after twenty-three years of marriage was the most difficult thing she’d ever done and that nothing short of time had eased the pain of her husband’s anger and her grown children’s devastation. As the weeks and months passed, things got better. Laura was now on relatively friendly speaking terms with her ex and her children had gotten over their initial hurt and even found some understanding.

So all she and Robbie needed was time. Time to see if the chemo would work. Time for her body to recover and heal. Time to figure out what they were going to do about their relationship. For weeks, she’d accepted the changed status without question. Robbie had come home when she needed him most, offering not simply friendship, but love, sex and laughter.

She wanted to ask him where he saw them going, but she didn’t feel like she had the right. Guilt kept her quiet. How could she ask him about their future when hers was so uncertain? Could she really ask for a commitment when there was a chance she wouldn’t even be here a year from now?

She wouldn’t do it. Not yet. It was too soon. She thrust the wayward concern away and tried to concentrate on something easy, innocuous. The bathroom. Once the chemo was over, she was going to treat herself to a brand new décor in there. They’d rip down the wallpaper, paint it green or yellow—something cheery and bright. They’d buy new fixtures and towels and some of those fancy toiletry accessories she’d always liked from Bed, Bath and Beyond, but had never purchased because of her ongoing war with Robbie.

She grinned as she recalled the huge fight they’d had over the bathroom a month after they’d moved in. When they spoke of it now, it was always with laughter and they referred to it as
The First Battle of the Bathroom
.

Fourteen years earlier

Zoey walked into the bathroom to find Robbie shaving. He’d just gotten out of the shower and had a towel wrapped around his hips.

“What’s up?” he asked as he scraped the razor along his chin.

“I think we need to redecorate in here. This wallpaper sucks.”

He shook his head. “Nope. Wallpaper is fine. The landlord said it’s only a couple of months old.”

Zoey walked behind Robbie, dropped the lid over the toilet seat and sat down to talk. “It’s hideous.”

Robbie glanced around the room. “It’s purple flowers. What’s hideous about that?”

Zoey crossed her arms. “It looks like something from my grandma’s house. She hasn’t remodeled in nearly thirty years. Besides, our towels are blue.”

Robbie stopped shaving to face her. One side of his face was clean, clear of stubble, while the other was covered in white, foamy cream. “You bought the towels after we moved in here knowing the bathroom was purple.”

She lifted her face, feeling defensive and annoyed by his easy dismissal. Half of the house was hers too. “The towels were on sale. It was a really good deal.”

“Cheap or not, you knew they wouldn’t match.”

“I thought we’d redecorate in here. We could pull down the wallpaper, sand the walls and paint the room—”

“No.”

She didn’t like being interrupted any more than she liked being dismissed. “What do you mean no?”

“I mean when you rattle off lists like that I end up doing the lion’s share of the hard labor.”

Zoey’s temper spiked. “That’s not true and you know it. I helped you repaint the whole downstairs.”

“You swept up the floors after I spent hours sanding them until I thought my arms would fall off. You painted the low parts of the walls while I broke my back trying to do the ceiling and tricky places. Then you held the ladder while I hung up ceiling fans and curtain rods. I crushed my thumb at least a dozen times hanging up all the pictures. I’m done with house repairs for a while, Zoey.”

“You act like I didn’t do a damn thing. I offered to do all those things you just listed, but you had to act like the big he-man and do them all yourself.”

Robbie laid his razor on the sink, planting his fists on his hips. “You would have screwed up those other jobs. Despite your ‘I am woman, hear me roar’ attitude, you aren’t physically strong enough to do those things.”

“Bullshit!”

Robbie shrugged. “Regardless of who did what, I like the wallpaper in here just fine, so it’s staying.”

“What if I take it down myself?”

He gave her a dark, annoyed look. “Don’t.”

She stood up. “Don’t? Did you really say don’t? Oh, Robbie. Why don’t you just say I dare you? Both statements have the same effect.”

He took a step closer. If she weren’t so pissed off, she’d laugh at him standing there in nothing but a towel with half his face covered in shaving cream. “I mean it. I know you. You’ll get halfway through ripping the shit down, realize you can’t do it and then we’ll be stuck with a wrecked bathroom until I finish the job. This room looks fine. Leave it alone.”

“No.” She smiled viciously as she threw his word back in his face.

He was silent for a moment, then he turned back to the sink. She didn’t move as she waited for him to continue the argument. Instead he shook the can of shaving cream and put more in his hand. He was going to keep shaving?

Surely he didn’t really think she was going to let the argument end this way. After years of disagreements, he should have known better.

“Listen, Robbie. If you think—”

He turned to face her once more. Rather than speak, he lifted his hand and rubbed the huge gob of shaving cream along her face. The movement shocked her speechless.

“Wow. Look at that. I actually shut you up.”

She sucked in a deep, furious breath. “You asshole.” She scraped the cream from her face and flung it at him. Robbie tried to dodge, but he didn’t move fast enough as some of it hit his shoulder and started sliding down his arm. Unhappy with her aim, Zoey reached for the can of shaving cream, grasping it a fraction of a second before Robbie could claim it.

She shook it with glee, taunting him. Robbie raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, game over. We both got creamed, so let’s call it a tie and move on.”

“No.” She was really starting to enjoy that word. She squirted more of the sticky stuff into her palm as Robbie backed away.

“You don’t want to do that, Zoey. I will get even.”

She laughed. “Empty threat considering I have the can and you don’t.” As she spoke, she slapped her full hand against his chest, covering him with foam.

Robbie looked down at the mess, then grinned. “You asked for it.”

Before she could dodge around him and escape the room, he gripped her shoulders and pulled her toward him until her T-shirt was pressed against his chest. He pretended to use her as a towel, wiping the shaving cream off him onto her.

“Hey!” She wriggled in an attempt to break free. Robbie hadn’t lied about one thing. He was a hell of a lot stronger than she was. “Dammit,” she said as he released her. “That was a clean T-shirt.”

“You ready to cry uncle?”

She sucked at defeat. “Nope. The second you leave this house, I’m ripping that wallpaper down.”

“So be it.” Robbie stepped closer. She raised the can as a weapon, finger on the nozzle, ready to attack him if necessary.

Her defensive move didn’t sway him at all. Robbie walked right up to her, even as she covered him with more foam. Reaching out, he gripped her wrist, turning until some of the foam she was spraying hit her instead. Then he did the one thing guaranteed to give him the win. He tickled her.

Zoey struggled to get away from his playful fingers, but Robbie wouldn’t give way. She slipped on the shaving cream that now covered the floor, but he caught her, breaking her fall. Instead of hitting the ground, she found herself gently laid on it as he resumed tickling her.

She giggled, protested, screamed. She tried to pinch and punch him in her effort to break free.

“Say uncle.”

She shook her head and he laughed.

“Stubborn little thing. If I win, you owe me a promise.”

Zoey continued to wiggle, but it was soon obvious the only way she’d get loose was if she said the dreaded word. “Uncle.”

Just like that, Robbie released her. He stood and she was surprised—and more than a little amazed—that his towel had remained in place throughout their struggles.

He offered her a hand up and she accepted it.

“Promise me you won’t tear down this wallpaper.”

She bit her lower lip. It was the one vow she didn’t want to make.

“Promise, Zoey.”

“Fine,” she said at last, “but I’m going to make you another promise too. I swear to you, should you die before me, I will come home right after your funeral, with your body not even cold in the ground, and rip all this shit down. Every last bit of it.”

He grinned, then bent to kiss her on the cheek. He rarely offered her affection beyond hugs and they typically sealed their vows with handshakes.

She frowned when he pulled back only an inch or so from her and said, “Deal. Nothing will be done in this bathroom until the day I die.”

The stubborn man had taken that damn vow to heart. The wallpaper in the bathroom was well beyond its years and they both knew it. Even so, the fucking faded purple flowers remained.

She glanced to her side to find Robbie staring at her curiously.

“You’re smiling. What are you thinking about?”

She took his hand. “Nothing much. Silly stuff.”

“You feel like breakfast?”

She considered his question and realized she did. Her stomach wasn’t queasy today and she was actually hungry. “Yeah, I do.”

They sat up together. Robbie rose from the bed and pulled on a pair of boxers. She didn’t bother to look away from his tight ass. They’d been sleeping together for over two months and she still felt the desire to pinch herself every morning she woke up to find him naked in her bed.

Robbie wiggled his eyebrows when he caught her looking, but his face betrayed another, darker emotion as he glanced at something behind her. Turning, Zoey noticed hair on her pillow. A lot of hair.

It had been falling out since the first treatment, getting thinner with each passing day. The oncologist had said she would lose some this round, but probably not all of it. Judging by the pile of hair on her pillow, she’d say she and her doctor had a different definition of
some
.

She lifted her hand, dreading what she knew she would feel. Each day as more hair fell out, she looked sicker. “I’m shaving it.”

Robbie didn’t reply immediately. It was something they’d discussed at length the first night she noticed it was falling out. The wine girls had given her a gift certificate to a local wig shop shortly after she told them about her diagnosis and treatment plan. She’d cried when she’d opened the get well card and found the certificate. At the time, she’d blamed the tears on their thoughtfulness, but the vain woman inside knew she was mourning the inevitable moment when she’d have to use the wig.

Robbie cleared his throat. “The doctor said—”

“I know what he said, but it looks really bad. And he said the next chemo cocktail would definitely finish the job. It’s time to stop trying to save something that’s not going to last. I can’t keep waking up to this hair on my pillow. There are too many things about this whole deal I can’t control. I need this part to be on my own terms.”

“Fine. Then let’s do it.”

She shook her head. “No. If you’ll just give me your clippers, I can do it on my own. You don’t have to—”

“There’s no way you’re doing this alone, Zoey. I said we were in this together and I meant it.”

She stared at his determined, concerned, beautiful face, then said, “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Robbie went to his bedroom to grab the hair clippers from his closet. He rarely used them, opting to get his haircuts done professionally. She wasn’t even sure why he owned the clippers, but he’d had them for years.

She held out her hand when he returned.

Robbie shook his head.

She frowned. “I can do it if you show me how they work.”

“Nope. I’ll do it.”

She felt like she should argue the point, but the truth was she was relieved by his offer. “Okay, that’s cool. With my numb fingers, I’d probably miss my head and shave off my eyebrows.”

Robbie took the lid off the plastic carrying case and pointed to the attachments. “Usually you decide what length you’re going for, snap one of these on and then glide the thing along your scalp.”