Love In Slow Motion (Love Beyond Measure #2) - E.M. Lindsey Page 0,12
and decided to get on with his day.
Chapter 3
Fredric ignored the sounds of his cabinet doors opening and closing, and he dragged his hands down the back door until they curled around the small latch, letting the dog door swing free. Sebastian gave him a quiet huff of appreciation before he darted out, and Fredric turned, reaching for the little breakfast bar as his daughter quit her silent judgment of his new place.
“It’s bare,” Corinne declared after a moment. The furniture had helped dampen the echo, but there were a lot of empty corners that needed to be filled. “You’re going to starve to death. Or kill yourself on take-out.”
Fredric snorted and felt along the counter until he found his glass, taking a long drink of his water. “If eating midnight Chinese at the office five nights a week while working on three hours of sleep didn’t do me in,” he reminded her, “I think I’ll survive a couple taco nights.” His work had been chaos right until the moment he quit—but most of that was self-inflicted. It was stay at the office and delegate, or it was go home and face whatever battles Jacqueline had decided to wage that week, and if he wanted his heart to survive any of it, the office always won.
“You’re not funny.” Corinne hadn’t gotten the brunt of her mother using Fredric’s health as emotional manipulation—not the way her brother had—but she’d dealt with it enough. Jacqueline spent nearly thirty years using his stroke as a way of guilting her children into doing whatever she wanted, and Fredric hadn’t put a stop to it before it created a gulf between him and the two people he loved most in the world.
He sighed as he heard her come around the corner, and he smiled when her hands fell on his shoulders. “I know it’s not funny,” he told her, laying a palm over hers, “but I promise I’m not dying. I actually can take care of myself.”
“I know,” she said, her voice going soft. “It’s just…you were always right down the street, and now you’re like three hours away if I break laws, and I hate that.” He heard the hesitation and fear in her tone. “What if something does happen and all of us are too far to get to you in time.”
“You want me to get life alert?” he pressed, and she smacked him in the side.
“Oh my god, stop. I just mean, you’re all the way out here on your own, okay? And you refuse to hire a driver, and you don’t actually know anyone. I hate that you felt like you had to put this many miles between us.”
“Not between me and you,” he told her. He touched the edge of her arm, then followed the path to her face and cupped her cheek against his hand. His visual memory was strange and abstract. After the stroke, the doctors had told him it would be one of the first things to go as he aged into his blindness, and they hadn’t been wrong.
But he still experienced her growing up. The way her voice changed, how far he had to reach down for her hand, the way her cheeks had gone from round and chubby to slender and sharp, just like her mother’s. He didn’t need to see her to know that he’d raised a beautiful, strong woman. And in many ways, she was the product of Jacqueline’s conditioning, but she was tougher than most people gave her credit for.
And she was trying.
“I have a grocery delivery coming today,” he told her and offered a smile. “I have that fancy new app your brother sent me that lets me call someone, and they can use my phone camera to see what things are. I have my label maker with plenty of refill rolls and my Penfriend. I have all my gadgets and…”
“I’m sorry,” she interrupted, and her hands curled around his wrists, squeezing. “I know I’m being a pain in the ass. But with the divorce, and you moving, and even Ilan quitting his job, it feels like the floor just fell out from under me.”
Fredric’s brows dipped. “Ilan quit his job? Did something happen?” Ilan loved being a doctor—it was the one thing he took pride in. Fredric remembered going to his graduation the day he finished medical school. He remembered the way the man’s hands shook as Fredric took him in a hug and the quiet note of both fear