“No, Bridge. Why are we rehashing this? Sarah encouraged it. She’s not an idiot. You needed a place to stay, I have the room, it made perfect sense for you to come here, and she supported the idea. I talked to her about it before I even mentioned it to you.”
Confused, Bridget cocked her head to the side. “What do you mean?”
“Nothing, Bridget. You’re always welcome here, no matter what.” Eli gave a wan smile. “But, Bridget, I’m drunk, I’m tired, and I have to get up for chores. So I’m going to bed.”
“Right.” Bridget pressed her lips tightly together. “Can you help me get changed?”
Eli laughed. “Yes.”
They maneuvered into the guest room Bridget had been staying in. She sat heavily on the edge of the mattress and pushed off her slippers. She could get her pants off by that point, but it took forever. She’d do it, though. What she still needed help with were the damn shirts.
Eli gripped the edge of her shirt and tugged while Bridget pulled her arm through. Eli stretched the arm out so they could get her arm through with the least amount of movement. The X-rays she’d gotten most recently proved she was healing well, but it was still annoying to have to wait for her body to do what it needed.
As soon as she had a night shirt on, Eli told her goodnight and left. Bridget spent the next ten minutes shimmying slowly out of her sweatpants and pulling on her pajamas. She was exhausted by the end and her head spun from the alcohol. She’d needed the break with her deputies, but more than that, she needed to get back to normal life.
Staring at the ceiling in a room that wasn’t hers in a house she didn’t belong in, Bridget closed her eyes as the tears fell. She hated being weepy, but it had almost seemed like her norm lately. She didn’t like it. She needed to find something in her life she enjoyed because right now everything seemed pretty damn bleak. Except for Jerica. She was a light in this tunnel of darkness.
Latching on to that thought, Bridget stayed still on her back and calmed her mind. She’d need water in the morning so she wouldn’t be so hungover, but for now, she was going to lie there until she fell asleep. When morning came, she was going to try to have a different attitude about life, about her prospects and her future, and maybe she would find a little bit of the elusive happiness that Eli seemed to have stumbled upon.
CHAPTER8
Bridget hadn’t planned anything.Four days of sitting on her ass and she hadn’t done a single thing to get ready for her date. She stared at her phone with a text from Jerica saying she’d be up in a few hours, which meant she had exactly two hours or less to plan a date when she could barely move.
God, she was an idiot.
If she wanted this to go right, then she should have done it right. Instead, she’d wallowed and avoided and tried not to think about the fact that she was going on her first real date since Eli. Though hell would freeze over before she told Eli that.
Years had gone by and she hadn’t even noticed. She’d become the old maid she’d always worried she would be with no hope of finding someone to spend her life with. And yet, there was Jerica. They had a date, a mostly proper date as much as could be expected with Bridget still an invalid, and she had done nothing to prepare for it.
Shifting out of the bed, Bridget grabbed her scooter and pushed herself into the bathroom. Eli was already out in the fields for the morning, doing her rounds, but Bridget had gotten lazy about sleeping in and using the time to literally do nothing but stare at the ceiling.
Ugh, it’s not even just the date.
Bridget had forgone doing anything normal lately simply because she had no desire to work on it. Maybe all the stress and trauma was hitting and the shock was finally wearing off. Or maybe she still only had half a working body and wasn’t thrilled about having to figure out how to do things on her own in a house that wasn’t hers and felt like such a damn burden.
Yeah, that last one was it. Pushing the knee scooter into the bathroom, she brushed her teeth and stared at her reflection. She was looking older by the minute. Her skin was still pale and somewhat ashen from all the blood loss, even though she was doing well on that front according to the doctors. It would take a few months for that to vanish. But the wrinkles around her eyes were growing deeper, she had a few gray hairs here and there that she didn’t want to admit were present.
She was not a beautiful woman. She’d always known that. Her sister had gotten her looks from their mother, and Bridget had been an awkward mix of their father and his father. She’d always known she was ugly, and her mother and told her as much, multiple times. She’d also insisted Bridget keep her hair long to try and look more like a girl since her features were so boyish.
She tossed her toothbrush onto the counter and gritted her teeth. She had to get their damn voices out of her head. She’d worked so hard to do that in the past few years, but since the accident their voices had come raging back.
She couldn’t do the date. She should just text Jerica, cancel, blame it on pain or something, and never try to reschedule it. Bridget had learned over the years that she was not someone who should be bothered with attempting relationships. She wasn’t built for them, and as nice as they sounded, as wonderful as they seemed, she always seemed to ruin them.
“Hey!” Eli stepped into the doorway, leaning against it. “Glad you’re finally up.”
“Yeah,” Bridget mumbled.
Eli scrunched her nose. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Shaking her head, Bridget picked up her toothbrush, cleaned it and put it back where it belonged. She had to remember this wasn’t her house, and she had to take care of things that weren’t hers. She and Eli had lived together once before, but that was before their relationship and friendship had gone south.
“I can see something’s wrong. What is it? Jerica cancel on you?”
Bridget flicked her gaze to Eli’s eyes before dropping it to the ground.
“Oh my God, she didn’t, did she? I’ll kick her ass.”
“What?”