Read my Lips
Chapter 3
Spencer fidgeted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as he rode the ancient elevator up three floors to his apartment. He was carrying an oversized bag of cat food in his arms. The longer the elevator was taking to ascend, the heavier the bag was getting. And the closer he got to his apartment, the more ridiculous he felt. He ought to know by now that taking Derek's advice on women was the absolute worst idea in the history of worst ideas. The things that Derek did, only worked because he was Derek. Women liked him no matter what.
"Take her a gift," Spencer mumbled, repeating the unsolicited advice his coworker gave him earlier that afternoon. "Women like to be surprised." Spencer adjusted the heavy bag so that it took the pressure off one arm and onto the other. "What was I thinking?," he grumbled.
To be fair, when Derek advised him to get Eliana a gift to make up for how rude he was to her that morning, he probably didn't mean a fifty pound bag of cat food. Derek would have gotten her flowers. And she would have loved them. Because they were from Derek. If Spencer brought a woman flowers unexpectedly, he was more likely to find himself the subject of a police investigation than he was to win her affections. And Eliana was his employee. Sort of. She worked for the staffing agency. He was paying them and they were paying her. But still, an overly romantic gesture felt inappropriate.
On his way home from work, Spencer stood in the brightly lit convenience store, mumbling to himself and toying with the strap on his messenger bag as he overthought the entire situation for at least the hundredth time that day. And then he bought a giant bag of cat food that he hoped could be donated to the animal shelter Eliana volunteered at. It felt like a good idea at the time. But now that he was lugging the heavy bag down the hall to his apartment, he was having second thoughts. And third thoughts. And fourth.
As he reached for his keys, Spencer jostled the large bag of cat food in his arms. He nearly dropped it as he pushed the door open and stumbled into his apartment. It was quiet inside. But that didn't bother him right away. He'd lived alone for the last decade. It wasn't until he flopped the large bag of kibble down onto his couch that he realized something was wrong. It was too quiet. He didn't hear his mother. Or Eliana.
Spencer reached for his gun. He didn't draw the weapon. He just rested his hand on top of it to reassure himself that it was there. He'd come a long way from when he started at the academy. Back then, he was afraid to even pick up a gun. Now, the weapon made him feel safe and in control of the situation.
"Mom!" Spencer called out as he hurried through the apartment, checking each room. As he searched, he ran through every possible worst case scenario in his mind. His mother might have hurt herself or had a medical emergency. Maybe Eliana was taking her to the hospital right now. Or his mother might have gone on another crazy rant and went running from the apartment. Maybe Eliana was busy chasing her through the streets. Or a crazy serial killer could have broken into his apartment and kidnapped them both. And right now he was cutting them up into little tiny pieces and feeding them to the pigs he kept in the spare bedroom of his new york city apartment.
"That was oddly specific," Spencer mumbled to himself. He shook his head, trying to clear it of the wildly intrusive thoughts. As he checked inside the bathroom, he realized his mother was actually not in his apartment anywhere. He told himself not to panic. And then panicked anyway, rushing back out into his living room and digging through his bag for his phone. He held it in his hand, trying to decide if he ought to call his coworkers for help or the local New York city police department. But before he could dial, he heard voices in the hallway of his apartment.
His mother and Eliana entered the apartment together. There was an unfamiliar man trailing behind them. But since they were all carrying reusable grocery bags, it was clear that the man was with them. He was dark-complected and wearing a pair of purple nursing scrubs. Hoop earrings were dangling from his ears and there was a colorful scarf tied around his head. Spencer had never seen the man before. But he noticed that his mother seemed quite familiar with him. The voices he heard from the hallway were theirs.
"Hi," Eliana said, heading for the kitchen and swinging her bag up onto the counter as she greeted him. "We just ran down to the corner market to get some food for dinner. I hope we didn't worry you."
"No," Spencer lied. He was actually ready to call 911 before they arrived back. "I wasn't worried."
"Miss fancy pants here decided she had to have chicken alfredo for dinner," the man in the scrubs added, directing his teasing comment towards Spencer's mom. Diana smiled at the man. And that made Spencer smile. He was relieved to see her happy for a change. "I'm Lyndon," the man said, shifting the bags to his left hand and offering Spencer his right hand. "...but you can call me Lynn. Everyone else does."
Spencer glanced down at the man's hand. He didn't want to shake it. But he also didn't want to offend the man that seemed to be making his mother so happy. Thankfully, Eliana spoke up before he could cause a scene.
"Lynn, I told you he doesn't shake hands," she said, following her words with a soft giggle. Lynn laughed back and placed his free hand against his chest.
"I just thought when he saw me, he might change his mind," Lynn joked. Eliana laughed harder. And to Spencer's absolute shock, his mother started laughing right along with her. The sound of their combined laughter was almost musical. He liked it.
"Lynn, this is Dr. Reid," Eliana said. "Dr. Reid, this is Lynn Williams. He'll be filling in for me on the days I have to be at the university. And when you're out of town for work, we'll switch off so we can cover the night shift too." Eliana smiled again, but this time it was slightly more mischievous. She winked at Lynn before she turned to Reid and added, "...you'll like him. He wears scrubs."
Spencer opened his mouth and stepped forward, his hands awkwardly fluttering in front of his body as he prepared to launch into his extremely overthought apology. He'd been rehearsing it in his mind for most of the day. And playing it on repeat in his mind the entire way home. But one glance at the sliver of tan flesh that was showing between the hem of Eliana's shirt and the waistband of her jeans made his mind go completely blank. And now, instead of his apology, he was feeling the extremely inappropriate urge to ask her if her entire body was as tan as her stomach and lower back. In a stroke of blind luck, Eliana stepped forward and spoke up before he could embarrass himself any more than he already had.
"Is that cat food?," she asked, stepping towards the couch where he'd deposited the giant bag of kibble. Eliana glanced at him, her eyes lit with childlike excitement. "Do you have a cat?" She was in his apartment for almost the entire day. And she didn't see or hear a cat. But that didn't mean there wasn't one hiding somewhere. Cats were funny like that.
"No," Spencer said, pausing awkwardly before he realized she was looking at him and waiting for an explanation as to why there was a giant bag of cat food on his couch for a pet he didn't have. "I wanted to make a donation to the shelter," he said, blurting the words out and hoping for the best.
Spencer was relieved when a smile formed on Eliana's face. She took a step towards him, her arms lifting slightly. He wasn't exactly feeling like he was at his best. But he'd spent enough time studying human body language that he was convinced she was going to hug him. The thought of having her in his arms was completely overwhelming. He hadn't prepared himself for that possibility. And he instinctively took a step back.
Eliana's smile faltered. She glanced at the bag of cat food. And then her smile returned. But this time it felt forced. The little dimple that appeared on the left side of her face a moment before wasn't there now. Spencer cursed himself inwardly. When it came to women, he was hopelessly awkward.
"Thank you so much! You didn't have to do that," Eliana said. She smiled again, clearly trying to ease a bit of the sudden weird tension between them. "I'm taking the metro home, so I'll have to come back for it tomorrow."
"You know, in 2009 two metro trains crashed, resulting in eight deaths and over eighty injuries. It was the deadliest crash in the history of the Washington Metro," Spencer announced. He immediately cursed himself for vomiting out such an unnecessary fact. And he shifted his weight from one foot to the other as Eliana stared at him, chewing at the side of her lower lip and trying to decide how she was going to react to his sudden inappropriate blurting. After a tense moment of consideration, the dimple in her cheek reappeared.
"Are you offering to drive me home?," she teased. Lynn barked out a laugh from the kitchen and tried unsuccessfully to turn his loud guffaw into a cough. Spencer wasn't sure if she was joking or not. But she didn't wait for an answer from him before changing the subject. "We're going to make dinner," she said. "After that, I'll get your mom settled into her room and then I was hoping I could go over what I figured out so far for her treatment plan with you before I leave… if that's okay?"
Spencer was afraid of what horror might come out of his mouth if he opened it again. So he kept it shut and just nodded his head. The last nurse he hired never said anything about a treatment plan. But then again, she wasn't around very long. And she spent most of that time trying to keep his mother from drowning herself in the bathroom.
A short time later, Spencer was sitting down for the very first home cooked meal he'd ever had in his apartment. And the first family style meal he had with his mother since before his father left. After that, if his mother ate at all it was in bed. His childhood meals mostly consisted of canned soup that he ate sitting on the couch with only his books or the television for company.
The food was better than he expected. And he enjoyed the way Eliana drew his mother into conversation with her while they ate. They talked a little about classic literature and their favorite books. His mother loved talking about books.
As the meal drew to a close, Eliana and Lynn got their phones out and figured out a rough schedule for the next few days. When that was done, Lynn excused himself and headed home for the night. Eliana got up from the table and coaxed his mother into the bathroom for a much needed shower. Spencer noticed that Eliana set a few of the woman's favorite books on the bedside table for her. When that was done, she gathered up the dinner dishes and took them into the kitchen to wash them. Spencer was picking up the ones Eliana couldn't fit in her hands when he heard her soft laughter tinkling out from his kitchen.
"Your dishwasher is full of papers and books," she said, a twinkle of amusement in her dark eyes as she glanced back and forth between Spencer and the mess in his dishwasher. This time he smiled back. He had a lot of odd habits, like keeping his research projects in the dishwasher. But he'd never had a woman comment on them before. Because he'd never had a woman in his apartment. Even his coworkers had never been inside. And he was closer to them than he was to anyone else in his life.
"I'll wash, you dry?," Eliana suggested. She grabbed the clean dish towel that was hanging off the handle of the dishwasher and held it out for him to take. When Spencer reached his hand out to take the towel from her, his fingers brushed against hers. It was the first physical contact he had with her. And just that soft brush of skin sent tingles up and down his arm. He let out a nervous breath and shouldered up next to her at the sink. As he took the washed dishes from her to wipe them off with his towel, his arm bumped against hers a few times. This resulted in the same strange tingling sensation. It was hard to describe but if he had to, he would say it was like the tingles that happen when your leg falls asleep and then the feeling returns. But this was pleasurable as opposed to painful. He'd never felt anything like it before.
While they worked, Eliana began quietly filling him in on the treatment plan she mentioned earlier. And Spencer was relieved that she was talking so he wasn't tempted to fill the silence with more unnecessary facts about the DC metro. Eliana was having his mother's previous psychologist, the one who worked at the institute where she spent the last decade, send over any information he thought might help. She made his mother an appointment with a nutritionist. Eliana told him that she thought his mother was a little underweight. And she believed that regulating her blood sugar would help to stop outbursts like the one she had that morning. Spencer hadn't considered that his mother's diet might be a contributing factor to her mental decline. But once Eliana explained it that way, it made a lot of sense to him. All the systems of the body worked together.
When they were done with the dishes, Eliana pulled out a large plastic box from under the sink. It was secured with a metal padlock that would require a key to open. "I know your mom doesn't have a history of substance abuse," she said. "...but I still want all the medication in the house locked up." Eliana opened the box, showing Spencer that she'd already gathered together his mother's medications and any over the counter medications she found in the bathroom cabinets. Spencer felt a surge of anxiety when he realized that the small brown bottles of unapproved medication he bought in Mexico were also present inside the lock box. Eliana plucked one of them up and held it in her hand. "If you want to give your mother your own multivitamin drops," she said, offering Spencer a conspiratorial wink before she continued. "...you'll need to put them in a labeled bottle." Eliana turned, grabbing a bottle of baby vitamin drops she must have picked up from the store when she and Lynn went to buy what they needed for dinner. "You can dump these out and use this bottle if you want," she suggested. "That way when you're out of town, I can make sure your mom still gets her vitamins."
Eliana placed both bottles in the plastic lock box and waited, her eyes scanning his face to see what his reaction would be before she continued. Spencer stayed quiet for a moment, letting what just happened absorb into his mind. Eliana couldn't possibly know what he had in the small brown bottles. But she wasn't stupid. The liquid clearly wasn't multivitamin drops. Eliana must have decided to trust that whatever Spencer was giving his mother, he was giving it with the intention of helping her.
"I'll do that," he promised. Eliana responded with a gentle smile. And to his relief, she locked the box up and placed it back under the sink without any further discussion about its contents. Spencer followed her over to the table and sat down, watching as she opened her laptop and clicked at the keys. Once the webpage she was looking for popped up on the screen, she pushed the device towards Spencer so he would have a better view.
"This is the Ingleside senior living center," Eliana said. "I know you want to keep your mother here with you. But she needs constant supervision. Weekend respite care would give you a break. And ultimately, it will make it so you can keep her here with you longer without getting burnt out…" Eliana paused, watching for his reaction. Family members were often opposed to respite care initially. They didn't want strangers caring for their loved one. If that was the case, she wasn't going to push it, even though she pulled a lot of strings to make it even a possibility. And she knew respite care was the best choice.
"I tried to get her into this place," Spencer said, clicking through the familiar photos. The facility was not only less than a half hour drive from his apartment, it was amazing. The place had an art studio, a salon, there was even a meditation room. "The director said there was a year-long wait list…"
Eliana smiled as she let out a soft sigh of relief. "Amber might have called in a favor for me," she admitted. Amber was the woman that ran the staffing agency. They'd been friends for years. And since Eliana was doing her the favor of taking this job, she decided her friend owed her one in return. Amber called the director of the institution personally and persuaded him into securing Diana Reid a place there. "Not bad for someone that's not a real nurse, huh?," she teased.
The well rehearsed apology Spencer perfected in his mind came flooding back. But he only managed to get out the first few words before Eliana stopped him.
"I'm so sorry about this morning…"
"You don't need to apologize," she said, rising from her seat. Eliana reached for her laptop, closing it before she slid it into her bag with the rest of her things. But before she could move away from the table, Spencer reached out and caught her by the hand. Her hand was small compared to his. And her skin was slightly rougher than he expected. There was a small callus on her palm and a raised scar on the side of her pinky finger. A small gasp escaped from her. But she made no attempt to remove her hand from his. His skin was tingling everywhere it was touching hers. And he felt a strange calm wash over him. With her hand in his, suddenly everything felt right in the world.
"Thank you," Spencer said. "...for everything. I can't remember the last time I saw my mom this happy."
Eliana stayed there, frozen in place. Only her thumb was moving, softly stroking back and forth across the side of his hand. She felt like she was hypnotized by the darkening color of his amber eyes and the warm feel of his larger hand wrapped around her smaller one. His face was shaved. But he must not have shaved that morning. Because there was stubble across his jawline and in his goatee area. And thoughts of what that rough skin would feel like brushing across the softer parts of her body began to flash through her mind. When she felt the heat starting to burn down low in the base of her stomach, she broke the contact and pulled her hand away. Eliana adjusted the strap of her bag, tugging it up higher on her shoulder before she forced herself to head towards the door. She paused in the doorway, glancing back at him with a smile.
"Goodnight, Dr. Reid," she said. "I'll see you in the morning."
