Rory had intended to help the man to the bedroom, but when she looked down and saw the shattered glass and water, she said, "Wait a second. I’ll clean up the glass first."
"It’s fine, I..."
"When you’re sick, you listen to the doctor. Don’t be stubborn."
Rory couldn’t help but raise her voice.
She didn’t dare to imagine what would have happened if he hadn’t co out for water, or if she’d gone to bed early and never heard the glass shatter.
Sean started to move, but seeing the serious look in her eyes, he stopped and stood still.
He realized that whenever he was the patient, Rory beca much more assertive.
It had been that way since the first ti they t as adults.
Rory bent down, carefully swept the glass shards into a corner for the ti being, and then helped him back to the bedroom.
Then, she fetched the first-aid kit.
Just as she’d suspected, his temperature was nearly thirty-nine degrees.
That was in the high fever range.
Rory asked as she rummaged through the dicines in the first-aid kit, "Should we go to the hospital, or do you want to try taking so dicine first?"
"Let’s try the dicine. No need for the hospital."
It wasn’t that Sean was against going to the hospital.
He just knew that if he went, Rory would insist on accompanying him.
He didn’t want to put her through that trouble.
"Okay."
Rory applied a cooling patch to his forehead and took out two types of dicine.
She then went to the kitchen to properly clean up the shattered glass before bringing back a glass of water.
Sean was still taking the dicine when the phone on the nightstand started ringing.
The screen read: Henry Lancaster.
Sean swallowed and said, "Can you get that? Just put it on speaker."
With a glass of water in one hand and pills in the other, he couldn’t really answer the phone himself.
Rory did as he asked.
"Boss."
Henry Lancaster’s voice quickly ca through from the other end.
"Yeah, go ahead."
After speaking, Sean finally put the pills in his mouth.
"I just had dinner with Evan Hollis. I got a few guys to help get him completely plastered, but we couldn’t get anything out of him," Henry couldn’t help but complain. "And I wasted a good bottle of liquor on him!"
Rory was slightly taken aback.
’Henry Lancaster and Evan Hollis... having dinner?’
Sean didn’t rush to speak. He swallowed the dicine completely, took a few more sips of water, and only then did he ask, "Why so late?"
"Ahem, that kid is a complete pushover. He does whatever you tell him to. After dinner, I said we should hit a bar for so drinks. He tried to get out of it, but all I had to do was intimidate him a little and he ca along. It was the sa with the drinking. I’d just have to pressure him a bit, and he’d start chugging away."
Henry’s tone was one of complete ridicule for Evan.
Rory, however, wasn’t surprised by Evan’s behavior.
Having grown up in an orphanage, Evan had always had that kind of personality.
He was the sa way at the hospital. He would help anyone who asked and always agreed to switch or cover shifts.
Rory had even remarked before that it seed like she saw him every single day at work.
Sean placed the glass on the nightstand, took the phone from Rory, and set it on the comforter. "Are you sure he was really drunk?" he asked.
"Positive!" Henry’s tone was filled with conviction. "You have no idea how much he drank. If he wasn’t drunk after all that, then the man can really hold his liquor."
"And you didn’t get anything out of him?"
"Nothing at all," Henry said. He paused, then asked, "Boss, do you think... we could be wrong about him?"
"Then let’s just leave it at that for now. We’ll talk about it later."
With that, Sean hung up.
The bedroom fell into a long silence.
Finally, Rory spoke. "Actually... I already know about your relationship with Evan Hollis."
She added an explanation, "Evan ntioned his experiences abroad before. And while Auntie Rhodes was hospitalized, I happened to overhear their conversation and found out..."
That’s when she realized the boy Evan had ntioned, the one who wasn’t loved by his own mother, was actually Sean Harrison.
Sean reached out, took Rory’s hand, and explained, "I only found out about it a few days ago myself."
"You two had really never t before?"
Rory was surprised.
When Evan had told her about it before, she hadn’t, for so reason, entirely believed him.
But now that Sean was confirming it, she was convinced.
"That’s right. We’d never t."
Sean nodded.
Rory suddenly rembered sothing...
Evan had ntioned before that Charlotte Rhodes had once spent a Christmas with him.
During that Christmas...
Where was Sean Harrison?
In the West, Christmas is a major holiday, equivalent to the Spring Festival in Celestria.
Imagine your own mother spending the Spring Festival with another child, leaving you by yourself...
The re thought of it was unbearable.
"So... did you know about him back then?" Rory asked.
"I did," Sean said, looking at her. "I’ve known about his existence since I was very young..."
"Wait, hold on a second."
Rory suddenly cut him off.
She shifted toward the center of the bed, opened her arms, and threw them around Sean.
His body was scorching hot from the fever.
Just holding him seed to make her own body grow warm.
Sean seed to freeze at the sudden embrace.
A hug wasn’t an overly intimate gesture for their relationship.
Feeling the angle was awkward, Rory simply straddled his lap and hugged him even tighter.
Sean’s hand ca to rest on her back as well.
She pressed her cheek close to his ear and said earnestly, "Sean Harrison, whatever happened in the past, let’s just let it go. We’re getting married soon. I only love you, I will only be good to you, and there will never be a second choice..."
With every word she spoke, she could clearly feel his arms tightening around her.
She continued, "It doesn’t matter if I keep working with Evan, or if I et other people at work in the future. In my heart, you will always be irreplaceable. Because you were the one who helped when I was most helpless. You’re the reason I know for the first ti what it feels like to have soone to catch you when you fall..."
Only Rory herself knew how she’d felt that day she saw Gary Sinclair.
The shaless look on his face as he demanded that she support him.
She rembered how close she’d been to breaking down.
Even looking back on it now, it didn’t seem like such a terrible thing.
But to her in that mont, it had really felt like the sky was falling.
But thank God she had Sean afterward.
For the first ti, she wasn’t afraid of being reckless.
For the first ti, she had an inkling that even if she acted rashly, soone would be there to catch her.
After Rory finished saying everything she had to say, she pulled away slightly. "Okay, now you get so rest. Once you’re better, if there’s anything you want to tell , I’ll be ready to listen."
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