Beau didn’t answer, so she counted the steps as he and Miguel took them one at a time.
“Now we’re in the foyer,” she said when they got inside. “You want to sit down for a spell? I could bring you something to drink, or some food if you’re hungry.”
“No,” he answered, his voice sharp and hard. “I want to go to my room. Now.”
“All right. That’s totally fine,” she said, throwing Miguel an apologetic look. The poor man had definitely not signed up for this. “If you could just lead him to the big staircase over there.” Then to Beau: “Mr. Prescott, we’re at the big staircase now. Lots of steps, I’ll count them as we go up.”
“No.” His voice was colder than a decade of Northern winters. “No more telling me where I am, no more counting.”
Josie’s face fell. “But the counting is so you can get used to moving around the house on your own,” she said. “Counting the stairs out might seem silly now, but it will help you memorize the numbers when I’m not around.”
“Why’s my mom paying you if you’re not going to be around?” he asked. Then, before she could answer, he waved Miguel forward. “Take me upstairs.”
She thanked Miguel profusely after they’d arrived in Beau’s old room. Another thing her mother had taught her was to be twice as kind to the other help as she was to the Prescotts. “Let me just go get a tip out of the mad money…”
But Miguel shook his head, “No, ma’am, that’s already taken care of,” he answered.
“Oh no, I couldn’t let you leave here without something.”
“Really, it’s all right, ma’am. I was paid a tip in advance.”
“Yes, but—”
“He said it was taken care of, Josie,” Beau said. “Let him go already.”
She pursed her lips, about ready to tell Beau what he could do with his edicts and commands, but then she remembered how much she needed this job and her room with it’s little amenities—like heat and electricity.
“Well, then I hope you know how grateful we are for your assistance,” she said to Miguel, pasting a tight-lipped smile on her face. She then decided to wait for the driver to get all the way out the house before she attempted to reason with Beau again.
While she did so, she looked around the room, realizing if Beau could see, this probably would have been the first time he set eyes on his old bedroom since college. Before Wayne had moved Loretta into her own apartment in Birmingham, she had told Josie that Beau never came home after he went pro, preferring to occasionally fly his parents out to visit him in L.A. rather than come back to Alabama.
“Guess he too good for this place now,” her mother had said.
But Josie hadn’t been able to judge him. She’d started staying away from Alabama herself by then, too, mostly at Wayne’s behest. He’d claimed he couldn’t do without her but also that he couldn’t get away from work to go home with her.
At first she’d been flattered by his desire to keep her by his side, but eventually, she’d come to see Wayne’s supposed devotion for what it really was: his way of keeping her separated from the people she loved, the people who might have helped her.
Maybe it was a good thing Beau couldn’t see this place now, she thought to herself now. She’d suspected Mrs. Prescott wouldn’t be the kind of woman who would leave a room as a shrine to her son, even one who had been as good at football as Beau had been from the start, and she’d been right. His former bedroom now looked like it belonged in an upscale bed and breakfast with its large four-poster bed, an expensive looking Persian rug on the floor, wallpaper covered in a delicate fleur de lys pattern, a crystal chandelier, and lace curtains adorning the huge bay window that looked out onto the back lawn and the woods that lie beyond it.
It was definitely fussier and decidedly more feminine than what Beau was probably used to. She’d once run across a feature on him in one of Wayne’s sports magazines. It had a photo of Beau in an ultra-modern and very masculine penthouse surrounded by lots of windows, sleek black and red furniture, and ample white space. A far cry from his current surroundings, that was for sure.
She finally heard the front door close behind Miguel and said, “Just so you know, your room no longer looks like it used to. If you don’t mind taking my arm, I can give you a quick tour.”
She stood to the side of him and held out her arm, but he didn’t make any move to step closer. Instead, he said, “Is the intercom still to the right of the door?”
She looked over her shoulder to the little white box that would allow him to call her, no matter where she was in the house. “It sure is.”
“I’ll use it if I need it. Now leave.”
“But—”
“Get out,” he said.
She hesitated. Yes, he was being an ass, an even bigger one than he’d been in high school (and that was saying something). But after all the reading she’d done, she felt bad abandoning him in the middle of an unfamiliar room without even a cane to help him find his way around.
“Are you sure there’s nothing else I can get you?” she persisted.
“What part of ‘get out’ don’t you understand?” he asked before turning his head away from her voice, as if to dismiss her with both words and body.
After a few uncomfortable ticks, she decided to do as he’d commanded. He was newly blind, she reminded herself, and needed her sympathy and understanding.
“Oh, and Josie?” he said behind her.
She turned back around. “Yes? Is there something I can bring you?”
“I was just wondering if you were alive.”
“You’re wondering if I’m alive?” she asked, frowning. Could he be having even more side effects from the concussion? “Of course I’m alive.”
He smirked and a bit of the old Alabama drawl laced his words as he asked, “You’re not a ghost? Or maybe one of them zombies?”
“No,” she answered, truly alarmed now and wondering if a visit to the hospital might be in order. “Can I ask why you’re asking me these questions?”
“Because you’re working for me now,” he answered. Then he smiled in her direction, his voice flat and hard. “And it sounds to me like you’re still breathing.”
And with that, Josie knew the amicable working relationship she’d been hoping for was nothing more than a pipe dream.