I arrive at Henry’s apartment next morning at eight am to cook him breakfast while listening to soft jazz. Usually, he scrolls through email on his phone while eating, and we co-exist in complete silence, but today, he wanted me to eat with him.
So here I am, sitting on the chair opposite his, munching my meal awkwardly, wondering what I should do or say.
“How’re you finding the work so far?” he asks, phone turned face-down on the table. He hasn’t had a shower yet, so he still has bed hair.
Mouth stuffed with baked beans, I look up at him. “Huh?”
“Do you like working here?”
Domesticity was never my forte, so this housekeeping gig still feels funny to me, is what I would say if I didn’t have a filter on my mouth (which I thankfully do). So instead, I say, “I do. Lucien and I are starting to become friends.”
Okay, that last line might have been a lie, but I’m not above petty lies.
“I’m happy to hear that. Lucien’s not a very easy kid to get along with. And the house looks sparkling clean these days. I’m happy.”
“Th-thank you…” I blush. Flattery is my Achilles heel. “Always happy to make my employer happy.”
“That’s a turnaround from our college days,” he mutters.
“What do you mean?”
“Back then, I don’t think you’d have said something like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like wanting to make someone else happy.” He sips coffee. “You’ve changed.”
“Yeah…I guess.”
Dense as I am, even I can tell that he stopped himself short of calling me a ‘self-centered bitch,’ which is what I was when I was twenty. I’m his employee, but he doesn’t treat me any differently than a colleague. Countless times, he could have mocked me for the way I treated him. He could have been unkind. But he’s never done that. He’s really mature that way.
“I’ll be hanging around at home a bit longer than usual today. I have a presentation to prepare for, so there will be a lot of talking to myself in my room. Hope it doesn’t disturb you.” Taking another bite of toast, he turns his phone face-up.
“No problem. I’m used to working in noise.” That’s the second bare-faced lie for today. “By the way, what kind of presentation is it?”
“An important sales presentation. I’m trying to rope in a new client.”
“All the best. I’m sure you’ll do great,” I say, optimistically.
“Thanks.” His smile is thin. “I usually leave presentations like these to the sales department. Public speaking is not my strength. But I have no choice today.”
“I could help you,” I offer. “I’m really good at speaking in front of people because I studied acting.”
Propping his elbow on the table, he rests his head on his palm. “I think I’ll manage.”
Breakfast winds to a close soon after and both of us get a head-start on our work. Henry goes in to take a shower and I load the dishes in the dishwasher, waiting for him to get out. He’s a man, so his time in the shower is five minutes, max.
After he’s finished with the shower, I drag my unwilling body to the bathroom. Cleaning the bathrooms is today’s critical chore. If I postpone it any longer, Henry will realize that I’ve been slacking off.
Thick steam circles around the bathroom when I enter. I may only have been at this job for a few days, but I already have a list of chores I hate; pretty much everything features on it, except laundry (surprise, surprise). Furthermore, bathroom cleaning is right at the top.
Grumbling to myself, I scrub the tiles with Henry’s hurricane spin scrubber. It’s a neat little gadget, actually, although from the noise it makes, you’d think it was a dying mouse.
The worst part is that I can’t hear the music in the bathroom because of the noise this contraption produces, so I can’t sing to keep myself distracted.
As I make a feeble attempt at getting steam off the sliding glass doors of the shower enclosure, my imagination drifts to Henry in the shower. Water falling over his strong jaw, beading on his shoulder, trickling all the way down his stomach…I wonder what kind of stomach he has. The guy’s pretty thin, but I can’t imagine muscle.
No, no, no. I shake my head vehemently. What am I doing, traveling down such a dark road? Where do I even get these stupid thoughts from, anyway? They’re irrational. I’d never want to have sex with Henry, nor can I.
My back creaks as I push it back upright, finished dealing with the lower tiles. Thankfully, there’s no bathtub in this bathroom to kill my back any further. Moving on to the wash basin, I move Henry’s toothbrush, facewash, moisturizer (he uses Shiseido—no wonder he has such good skin), shaving cream etc. to the side, out of the way of my multi-purpose cleaner’s spray. Then I use a scrubber to scrub away the dirt and stains from the white ceramic.
Wiping the beads of perspiration that have settled on my head, I survey the tiles that should be dry by now—and see a huge (and by huge, I mean HUGE) cockroach wriggling out the drain, a split-second away from tickling my toe with the antennas on its head. (I think that’s its head. I’m not sure. Do cockroaches have heads? They don’t strike me as the thinking type.)
While I’m debating the cockroach’s IQ, it springs to action, streaking across the floor I painstakingly polished and heading straight for me. Not having a brain sure has its advantages. Less thinking, more doing.
As its disgusting shape fills my vision, my skin crawls. Jumping back, I let out an ear-splitting scream. “Aaaaaaaahhhh!”
The tiles tremble. Also, I confirm once and for all that cockroaches possess ears, because the cockroach zigzags across the white ground, racing back to the dark corner it crawled out of.
I barely keep my knees from giving out, clutching the wash basin for support.
Footfalls echo at the entrance of the bathroom.
“What’s the matter? You screamed.” Henry marches into the bathroom, halting right behind me, catching my tomato-red face in the mirror.
“I…” My words die in my throat, unable to find the air to escape.
He’s wearing nothing except a towel tied around his waist. I try not to make a big deal of this. I’ve seen naked men on sets before, even acted with them. He’s not even naked. This amount of skin showing is acceptable…I think.
But God help me. I’m staring at his chest. It’s a lot better than I imagined. If I look really carefully, I can even see a cut or two of muscle in there. There’s a smattering of brown hair over it. He was always thin, but he’s gained some weight that’s really helped fill him out—and make him incredibly hot.
My body temperature turns up all of a sudden, due to the subject of my mental fantasies suddenly having materialized in front of my eyes.
“There was a cockroach…it was here…” I thump my foot on the spot, but there’s nothing there. Oh, no. Henry’s gonna think I made a fuss for nothing. “It crawled back into the drain.”
He cranes his neck. “I thought I’d sorted out the cockroach problem, but guess not. I’ll call the exterminator over the weekend.”
“The buggers are really resilient. It’s hard to kill them,” I inform him.
I had cockroach problems in LA, too. After a while, I just let them be.
Henry moves closer, and his arm darts past me to the bottle of pills set on the side of the wash basin. “Since I’m already here, do you mind if I get my medicine?”
My face erupts in flames as his scent envelops me—his fresh after-bath scent. It’s so sensual right now, with his face behind me, his arm close enough to grab, his chest easy enough to sink into.
In my dazed state, I try to grip the side of the basin, which is slippery because of all the soap I threw in there to clean it. My palm slides right off the smooth granite and I launch backwards, colliding into that solid chest of his and knocking him over like a domino.
“Aaaahhhh!” Our twin screams deaden at the same time as we hit the floor, his hip making a loud ‘thud’ as tiles bang against it, and my hip making a softer thud as it slaps his hip.
He releases a pained groan that vibrates through my tissues. We’re skin to skin, and for the first time I feel him naked against me.
My panic goes into overdrive. Let’s just say that I’m not someone who feels comfortable being so physically close to a guy I don’t know well.
Immediately I come off his chest, crushing his leg in the process, inciting a few more groans from him. “I’m so sorry—are you okay?”
His body is unmoving, his irises swinging like a pendulum from left to right. God, I hope he didn’t fracture something, or I’ll feel guilty for the rest of my life. I was so happy about the relative calm of the last two days, but it was all for naught.
Why do accidents follow me around?
Henry makes a jerky movement to the side, preserving his modesty by wrapping the towel around him tighter. “Never mind. It was my fault. I was in a hurry.”
“I’ll help you.” I give him my hand.
He doesn’t take it.
“Can you leave me alone for a while? I think it’ll take some time for me to get to my feet.”
“O-okay.”
If I were a good person, I would stay and help, but I’m so embarrassed that I welcome the opportunity to flee.
Minutes later, he emerges from the bathroom, walking in a lopsided waddle, looking decidedly pissed off. But he doesn’t say anything to me, just steals into his room and presses the door shut.
Unable to digest the thought of being in that bathroom again so soon, I hang out in front of his door, listening to the sounds emanating from inside the room. Is he cursing me? Is he shouting? Actually…it sounds more like he’s running through a terribly awkward presentation.
I can hear every word clearly.
“So…um…so now that we have a good understanding of the company, I’ll proceed to explaining similar cases we have dealt with in the past.” He speeds up all of a sudden. “Based on the results of experiments conducted by my team in the refinery, we came to the conclusion that the current processes are outdated. The reaction mechanism results in too many toxic byproducts and by changing the catalyst and reaction pathway, we can prevent…”
All of a sudden, he stops. I strain my ears to hear what’s happening, when the door suddenly opens and my ear slaps against his chest. I pull back like I’ve been burnt.
“Max?” Henry casts a suspicious glance towards me. At least he’s wearing a shirt now.
“I…was…I was…cleaning…the door,” I stutter, caressing the door. He lifts up an eyebrow. Doesn’t believe me, does he?
Angry, I thrust my hands forward—my very empty hands. Crap. I don’t have any cleaning stuff. For goodness’ sake, how many times am I going to humiliate myself in one morning?
Quickly, I add, “I definitely wasn’t eavesdropping,” before he gets any wrong ideas.
A smile ghosts on his lips. “Did you like what you heard?”
“To be honest, I didn’t understand any of it.”
“Thought so.” He resorts to leaning against the doorjamb, like he can’t continue standing straight anymore. “Max, can I ask you to get me pain-relieving cream from the medicine cabinet? The Blue-Emu one. My back’s hurting.”
He winces, then tries to cover it up by feigning a smile that looks nothing like a smile. From the tautness of his facial muscles alone, I can feel his pain.
“I’m sorry. It’s my fault.” I bend my head downwards.
I’ve been totally out of shape since I gave up on being an actress. And living in such close proximity to Ji-ae and her kitchen doesn’t help one bit. Imagine having someone like me land on your stomach. I’m surprised his back didn’t shatter to pieces.
“The cream, please?” he repeats, his words forced. It must be hurting.
“Yeah, sure thing. I’ll be right back.”
I trip over myself trying to scoot away from him—from the strong, electric shocks of tension he sends into my body. He was so happy with my work this morning, but he’s going to regret hiring me now.
The housekeeper who caused an injury to her employer…henceforth, I shall be known as such.
Digging through the medicine cabinet, I locate the thing pretty fast, and pick up some ice packs and painkillers, too. The damage might turn out being worse than he thinks.
Walking back, I wonder what would happen if he really injured himself and has to stay home. It would blow his important presentation. I’d feel horrible if that happened.
Back in the room, Henry’s lying down on the bed, a pillow under the arch of his back. A bent hand is placed over his head, and his eyes flicker open and closed. Hell, it looks bad. It took so much to worm my way back into Henry’s good graces, and now this. Can I ever catch a break?
“How much does it hurt?” I ask, placing the stuff I gathered beside him on the bed, crushing the ice pack between my hands. Wrapping it in a towel, I place it on his lower back.
His facial muscles loosen slightly. “Thanks. You can leave now. Close the door after you.”
“I should stay and help.”
“You shouldn’t.” There’s an ominous undertone to his voice, one I can’t trace the source of.
But I can’t leave him alone. He doesn’t look good, and I don’t want to be gnawed by guilt later if something happens to him.
“I want to. Please,” I plead. This doesn’t alter his reluctance. “I give legendary massages. You should try one while I’m giving it away for free.”
“I don’t need a massage,” he says, firmly.
“You’re right; you probably need a doctor more than a massage. I’ll call Emilia.”
“Emilia’s a heart surgeon.” He coughs.
“The heart and the back are not that far away.” I lay an arm on his chest to prove my point. “See?”
“Max…that’s not the point.” Henry drags out a long-suffering sigh. He must be starting to see the value of my advice. “Fine. Give me a massage. Use the Blue-Emu cream.”
“Knew you’d come around.” Unscrewing the top off the container, I beam at Henry. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? It’s okay to let other people help you once in a while. No man’s an island.”
He makes a face like he’s bracing himself to walk on burning coal, then turns over. Gingerly I lift up his shirt and examine his back. It’s a testament to my professionalism that I don’t shriek. His back’s swollen. This does not look promising. I doubt he’ll be able to do that presentation today. And it’ll be my fault.
I start rubbing the cream in circles. A muffled cry fires from him. I can’t imagine how much it hurts. He’s probably being really brave. At this point, some diversion could help him, so I start talking.
“By the way, why do you take medicine? Are you sick?”
He looks fit as a fiddle, but who knows what he’s like inside?
“Something like that,” he admits in a somber tone.
“Don’t tell me you have cancer!” I say, intending it to be funny.
“What? How did you know?” Henry’s back arches like a bow, and I have to press it down, along with the tidal wave of sadness rising up in me.
“You have cancer?”
Why? Why does he have cancer? Why? It doesn’t make any sense. He’s such a calm person…but I suppose diseases don’t discriminate.
Henry winds his fingers around my wrist. Against all reason, I do the same.
“Past tense. I had cancer. It’s already been cured, so I’m not gonna kick the bucket tomorrow or anything.” A dark shadow falls over his face. Up this close, I can easily see that this is a very difficult topic for him to talk about. “I only take the medicines to maintain my health. So don’t panic. You won’t be losing your job anytime soon.”
“That’s not what I panicked about!” I yell.
But I can’t tell him what I panicked about. Because I don’t know that myself. There was this terrible, terrible hollow in my chest when I heard that he was sick. I could have cried. And for a split second, I thought, I don’t want him to die—which isn’t surprising, because nobody wants anybody to die. It’s human impulse to hate the thought of death.
“You must’ve been young when you found out about it.” My voice is scratchy and uncharacteristically mellow.
“Yeah. I was twenty-three. Luck was on my side, though, because it was a small tumor and it hadn’t spread yet, so I could be cured.”
As I dig my fingers into his back, he yelps. Withdrawing immediately, I place the ice pack back on his skin. “Sorry. Was I too rough?”
“Not at all. I’m overreacting. Back pain makes me paranoid.” He pauses before elaborating. “I used to have shooting lower back pain before I was diagnosed with cancer.”
Now I feel ten times worse for my clumsiness. Why, oh, why, am I always messing up big time? What if he gets sick again because of this? What if he broke something? I’m scared. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him.
I pull the duvet over his back to give him a rest from my massage. “Can I get you anything else?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks for your help. You were a lifesaver.”
I nod, but stay put. I’m not leaving Henry alone. He needs someone to watch over him, and as useless as I am, I can be counted on to stick.
My eyes never stray from him, not even when he asks me to hand him his iPad so he can rehearse his speech again.
Listening to him go through the speech is not easy, though. His voice is a monotone, and I yawn quite a few times. Watching his face and the myriad of expressions that cross it is oddly fascinating. I’ve never been interested in someone to this level.
“Why’re you staring at me?” Henry asks self-consciously. “Is my speech that bad?”
I push back the strands of hair that have fallen over his forehead. “I’m shocked you haven’t criticized me or thrown a tantrum yet. Whenever Coop—my brother—even gets a small cold, he acts like a spoilt brat, throwing tantrums day and night. In my experience, people who are unwell tend to be grumpy, but you’re so even-tempered.”
He moves his body, flipping so his back is on the bed again. He sets the iPad on his chest. “When I was sick, I realized how fortunate I was to have people to look after me. I wanted to be useful to them in my own way. Because I couldn’t move, or even talk much, all I could do was smile. That way, I could at least cheer them up. Since then, I’ve decided not to be grumpy or get mad at anyone.”
I didn’t think Henry was so optimistic. But I’m discovering new facets of him.
“That must be a hard resolution.”
“It’s gotten easier over time.” He wriggles under the covers. “So what do you think of my speech?”
“It’s soporific.” I yawn yet again. Damn, I didn’t want to be so rude, but nature will do what it wants.
Henry shrugs, although it doesn’t have the impact of a shrug, because he’s lying down. “Giving presentations is not my thing. I’m an introvert.”
“That isn’t an excuse.” I snag the iPad. “Anybody can learn to deliver a speech. First off, smile. And look at the audience.”
“Yeah…I can manage that.”
“And there’s a rhythm you must follow while delivering dialogue.”
Tapping my finger on the iPad screen, I show him the trick. During my degree, I studied speech, accent, and diction in great detail, so I’m able to offer useful advice here. For his part, he listens attentively, even reading the lines with me.
Soon, though, it’s time for him to leave. He asks me to get the hell out (politely, of course), but I stall.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go to work.”
“I’m fine. It’s not as bad as it looks.”
“What’ll you do if it gets worse?”
“It won’t.”
Eventually he succeeds in shooing me out. Biting my nails, I pace the living room until he comes out wearing a suit, which is rare, because he usually doesn’t wear one to work. It makes him look so professional…and my heart gets another reason to beat like a machine gun. I swear I’m getting so much cardio just being around Henry.
“Bye. See you tomorrow,” Henry says with his customary cheerfulness, hurrying out.
If I’d seen him in a stream of people, I’d never have known how exceptional he was. I’d have looked down on him, judging him to be too quiet and clumsy with emotions. I’d never look at him twice, because he’s not head-turning gorgeous. Isn’t clever with words. Doesn’t ooze charm from every pore. Isn’t sexually adept.
And maybe I’d be poorer for never having given him a chance.
“Bye,” I whisper to myself.
Of one thing I’m sure—I was destined to meet Henry again.
