Chapter 2

The voice didn't stop. For three days, I was trapped in a room with Tori Blackwood's unfiltered inner monologue.

Oh, look, Mom's here. She's wearing the Chanel suit. The one that makes her look like a flight attendant for a very judgmental airline.

Is that Ethan? The contract husband? He looks... broke. At least he's not ugly. I guess I can work with that.

It was driving me insane. It was like having a sarcastic, pop-culture-obsessed ghost haunting my brain. She complained about everything. The nurses' shoes, the daytime TV shows, the slight draft from the window.

Then came the itch.

My leg. My left leg. There's an itch. Right below my knee. Oh my god, it's unbearable. This is my personal hell. An itch I can't scratch for all eternity.

For an hour, she mentally screamed about this itch. It was so constant, so vivid, I could almost feel it myself.

Scratch it! Somebody, for the love of all that is holy, scratch my leg!

I couldn't take it anymore.

"Fine," I muttered under my breath.

I looked at the door. No one was there. I leaned over her bed. Her leg was under a crisp white sheet. I hesitated, feeling like a total creep.

Is he going to do it? Is the broke musician going to scratch the itch? This is the most drama I've had in months.

I awkwardly reached out and, through the sheet, scratched her leg just below the knee.

Her inner voice went silent for a second.

Then it exploded.

OMG. He did it. He scratched it. How did he know? Can he hear me? Is he a psychic? A pervert? Wait... oh, that's so much better. A little to the left... yes, right there.

I pulled my hand back like I'd touched a hot stove. My heart was pounding. This was real. She knew that I knew.

Just then, the door opened. Eleanor Blackwood walked in, holding a designer handbag. She froze, her eyes wide, staring at my hand, which was still hovering near her daughter's thigh.

Her icy expression melted. A strange, soft look replaced it.

"Oh," she breathed. "Oh, my."

I straightened up, my face burning. "I was just... adjusting her blanket."

"Of course," she said, but she was smiling. A real, genuine smile. She looked from my face to her daughter's peaceful one. "I saw. The way you touched her. So tenderly."

I had no idea what to say.

"I misjudged you, Ethan," she said, her voice thick with emotion. "I thought this was just business. But that... that was real. You truly love her."

Before I could protest, she pulled out a checkbook.

"This allowance is not enough for a man with your... depth of feeling. We need to rectify that."

She wrote a check with so many zeros I felt dizzy and handed it to me.

"For your troubles," she said, patting my arm. "Keep up the good work."

She walked out, leaving me staring at the check, Tori's silent, astonished inner voice buzzing in my head.

Did that just happen? Did my mother just pay him a massive bonus for scratching my leg? This is the best soap opera ever.

I looked at the check, then at my comatose wife. My life had just gotten very, very weird.