“You’ve been mumbling since I got to your place.” He put the car in park. There was a gravel area for parking, and it was filling up fast. I saw a few students walking with their instruments toward the makeshift stage near the entrance. I couldn’t let them down.
“I can make it through a few hours,” I said.
Leo turned and pressed his fingers to my head and sucked in a breath.
“I shouldn’t have let you leave the house,” he said.
“As if you could stop me,” I mumbled.
“That’s what I thought you would say.” He bent his fingers to press the backs of them against my cheeks.
I fought the overwhelming urge to close my eyes and lean into him.
“You’re on fire,” he whispered.
I pretended to lick a finger and tapped it on my shoulder. I made a sizzling sound.
He groaned a laugh. “Think of it this way, if you have a fever?—”
“I do not?—”
“Which you absolutely do. Do you really want to be around your students? Let alone yelling at them, potentially spewing your spit into their faces.”
My hand froze on the door. He had a point. Dang it. “I hardly spew,” I protested weakly.
I imagined trying to summon the energy to conduct them when I could barely hold my head up. Or walking around the festival, talking with all the residents, shaking hands, spreading whatever this was to the innocent bystanders of Green Valley.
“I had so much I wanted to get done today.” I let my head fall back against the headrest. I wanted to summon the familiar anger that usually motivated me to get moving, but I couldn’t even muster that much.
I closed my eyes and noticed how they burned. In fact, now that I started to acknowledge his point, I allowed the rest of what I’d been blocking in. I felt like absolute garbage.
“They’re going to be so disappointed. They’ve been working so hard.” I curled up into a ball in his passenger seat.
He reached across me to tug a handle, and the seat leaned all the way back. He was so warm and cozy that I wanted him to fold me up like origami and stick me in his pocket. A second later, he was lifting my head and tucking a sweatshirt under me. I shivered. “See. Can’t be a fever. I’m f-f-freezing.” I wrapped my arms tight around myself.
He swore under his breath. “Is there anybody else who can help get them set up?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Don’t think so.” I shivered again. I heard the sounds of him moving around but was having a harder time focusing. This was getting worse rapidly. At what point would I need to be quarantined?
This was the end for me.
“You’re not dying. Just really sick.” He tucked a blanket around me, making sure no part of me was uncovered.
“Oh, that’s nice.” I sighed in relief. “Of course you have an emergency blanket in your car.”
“Everybody should. I won’t be judged by the woman who has more clothes in her car than food in her apartment.”
“Touché.” I yawned, jaw cracking.
“They’re self-sufficient. Maybe they’re fine on their own,” he said.
I shook my head. “They’re like little ducklings. They need their mama duck.”
He chuckled. “What about Devlin? He’s a conductor.”
I imagined the big grumpy man as a mother hen to a bunch of little ducklings.
“That’s true. In fact, he’ll be with the SOOK now,” I said.
