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“No, that’s ok—” I start, but he disconnects.
I let my head fall back against the wall, which is really not the right thing to do either. The room shifts as if rocking from right to left and I squeeze my eyes shut. But then I pull myself up off the floor and splash more water on my face, forcing myself to sip enough to wet my dry, chalky-feeling mouth. I look up at my reflection and wince.
My dark hair is greasy, my bangs matted to the sides of my forehead. My skin is sallow and weirdly shiny. My lips are pale and chapped, and my eyes are red. And now the guy I’ve been obsessing over for the past couple months is coming over. Great.
I push back off the sink as there’s a knock at the back door. I turn to see Derek peeking in through the window, but I move my head too fast. The hallway spins around me and I fall into the wall, going down again.
There’s a crashing sound and then there’s hands on me. They’re hot and strong, and they pull me up, wrapping around me.
“Princess, what’s wrong?” Derek says, pushing my bangs off my forehead as he presses the back of his hand to my skin.
He smells fresh and spicy and not at all like vomit. I breathe him in.
“I’m sick.” My voice is like gravel and he lets out a soft chuckle, but as my eyes focus on his deep blues, I don’t see any joy.
“I can see that,” he says. I know I’m a little out of it, but he sounds relieved. Like,reallyrelieved. “How long have you been sick?”
“I don’t know,” I say, letting my hot eyes shut again as he runs his fingertips over my forehead, my neck.
“Alright, I’ve got you,” he says, shifting beneath me and then lifting me all too easily.
I start to object, but the word catches in my throat and I nearly gag on it. His arms feel so good around me as he shuffles into my room.
“Where’s your purse?” he asks.
“Nightstand,” I mumble.
He shifts, and I can’t see, but it’s as if he’s grabbed something. Just as I think he’s about to set me on my bed, he turns and carries me out the front door. The mid-day June sun is too much. I burrow my face into his chest and he holds me tighter, carrying me outside in the lukewarm air.
He buckles me into his car. But without his body to block the sun, the blinding light makes me recoil into myself.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Use these.” He rests sunglasses on my nose and shuts the door.
“Where?” I ask when he starts driving.
“To get you taken care of,” he says.
“I can’t—” I start, the motion of the car making my nausea spike again. I wait for it to go away, and then I try again. “I can’t afford—”
“Don’t worry, princess,” he says again, placing his hand on my knee. “Just close your eyes.”
I don’t have the energy to do anything else, so I do just that. With his hand on my knee, I fall asleep, finally getting a break from the sick.
CHAPTER12
DEREK
My heart is still hammeringin my chest as Megan sleeps in the hospital bed. She looks better already, the saline drip doing wonders for her color.
When I found her curled up on her bathroom floor, I nearly fell apart. It was too similar to that time with Deanna. And yet completely different. I didn’t think twice before taking her to the hospital.
When I carried her into the ER, I felt helpless, like one of those climbers who can get caught in an avalanche and have the stomach to amputate their teammate’s arm, but the moment their kid gets a cut, he’s a blubbering mess.
She’d felt so small, so fragile when I carried her in, nothing like the strong, sensual woman I’d had just last weekend. The triage nurse had taken pity on me. Or maybe she just hadn’t wanted me to upset the others waiting their turn to be seen. In any case, she sent us into a room right away and within about ten minutes, they were pumping fluids into her and asking me questions about how long she’d been sick.
Of course, I didn’t have the answers. But when they asked who would be responsible for the bill, I told them I would. I said I was her partner. So the questions kept coming. I hated thinking that she’d been sick like this for more than a day, and that the only reason she hadn’t gotten help was because she couldn’t afford to.
I tried to string together the few details I had. I looked through her phone—I’d deal with that trust violation later—and realized that Megan had been sick to her stomach for a while. That, and her roommates worried she might have E. coli poisoning. The triage staff gave her something for the nausea. She’d fallen asleep shortly after they pumped her full of fluids. But I hadn’t left her side.
