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“You’re a very attentive caretaker,” Lola noted as I handed her the pills and watched her chase them with a mouthful of neon blue sports drink. “If I didn’t know you as well as I do, I’d be worried you actually cared about me.”
I thought about responding but decided that was a dangerous topic. I picked up the thermometer and aimed it between her eyes, waiting for it to beep with her temperature. “You’re down to a hundred. That’s better than this morning.”
Lola nodded, taking another sip of her drink. “I’m just glad I haven’t thrown up again.” She fiddled with the cap on her drink, eyebrows knitting together before she looked back up at me. “Aren’t they going to miss you at the tower? You’ve been here hours. I thought you didn’t even leave, let alone stay out all day.”
“I don’t typically leave,” I admitted. “But you have a way of making me behave in all sorts of ways I don’t normally behave.”
She smiled. “I can’t decide if that’s a compliment or a complaint.”
“It’s both.”
“Well, thank you and deal with it, then.”
I grinned.
Lola smiled too, but she leaned back and rested her head against the back of the couch, eyes closing. “God. I’m so tired.”
“Then rest. I’ll keep cleaning until my people get here. Do you want to go to your bed, or would you rather stay on the couch?”
“The bed sounds nice, but I also don’t feel like crawling on all fours to my room. This will be fine.”
“Is that the bedroom?” I asked, nodding toward a door behind the couch.
“Yeah, why?”
I bent to scoop Lola up from the couch. I was surprised by how light she felt in my arms, even as she wiggled and weakly tried to shake me free. “Hey,” she said. “I didn’t ask to be delivered.”
“Too bad,” I said. I carried her across the room, enjoying the moment she stopped struggling and simply went limp in my arms. Her skin felt far too hot, and I wished the damn medicine would work better. I leaned to set her on the bed as carefully as I could and nearly tipped over when she didn’t let go. She’d wrapped her arms around my neck as we walked, and she tugged my head down as I set her on the bed. She looked like she was already asleep.
I carefully unthreaded her hands from behind my neck and set them beside her on the bed. She felt too hot to need blankets, but she clutched her kid’s blanket tighter around herself and curled up like she was cold, so I pulled the comforter over her and found a few spare blankets to set beside her in case she woke up and needed more.
I thought about going back to clean more and decided I should keep an eye on her. I took a seat in a loveseat couch by the window and leaned back. Within minutes, I felt more tired than I’d felt in weeks. I thought if I closed my eyes, I’d almost certainly fall to sleep–to real sleep, the kind of sleep that didn’t come in spurts of thirty minutes at a time and leave me feeling more groggy and cranky than when I’d laid down.
I don’t know how long I sat there with my eyes open, but at some point they drifted closed to the sounds of Lola’s steady breathing and the hum of her ceiling fan.
19
LOLA
I rolled over in my bed and groaned. I winced and rubbed at my throat, which felt like it had been dusted with hairspray. My head felt like it was stuffed with wet wool, and I was pretty sure I could’ve gone right back to sleep. Instead, I looked for Termite. God only knew how long it’d been since she was outside. I probably had a few nasty surprises waiting for me around the apartment.
I eased myself up on the bed and my bleary eyes shot wide open when I saw a massive, sleeping man sitting by the window in my bedroom. His arms were crossed over his lean stomach as he took deep breaths with his head rolled to the side.
Termite perked up at my movement, putting her snout right in my face. I scratched her distractedly, then met her eyes and mouthed “what the fuck?”. Termite licked my nose and then started doing a little tap dance at the edge of the bed. She definitely needed to pee.
I dragged myself off the bed and scooped her up under my arm, grimacing and pinching the bridge of my nose as the headache pulsed with every movement. I took one more confused look at Mr. Stone sleeping in my freaking bedroom before I headed to the front door with Termite. I slid on my slippers and shuffled down the stairs and to the closest patch of grass where Termite let out a legendary amount of pee. She immediately squatted to poop right after.
