AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Weston,” I whined, but let my head rest against his chest anyway. “I can walk. I was only kidding that I was too…” I yawned. “Tired.”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s a super funny joke.” He cocked an eyebrow at me as he carried me down the hallway to my bedroom. “Here,” he said, laying me gently on my bed and tucking the covers around me. “Sleep. I’ll bring you the soup when it’s ready. And if you need anything in the meantime, just yell for me.”
I sank into my pillows, my body sighing at the comfort my bed offered. My eyes were heavy, shutting completely without my permission.
“Thanks, Wes,” I whispered, my entire being submitting to the exhaustion.
I felt his hand brush across my forehead, the touch gentle and comforting. I wanted to open my eyes, to keep talking to him, to tell him he didn’t need to leave the Raptor game for me, to argue with him some more about his own well-being, but now that I was warm and cozy, there was nothing on the planet that could keep me awake.
* * *
“Wait,”Weston said after taking another bite of his ice cream. He pointed a licked-clean spoon at the television hanging on the wall over my chest of drawers.
It was about three in the morning because after my four-hour-long nap, I’d awoken starving and energized even though I still felt like I’d been run over by a bus. I ate two bowls of the soup Weston prepared—a deliciously flavorful chicken noodle, my fave—and now we were on to ice cream and Netflix.
“Theyneversee each other?” he continued, dipping his spoon back into his bowl of ice cream.
“Nope,” I answered, my bowl already empty and sitting on the nightstand next to me. We were both stretched out in my bed, leaning against a mountain of pillows. Weston’s long, muscled frame took up more than half of my modest queen bed. It was cozy, even if I was worried about him getting sick too.
“But yet they’re supposed to pick out who they want to marry? How do they know who to choose?” he asked. “They spend all this time in human-sized containers with no windows and just listen to each other talk? Couldn’t they do that on the phone in the comfort of their own homes?”
I laughed, pointing to the screen which was currently playing a reality dating show we’d just started. “Then it wouldn’t be a reality show,” I said. “And I guess they choose based on whoever they click with most.”
Weston shrugged before taking another bite of ice cream.
The little move was entirely more interesting than any Netflix show. The man knew how to wrap his lips around a spoon…
God, I’m losing it.
He sat the now-empty bowl on the nightstand next to him, settling back against the pillows. “Weird,” he said, shaking his head.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I kind of like the concept.”
“Really?” he asked. “You think you’d fall in love with someone you’ve never seen before? Someone you’ve only spoken to?”
“Maybe?” I answered him like it was a question. “I mean, we’d talk about all the important stuff—morals, food preferences, top-ten movies, work-ethic, kids versus no kids—and if by the end of all that I liked the other person, would looks really matter?”
I immediately regretted posing that question out loud. Of course it mattered to him. He only ever dated women who were movie-star gorgeous. Not that that’s the only reason why he dated them, but it was absolutely a factor. Why else would he date someone as vile as Lena?
“I guess in a way you’re right,” he said. “But all that stuff is only part of the equation.”
I snorted. “Oh, you have an equation for dating?”
“I thought we were talking about attraction and falling in love.”
I swallowed hard. If he was about to tell me how he was falling for Lena…God, it would be the worst addition to the flu in the history of time.
“What’s the other part of the equation?” I asked when he didn’t continue.
“Chemistry,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Chemistry,” I repeated.
Weston turned his eyes toward me, not bothering with the television. “Yeah,” he said. “You know, that feeling you get when the person walks into the room. When your heart races for no particular reason other than their signature scent hit your nose. When you go to bed thinking about them and wake up doing the same. That internal, inherent inability to stop your body from reacting whenever they’re around. That stuff can’t be bought, faked, let alone uncovered when you have a wall between you.” He motioned to the show.
My words got tangled in my throat, and it kind of felt like my chest might be cracking open.
The flu. It had to be the flu.
