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“You’ve watched it? Load of bollocks.”
“It’s won awards.”
“It’s not real. You know that, don’t you?”
I took a deep breath because there was something about Con Telford that calmed me. He looked so much younger than he was, lying in my bed, his face pale against the pillow, and then he was ripping off the blanket and almost kicking me off the bed in his quest to get to the bathroom.
Yeah. And that was me, running after him like the idiot I was, holding the hair out of his face and muttering words of comfort like I was his mother. I couldn’t control it around him, and I was secretly, appallingly glad that he was still suffering. If he was still sick, he wouldn’t leave me.
But I wanted him out.
Didn’t I?
“You’re not going anywhere, Con,” I said sternly, surveying the damage to my usually sparkling clean bathroom. The same one where he was ripping his shirt off and trying to clean the wall with it while hurling up his guts.
“I’m so sorry, I don’t know what to say,” he grunted into the toilet bowl.
“I’m going to go get you a bucket. Do you think you can manage a shower?” There was vomit all over his arms.
He didn’t reply, retching violently, his forehead pressed against the toilet lid.
Yup. All my fantasies were definitely coming true here. NOT. I stumbled out in the kitchen and raided my under-sink cupboard.
Returning with a bucket in my hand, I expected him to still be hugging the bowl, but surprisingly he’d managed to mangle himself into my tiny shower cubicle, dropping his trousers in the process and kicking them out before he shut himself in.
The floor was in a bit of a state, I had no more toilet roll, and the room stank of bad days. Horrible days. I hated being sick. And now I was retching myself as I flushed the toilet in disgust.
All my rose-tinted dreams of having Con Telford naked in my shower were coming true. Because my shower screen was made of clear cheap plastic, I had a full-frontal view of him shivering under the steamy spray, asking if I had any soap.
I’d give him soap.
I didn’t know where to look as I pulled the screen open and handed him my pathetic piece of human cleanser.
I left him to it and got on my knees with a hand towel and bathroom spray in a sorry effort of cleaning.
It wasn’t that bad. A few wipes here and there. The towel could go in the bin. I threw a clean one on the floor in time for Con to step out of the shower, white as a sheet, still shivering and not even attempting to cover himself up.
“Nothing the whole world hasn’t seen before,” he mumbled.
“True.” I coughed the word in embarrassment and scrambled out in the hallway trying to find…something. Shit. Dressing gown. There we go.
I stuck my arm in through the door, and he grabbed what I was offering before making a beeline for my bed, leaving a trail of wet footsteps across the floor.
There were reasons I lived on my own, and I hated that I immediately followed him with my pathetic hand towel trying to wipe up his drips.
With him safely back on the bed, I returned to the bathroom, cleaned up properly and had a shower myself. Unsurprisingly, he was out for the count by the time I emerged, clean and starving. I made myself a bowl of soup. Ironed my shirt for tomorrow.
Stared at Con Telford sleeping.
Checked he was breathing.
Unpacked my empty lunch box. Made a new one. Smiled at the empty smoothie bottle in my recycling bin. He’d even rinsed it.
Stared at Con Telford sleeping again.
Questioned my life choices.
Found a spare charger so I could charge my own phone since he’d stolen mine.
