The cheater chicken soup smells so good that even my mouth starts to water.
I don’t know if it’s the smell that does it or if it’s just finally late enough, but Warrick appears in the kitchen.
The sight of him gives me a secondary mental breakdown. He’s usually dressed on the mouthwatering side of office casual. He doesn’t seem to do regular people’s clothes, but all this time, he’s been wearing sweats and T-shirts. I didn’t realize he even owned clothes like that, but of course he would. He doesn’t go to the gym in ten-thousand-dollar suits.
Okay, not that he wears those either.
It’s just…the sweatpants are less charcoal and lighter grey. The kind that everyone online is going on and on about right now. At least he doesn’t have the backward baseball hat going on. Hiswhite T-shirt looks soft and thin. So thin that I can practically see the outline of his nipples and his abs. Between the shirt and the sweats, he’s slaying.
Slaying my ovaries.
My hormones.
My lady cave.
My nipples.
I quickly turn to check the bubbling pot on the stove. My face is still scarlet, my skin is two degrees off of sizzling, and my innards are drenched in sweat. Is that even physically possible? Today, it is.
I now have a perma-image burned in my brain. I never understood the sweatpants thing. I mean, sure, the guys online wear them because it outlines their dong. Not much mystery there, but I was always more turned off by that than anything. It’s just so…in your face.
On Warrick, it’s also in my face, minus the outline of a big hard schlong, because that definitely isn’t a thing. His sweatpants were grade-A vanilla. It’s the way they fit him, and combined with that T-shirt, it’s pretty much a—
“You don’t have to cook for me,” Warrick insists for what is probably the eight hundredth and forty-second time since I started this job.
“You need to eat something. I know you’re not feeling well, but half the fatigue is probably from the lack of calories.”
“It’s not even my stomach anymore,” he grunts, sounding truly awful.
I still can’t turn and look at him yet. Not when my face probably resembles a paint swatch in various shades of pink extending from pale all the way to fuchsia.
“It’s this headache. It has lovingly morphed itself into a migraine this morning.”
I turn the soup down to a simmer. Then, I pour him a glass of water and point at the couch, face be damned, I guess. “Sit down, please. I just saw this video last night while I was doom scrolling, explaining how soaking your feet in as hot of water as you can possibly take can help with migraine pain.”
He’s already frowning, probably because his eyes are so sensitive that they can barely deal with the light, but it only deepens. “What on earth is doom scrolling?”
“When you fall down into the rabbit hole of watching endless short videos when you should be sleeping or doing something productive.”
He grunts. “That doesn’t sound like a real thing.”
“I can assure you, it’s a problem—”
“I meant the hot water.” He heads out of the kitchen and walks through the open expanse of the house to drop down on the couch when I stubbornly fist my hands on my hips, indicating that I’m not going to take no for an answer.
“I don’t know if it is or not, but it’ll probably feel nice. Have you taken any medication yet?”
He shudders.
Right. I’m talking to a man here.
I get him two ibuprofen from the bottle in the cupboard and a glass of water. Then, I walk them over to the couch. “Take these, and I’ll get you some hot water. It’s worth a try. But if things don’t start improving soon, I think I should take you to the clinic again.”
“It’s a virus. There’s nothing they can do.”
“They could make you comfortable,” I say.
He gives an exaggerated humph, which tells me everything there is to know about what he thinks about that. It also gives me hope that he’s feeling better than I think he is.
