I plucked the menu from my lap, glanced at the items. "I'm sure you know what I'd like. I trust your judgment, Tate."
"Mmhmm," she replied, a cheeky grin cutting across her face. "That's what you get for daydreaming."
"I was not daydreaming," I cried. I was working hard at the faux indignation. "Thoughtful work requires deep thinking."
"Real smooth, boss," Flinn quipped. "Like butter." He pointed at my chair and the decorative pillow under my ass. "Are you doing all right? Or are youall right?"
I had to fold my lips between my teeth to keep from laughing. "Not your concern," I said. "But yes, I'm just fine."
That was the truth. And no one was more surprised about it than me.
24
Cal
Every flu season,popular news outlets liked to cobble together lists on how to stay healthy. Most of them centered around drinking plenty of water, sleeping an adequate amount, eating fruits and vegetables, exercise, flu shots. The norm.
The earthy, crunchy ones touted garlic and elderberry and an assortment of essential oils.
But it was the racy outlets that recommended sex. They claimed a healthy sex life was like an infusion of vitamin C. An orgasm a day kept the viruses at bay.
As far as my professional opinion went, I landed somewhere in the middle. But I liked to believe the one about sex.
Unfortunately for me, sex wasn't enough to protect me from Stremmel and his fragile West Coast immune system. He was the fucking angel of death. He picked up every damn cold and flu and passed them to everyone in a fifty-mile radius. Even though I never got sick—I couldn't remember the last time I'd had more than a mild cold—I found myself knocked on my ass with a bitch of a late spring flu.
And here I thought the sex was going to save me.
I was half awake, half fever dreaming when I heard a knock at the door. I figured it was part of the dream and rolled over, pulling a pillow over my head to block out the afternoon sunlight. I was contagious and woozy, neither of which belonged in the operating room today. I'd skipped the trail this morning too. I hated doing it but the last thing I wanted was infecting Stella. Or worse, orchestrating another accident by virtue of sinus pressure fucking up my inner ear and equilibrium.
Five minutes later, I heard the door swing open and snick shut. I thought I heard it but it was possible the virus was fucking with my senses. Yeah. Probably that. No one was breaking into my apartment. And if they were, I didn't have the capacity to fight them off. I was too far removed from my Ranger days to manage anything like that.
Then I heard Stella's voice. She called, "It's just me and I'm putting a few things on the stove. You stay where you are, with your germs."
I was certain it was Stella. I'd heard that. Real, live Stella. Not a fever dream.
"Who let you in?" I asked. Because that was the only way to greet the woman in my life. Firing off rude questions about how she came to invade my home.
"Don't talk, you sound awful," she replied. "Riley let me in."
I didn't realize Riley had a key but puzzling through that required more energy than I had to spare. Instead, I went back to the fever dreams. I slept in fits of hot and cold, alternately whipping the blankets off me and then huddling under them. Weird scenes played in my head. Nothing I understood. A traffic jam of balloons on Commonwealth Avenue, dogs with bananas for tails, a dark-haired beauty wielding an enormous knife.
When I woke up, it was dark outside and I was drenched in sweat. My apartment smelled like spices. I couldn't name flavors from scent alone and I was too congested to discern much of anything, but my stomach offered a rumble of interest as I stepped into the shower.
I stayed in there for longer than I'd planned but the hot spray did wonders for me. I felt human again rather than a discombobulated cluster of limbs, organs, and virus. As I toweled off, I hoped Stella was still in the kitchen but I wouldn't blame her for getting the hell out of here.
Emerging from my bedroom in a fresh t-shirt and sweats, I found Stella stirring a large pot of wonderful. She pulled her earbuds loose as I approached and offered me a concerned smile. "How are you?"
I shrugged. "I've been better but I've also been worse." I pointed to her phone. "Are you on a call?"
"Just wrapped up a few minutes ago. I've been listening to the Red Sox game."
I gestured toward the flat screen television mounted on the wall. "Is that a nostalgia thing for you or did you not want to watch it?"
"I didn't want to wake you," she replied.
"Don't worry about me," I said, pulling together all my macho. There wasn't much of it right now. "I went through Special Forces training, Stel. The flu is a mild annoyance." I edged closer to get a look at the pot. "What is this goodness?"
"It's not soup," she said. It was delivered as both warning and apology. "In my family, we don't do soup when you're sick."
