Riley
Heat rollsoff Jason in waves that don’t make sense for a hotel suite kept at arctic. The AC hums steady white noise, but his skin is a furnace under my palms. The towel I pressed to his neck five minutes ago is already warm; I swap it for a new one, water pattering into the sink like a metronome I can keep time to if I try hard enough.
“Stay with me,” I say, using the voice I save for rookies who faint at the sight of their own blood. His lashes flicker. His breath rasps. I slide a pillow against his spine to keep him from rolling and wedge another under his knees to take pressure off the low back he pretends is bulletproof.
Thermometer to temple. Beep. Too high. Not panic-high, but high enough to tighten my stomach. I log it—time, temp, meds—on my phone with muscle memory while the other hand checks his pulse. Strong, fast. His T-shirt sticks to his chest; I press the cloth there, counting seconds because counting keeps my hands from shaking.
He groans. The sound scrapes something tender I don’t let anyone touch. “I know,” I murmur, swapping cloths again. Lemon cleaner, hotel soap, the faint edge of his cologne—the one that clings to hallways after he’s gone—crowd the air until I breathe in shallow sips.
Focus. Protocol. Fluids first. I slide an arm behind his shoulders and lift, bracing my feet so I don’t dump him on the floor. He’s heavy in the way fever makes you—dead weight and heat. “Sip,” I tell him, tipping the straw to his mouth. He takes water like it’s a negotiation. We meet in the middle. I let him settle back, my hand on his sternum a beat longer than necessary because that’s where his heartbeat is loudest and I need the proof.
The couch muffles the worst of his shivers, but when they hit, they rattle up my arms. I set the timer on my phone for meds. Five minutes. Ten. “You’re fine,” I tell him softly. “Miserable, but fine. I’ve got you.”
His head turns, slow and clumsy. Bleary blue finds green like muscle memory. “Lane,” he breathes, voice raw. My name sounds like relief. I hate that it feels like that to me too.
Another beep. Another note logged. I check cap refill at his knuckles, the tendon at his wrist jumping under my thumb. Nausea? Dizziness? He can’t answer the assessment list, so I answer it for him and keep going. Cool the big vessels—neck, armpits, groin—without letting the chill tip him into worse shivers. The towel slides; I push the hem of his shirt up just enough to tuck the fresh compress at his ribs, and my brain betrays me with a flash of skin and memory. I shove it back where it belongs—years ago, different hotel, different us—and secure the cloth like it’s a tourniquet on thoughts I don’t have time for.
“Okay,” I tell myself and him and the room that keeps trying to spin. “We’re going to bring that temp down.” My voice steadies on the promise. His breathing does too.
His lashes drag up like they’re weighted. “Coach Lane,” he rasps, a ghost of a smirk tugging—weak but cocky on principle. The old nickname lands between us, born from a season where I learned every way to make him listen and he learned every way to pretend he didn’t like it.
“Flattery won’t lower a fever,” I say, swapping cloths. “Neither will being a smartass.”
He huffs—half laugh, half wince. “Bossy.”
“Alive,” I counter. “For that, I’ll tolerate your personality.” I reach for his wrist, and he turns his hand up without me asking. Some habits don’t forget us.
Pulse check: two fingers to the radial, gentle pressure. Fast but not panicked. The pads of my fingertips memorize the cadence like they always do with him, an old rhythm my body finds before my brain gives permission. I hold there one heartbeat too long—long enough for the stutter where he notices I’m still touching him.
His gaze clears. Heat flares in my face; I look away like I’m checking the timer. Professional, Riley. “Rate’s high. Expected,” I narrate for the chart I don’t have. “Hydration’s helping.” My thumb forgets itself and traces the ridge of a callus. His breath hitches. Mine answers. I pull back like the towel burned me and busy my hands at his neck. “Sophie says hi,” I hear myself say, because my mouth fills silence when my heart is too loud.
He smiles, the real kind that dents one cheek. “She still hate me?”
“Hate is a strong word,” I hedge. “She has notes.”
Thermometer to temple again. Beep. Still too high. I log it, chew my lip, assess. “Talk to me,” I say, eyes on the numbers. “Nausea?”
“Little.”
“Headache?”
“Big.”
“Dizzy?”
“When you leave.” It’s barely there—humor dressed as confession. It blooms, inconvenient and hot.
“Then I won’t go,” I say before my filter catches up. The admission hangs like steam.
His fingers curl, not quite holding mine—more like testing the idea. My breath stutters. “You don’t have to?—”
“I know what I have to do.” It comes out sharper than I mean, so I soften it with action: new cloth; cool sweep over his brow; a thumb at his temple the way he likes when migraines threaten. “What I choose is to keep you out of the ER if I can help it. What I choose is the safest call.”
He opens his eyes, blue finally steady. “I trust you.”
The words steal my air. They shouldn’t—he’s said them on benches and buses and in the shadow of locker rooms. But here, with my hands on him and the world pressing its face against our door, they sound like something else.
The timer chirps. Higher again. Not catastrophic, but climbing when I need it to fall. ER or monitor sits in my mouth like ice. ER means fluorescent lights, intake questions I don’t want to answer, cameras if anyone tips them, and a paper trail the owner will use like a cudgel. Monitor means I own this if it goes sideways. My career balances on the fulcrum of his next five minutes.
