I shake my head. “So rude of you.” I let out a long breath that promptly turns into a sneeze. “I’m socold.”
“Alright, alright. Let me just get my bag from my car,” he says, pulling the blankets up higher over my neck. “Good thing I was planning on heading up to New York or I’d end up smelling like a sunflower.”
“It’s lavender, Ryder. Grace trades me lavender things for sunflower things.”
He snorts. “I’m sorry for misidentifying the smell.”
I shake my head. “I’m deeply offended,” I say, my nose getting stuffy from the repetitive sneezing. He runs his fingers through my damp hair, and I close my eyes at the touch.
“I’ll be right back, okay?”
I nod, listening as he shuffles around the room.
“TV remotes,” he says, dropping them on the bed next to me. “Can I feed you some medicine real quick?”
My eyes pop open so I can eye him, and I slowly sit up. “I don’t need medicine.”
“What’s ailing you? Sneezing and sniffling obviously,” he starts, pulling a few of the bottles forward. He holds a hand to my forehead and grimaces. “Fever, if I had to guess.” Without any input from me, he grabs a big, dark blue bottle. “Let’s try this and see how you feel in an hour.”
“I’m fine now,” I say, as he tears the plastic off and pours a dose according to the directions on the back. He leaves the little cup on the TV table between us, and I quickly grab it and tip it into my mouth. “I’m not sick.”
He takes the cup into the bathroom to rinse it out and returns with it a few moments later, resting it right back on top of the bottle. “That’ll have you feeling better in no time.”
I nod, leaning back into my pillow. “Thank you.”
His thumb trails along the line of my jaw again. “Of course.”
Twenty minutes later, Ryder climbs into bed with me, his skin still damp from his shower and smelling like one of those shampoo bottles with weird manly names like field musk. He’s wearing only a thin pair of gray sweatpants that—good lord—should be illegal.
And it momentarily distracts me from my sniffly nose and the intense chill that I can’t seem to get rid of.
He moves closer, propping my spare pillow against the headboard so he can see the TV and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in tight.
I don’t hesitate to curl in around him, abandoning whatever silly sitcom is playing and focusing instead on extracting every ounce of heat available to me.
“Wow, you’re still really cold,” he says, as my hand skates along his abs and they bunch in response.
I nod, pressing my face into the crook of his arm and stuffing a tissue under my nose so I don’t dribble onto him. His hands run easily over my skin, leaving a trail of warmth everywhere they touch me. I wind my legs into his, and when he wraps his arms around me and justhugsme, I feel like I could break.
I relax into him, stealing all his warmth and undoubtedly turning him into an icicle, but he only kisses my head, sighing lightly as he pulls the blankets up higher.
I wake up warm.
And super disoriented.
The only light in the room is the TV, the sound off and captions turned on. And underneath me is a heated log.
A… Ryder.
I blink, struggling to get a breath in through my stuffed nose. I reach for another tissue, quickly blowing my nose and discarding the tissue in the bin Ryder placed next to the bed.
“Good evening, Sunflower,” he says, his voice low as his fingers gently rub my back. “Do you feel a little better?”
I shake my head, struggling to swallow over a sore throat and nearly crying at the pain of it. “I feel terrible,” I croak.
“Aw,” he says, his voice full of sorrow as he sits up, resting the back of his hand on my forehead. “Yeah, you’re burning up.” He grabs his phone presumably to check the time. “I think we can probably use some of the sleepy stuff now and knock you out until morning. How does that sound?”
I grab another tissue from the box. “Sounds great. Can’t feel like shit if I’m unconscious.”
