Suddenly, the monitor on the counter blares to life, Lily’s cry startling me. “I’ve got it!” I yell before darting for the stairs, taking them two at a time to get away.
My blood is on fire, my skin prickling, while my heart rivals that of a thousand galloping horses. I let myself into Lily’s room and go straight to her, lifting her out of the crib to cradle her against me. She continues to cry, even as I rock her, which usually helps when she wakes up so suddenly from her nap.
Her cheeks look a little red, and her nose a little runny, and when I press the back of my hand to her forehead, she feels too warm.
Shit.
Dean and the flirting forgotten, I rush back downstairs, heading straight for the medicine drawer in the kitchen to pull out the forehead thermometer, switching it on.
“What’s wrong?” Any playfulness falls from Dean.
“I don’t know,” I wait for the thermometer to get a reading, and when it flashes red and shows a reading of a hundred point four, I mutter. “Fuck.”
“What!?” Dean demands.
“She’s sick,” I do the thermometer again to double check, and it comes back with the same reading. “Do you have Tylenol?”
He spins to the drawer and yanks it open with far more force than necessary before he starts to shove things out of the way and finds the Tylenol. I measure out the dosage before I set it down and prepare a bottle for her, so I can do both at the same time. Dean hovers behind me, his warmth pressing into myback, the scent that is so distinctively him shoving up my nose. It’s clean but masculine, like sandalwood and something spicier, turning the air thick.
I lower onto the couch and adjust Lily so I can coax the end of the syringe into her mouth to dispense the thick medicine. I only manage to get half the dose into her when she lets out a scream, her reddened cheeks turning brighter.
“Here,” Dean attempts to get her from me.
“No,” I snap at him, “You’ll hurt yourself.”
“I don’t give a shit!”
“I do,” I growl.
His eyes narrow. “Just give her to me.”
“You can hover all you like,” I pass him the syringe, “But you can’t do anything, Dean. Please, just let me handle this.”
He holds the syringe, and I can tell by the brooding look on his face he doesn’t like to lose, but he also knows I’m right. How is he meant to hold and feed her when he doesn’t even have use of both of his arms? I offer up the bottle to Lily’s mouth, which she refuses a few times before she decides to take it.
“Do I need to call the doc?” Dean watches intently; his brow furrowed.
“Not yet,” I whisper so I don’t disturb the somewhat precarious situation.
“She’s just a baby, are you sure?” He leans in closer, his breath whispering against the shell of my ear.
“Babies get sick,” My voice comes out a little strained, my spine stiffening with his proximity. “Fevers will make anyone cranky.”
He lets out a disgruntled sound but doesn’t let up on his observations, watching Lily take half her bottle before sherefuses the rest, but I manage to get the rest of her medicine into her, which should help ease her fever. I let her fall back to sleep in my arms, settling onto the couch with Dean right at my side, his shoulder touching mine. When twenty minutes pass, I glance at the clock.
“It’s time for your meds too,” I tell him quietly.
“I told you I’m not taking them,” He grumbles.
I roll my eyes at him. “You’re an adult, I can’t force you to take the pills the doctor prescribed, but I don’t want to hear a single moan from you if that’s what you decide.”
He scoffs, “Trust me, Butterfly, I’ve been through far worse than this. I’m no stranger to pain.”
But his words don’t truly register when my brain is still processing what he just called me.
Butterfly.
Chapter Seventeen
