“Good girl,” Nico murmurs. “Do you think you can do some watermelon too? It’s food and hydration in one.”
When I only groan in answer, he says, “Okay, maybe later, then. Do you want to change clothes?”
I perk up at that. Sick as I am, the thought of wearing Nico’s clothes is too enticing.
He chuckles and holds the straw to my lips again. “I’ll get you a t-shirt and some sweats.”
I should be embarrassed that he has to help me change out of my clothes. Idohate that this is how he sees my lingerie for the first time in weeks. But I can barely summon the energy to lift my arms so he can peel my dress off, so I don’t have many options here.
I lay there like a pathetic doll as he pulls sweatpants up my legs, but I hum in pleasure when he tugs his t-shirt over my head. It smells like him.
I sink into the bed with a happy sigh once his smell is all around me. This entire situation is atrocious, but at least I know what his bed smells like.
“If you don’t throw up on it, you can keep that one,” Nico says. He chuckles when I glare at him.
Unfortunately, he might be onto something. Because I throw up in the next second.
TWENTY-TWO
NICO
Two hours later, there’s nothing left for Scarlett to throw up.
Four hours later, she’s shivering with the dry heaves, tears running down her face.
And I’m starting to get really fucking worried.
It didn’t escape my attention that there was nothing for her to throw up when she started vomiting. I guessed during previous dates that she might have a bad relationship with food, but I never would’ve expected that she eats nothing the day of a date.
I try once more to get her to eat some watermelon, but she only presses her lips together and shakes her head. She’s white as a sheet and trembling. And she stopped accepting Pedialyte twenty minutes ago.
The only blessing is that she falls asleep between bouts of vomiting. For those twenty-minute periods, I cool her forehead with a damp washcloth, change the sheets she sweats through, and pace up and down the hall. I don’t like that she hasn’t been able to keep anything down in the past hour.
But it isn’t until she spikes a fever that I truly panic.
Without any hesitation, I pull out my phone and make a call.
By the time Alexander walks through my front door, Scarlett has sweat through another t-shirt. I can’t bring myself to leave her to meet him at the door.
“Nico?”
“In here,” I call out, pressing a fresh washcloth to Scarlett’s forehead.
I hear his heavy footsteps before I see him. When he stops in my bedroom doorway, I can feel the confusion radiating from him.
“Did you bring it?” I ask without looking up.
A pause, and then the thump of a bag beside the bed. “Yeah.”
“Can you—” I clear a suddenly tight throat. “Can you take a look at her? I’m pretty sure it’s just the stomach bug, but she spiked a fever, and she can’t keep any fluids down. At the very least, she needs an IV.”
Alexander appears in my peripheral, but when I look up, I’m surprised to see him studying me instead of Scarlett.
My nerves are too frazzled to deal with the questions right now. So I just stand silently and give him space to do what he needs to.
As a Marine, Alexander went through enough medical training to be the one I turn to for basic medical needs; God knows fighting has created enough situations where I’ve needed it. And calling my brother was always infinitely easier than making a trip to the hospital. So when I called him tonight and asked him for an IV and to bring his usual kit, he didn’t hesitate.
And to his credit, he’s not hesitating now, either. Even though I neglected to tell him that it’s not for me.
