Page 57 of Man Flu

Chapter Sixteen

Maybe Friday could just take a dump on me too …

“DID HE TELL YOU I’m crazy? Psycho? Nuts? Won’t stop until I have what I want?” Yup. That all just unraveled from my tongue.

“No,” he grumbles. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“Well then, he should have warned you.” I need to stop. I don’t need to show off this side of me—this angry, hateful side that Rick forced me to be. It isn’t who I really am, who I was, or who I want to be.

Logan squeezes his hands around his head and presses his fingers into his eyebrows. “Hannah, I don’t have the energy to figure out what you’re talking about, but I do need to get moving.”

“No,” I snap. Easy, killer. Sounding a little desperate.

“I can’t stay, okay?”

“Fine, go,” I tell him. “I’ll just go ask Rick what was said.”

“Please don’t do that.” Logan rolls onto his side and clutches his stomach. “I think the room is spinning like one of those damn, carnival tilt-a-whirl rides. The room isn’t moving, right?”

“No, it’s not.”

Logan’s fingertips dig into the mattress as if he’s holding onto it for dear life. “What the hell is going on?”

I place my hand on his back and softly caress the length of his spine. “Hannah …”

“Do you want me to get you anything for the road? A trash bag and some water?”

“Hannah …”

“What is it?” I ask him.

“I’ve never wondered what it might be like to have a hard-on while feeling like I’m standing in the middle of an earthquake after drinking my weight in tequila. Do you know men have trouble getting it up when they are that intoxicated? The human body isn’t meant to handle so much action at once. Yet …”

Oh, I’m not sure what I’ve done to cause that. “‘Yet,’ what?”

“Can you stop stroking my back with your fingernails. It’s nice, but—”

“Oh. Oh! Sorry. I mean, I’m not sorry, but at this particular moment, I’m sorry.”

He rolls back to his original spot, possibly with a change of mind as it seems. Maybe he just realized there’s no way he’s able to drive at the moment. “If you need me to drive you home, I can.”

His focus struggles under his apparently heavy eyelids. “Can I ask you something?”

“Okay …”

“Is it true you’re a perfectionist?”

I can’t fathom how that could be a concern of his right now. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s something I need to know.”

He’s sick as a dog, asking me if I like things to be perfect. Is it a bad trait if I do? I don’t bother people with it.

“I don’t know—sometimes, I guess.”

“Sometimes, or like OCD—all the time.” My level of annoyance is growing alongside the pressuring questions, which strictly regard my personality—something I can’t control. I have two sick men in my house, neither of whom lives here, both expecting me to take care of them, yet they both seem to think this is the time to criticize me? What the hell?

“I like things in order. If something is broken, I like to fix it. I don’t think it’s an issue.”