An incoming text interrupts us, and my stomach twists.
Bodie
Hey can you come home? I need you
Me
You okay? I’m coming.
“I gotta go,” I blurt out, then I drop two twenties on the table and rush out the door.
“Bode, you okay?” I say, barreling through the door, only to see him passed out on the couch. When I lean over to wake him, I get a cough in the face.
“Fuck. Bodie, are you sick?”
“Ughh, I feel like shit.”
I finally notice the stack of tissues above his head on the couch. “Alright, let’s get you into bed.” Lifting a six-foot-three hockey player is hard as fuck on any given day—add on the dead weight of a sick one, and it’s nearly impossible. I position him in a fireman’s assist and carefully walk him to his bedroom. Before I set him down, he goes into a coughing fit, followed by a couple sneezes. “Geez, man.” I settle him in his bed and hand him his phone.
“Wait,” he says between coughs.
“I’m just going to get you supplies.”
I come back with water, tissues, a thermometer, a cold med that’ll help him sleep, and a book for me to read while I watch over him. I take his temperature first. “101.8 degrees. Not too bad. You’ll survive.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.” He looks at my book and smiles. “Who’s falling in love this time?”
I laugh at his teasing. “Ezra and Josh.” He knows I’m a hopeless romantic with my books.
“I won’t even ask if it has an HEA. I know you won’t read it unless it does.” He coughs through his chuckling.
“Okay, enough of that. Drink.” I help him sit up and give him two cold and flu pills.
“You should’ve been a nurse.”
“Are you saying I’d look good in scrubs, or are we talking a white skirt with red stripes like in the old movies?” His eyes practically pop out of his head. “Dude, I’m kidding, relax.”
He lies back down with a sigh and a few coughs, then finally closes his eyes to rest. I settle in by his feet, resting my back against the wall and trying to finish the book I started the other night. Soft snoring fills the room in no time. It doesn’t take long until I start nodding off, and Bodie’s voice startles me.
“Come lie down. There’s—cough—plenty of room.”
He shimmies over to make sure there’s plenty of room for both of us, and suddenly I feel like we’re ten years old in the tent in his backyard. Soon, the familiar sound of a sleeping Bodie fills the room again as I drift away.
Chapter Four
Bodie
Iwake up and feel as if there’s a five-pound weight on my chest. The congestion is worse than when I fell asleep, along with my fever , because, fuck, it’s hot in here. When I try to pull the covers off, they don’t move past my chest. I look over and see Bryce is in my bed. When and how the fuck did that happen? I check to see we both have our clothes on, so I don’t think anything happened, but he has his tree stump of an arm draped over my chest. His cologne from work last night still lingers on his clothes, and it somehow smells different—better than normal.
I tap him a couple times before I hear him say, “Five more minutes. Five more minutes.” I give him his time. I know he usually sleeps until noon. When he falls back under, I suffer through it, attempting to fall into a slumber again.
The next time I wake, I sense the loss of his body next to mine even without opening my eyes. I still feel like shit, and I have zero plans of moving out of this bed for the rest of the day. Rolling over to check the time, I grab the water and my phone. I’m definitely sick if I slept until one in the afternoon. As I down the fresh bottle of water Bryce left for me, he shows up at my door.
“You need to eat. Scoot over.”
“You made me breakfast?”
“Lunch, technically, but food is food.”
