He blinks slowly, as if the question requires effort.
"I don’t know," he murmurs. "Sometime after my massage."
My blood runs cold.
"Define sometime."
His eyes drift shut again. "Massage was… two."
I glance at my watch. It’s after nine. I look back at him.
"Luka," I say, forcing my voice steady even though my heart is hammering, "it’s nine o’clock. You’ve been on this floor for seven hours. Why didn't you call anyone?"
He makes a sound that could be a groan or a shrug, though he has barely enough energy left in him to do it. "Phone’s…" He gestures vaguely toward the counter. "In my jacket."
Of course, the stubborn, self-destructive hockey player spent seven hours violently ill and didn’t reach for help because the phone was in another room and he refused to crawl for it.
I take a breath, steadying myself.
Crisis mode clicks in, that part of my brain that can handle anything as long as it becomes a problem with steps.
"Okay," I say. "We’re getting you off this floor."
"I’m fine here," he says, his eyes closing like he's about to pass out again from exhaustion.
He has to be dehydrated. I need to get him to drink something.
"You’re not fine anywhere," I shoot back. "Come on."
I slide an arm under his shoulders and try to lift him.
He’s dead weight at first and I already know there's no way I am going to get all six-foot-four of him to that couch all by myself.
Finally, he seems to register what I’m doing and attempts to help, but it’s sloppy, uncoordinated. His muscles tremble as if they don’t trust him to stand upright.
We make it to his feet with me practically holding him up.
"Couch," I decide. "I need you where I can see you."
We shuffle out of the bathroom, his weight heavy against my side, my arm locked around his waist. He’s shaking, small tremors running through his whole body.
"Almost there," I tell him, as if he were a patient and not a man who could bench-press me. "You’re doing great."
He mutters out something but it's barely coherent.
"Couch in three, two—"
He collapses more than sits, and I nearly go down with him.
I manage to pry myself free and grab the throw blanket from the chair, tucking it around him while he slumps sideways against the cushions like he can’t decide which way gravity is pulling.
I grab his phone from the jacket on the floor, then step into the kitchen and order electrolyte drinks, broth, crackers, anti-nausea meds, and whatever else the grocery delivery app can get to me in under an hour.
When I drop my phone on the couch and press my palm to his forehead again. He's still too hot.
"Stop checking," he mutters. His eyes opening just a slit.
"Stop being sick and I will."
