With exaggerated effort, she leaned forward, turning her still-swollen eyes up to where he stood. “This is all pretty embarrassing, Dr. Sterling.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said. “Put your head down.”
She sighed, then coughed, then finally put her head over the bowl.
“I’m going to set the towel over your head, okay? This is going to help with some of the pressure behind your face, until I can go get you a strong decongestant.”
She nodded, and he took the same quiet breath that he had when he’d set his fingers against her neck, checking for swelling. He was stayingprofessional, even if in draping a towel over her head he had to concentrate on not staring at the long, straight curtain of her hair that was spread across her back—the first time he’d ever seen it down.
Nora made another noise, a moan of relief that prompted another professional failure on his part. Will took a step away from the couch, cleared his throat. “I’ll run over to the pharmacy.”
She lifted her head. “You don’t have to.”
“Head down,” he said, and she made a face at him.
“Your bedside manner is terrible.” But she put her head down again, shifting even farther forward on the couch. The next time she spoke, it was so muffled by her closeness to the bowl that he had to step closer to hear her.
“I didn’t want you to have to get rid of the kittens,” she said.
“That’s why I didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know I was allergic, I swear. I never have been, before.”
She sounded so miserable that he got even closer, moved around so he could sit on the coffee table, right beside the big bowl of water. “Allergies sometimes come on late.”
The towel rocked in a sad, short nod.
“I wasn’t ever going to keep them, Nora,” he said, because he thought it would make her feel better to know it. It wasn’t her fault that he wasn’t cut out to have pets, even if Quincy and Francis (sigh) weren’t so bad. “My friend Sally, you might have seen her down there, I think she’s going to keep them, and she’s great, so you shouldn’t worr—”
“You stayed so many days,” she interrupted. “You stayed so many days, I thought maybe you’d changed your mind.”
Oh.
He swallowed, unsure of how to respond. He hadn’t changed his mind, of course he hadn’t. He was still on track to getting back to normal; he was still going to list the unit and go back to work. These last four days, it’s all he’d been trying to think about, no matter that he hadn’t always succeeded.
But he didn’t even want to try to succeed right now.
“That interview today,” she said, and he waved a hand in dismissal, but she probably couldn’t see it.
“Forget about it,” he said, because that’s what he wanted. While he was here, sitting with her like this, caring for her like this, he didn’t want to talk about this thing between them—this feud they’d been carrying on. The one that he was, whether she liked it or not, about to win with a few clicks on his laptop and a return to his regular life.
“I was going to cancel it,” she said. “I didn’t really want to do it anymore, not after we found the kittens, but then I felt so sick, and I lost track of the day, and then today I—”
“Nora,” he said. “Let’s leave it for now, okay?”
She pulled the towel back, her face pink and dewy, her eyes still puffy, and her mouth tugged down at the corners in the saddest, sweetest pout he thought he’d ever seen.
“I feel awful,” she said, and for sure, she was whining.
“I know, baby,” he said, and for sure, it was the static talking. They stared at each other, steam from the bowl between them, and in those silent seconds, it seemed like they were agreeing to something. For as long as she was like this, they weren’t going to be feuding neighbors. Nora wasn’t going to cheerfully smile, and Will wasn’t going to charm. She was going to admit that she felt bad, and Will was going to call herbabywhen she did.
It wasn’t going to be normal at all.
She slumped against the back of the couch. “I’m probably gonna fall asleep,” she murmured, already sounding halfway there.
“Good.” He grabbed at a faded, crocheted throw that hung over one end of the couch, waited for her to put her feet up before he draped it over her legs.
“Only for a little bit. I only sleep for a little bit at a time, since this started.”
“Sure,” Will said, but he hoped she would sleep good and long; he could tell she needed it. And while she did he’d go pick up a scrip for her, and then he’d sanitize every cat-dandered surface in this building, even if it took him all night. He’d barely slept the last four; what was one more?
