Just then, the tea kettle starts screaming. She winces, and I rush to the kitchen to take it off the stove and turn off the burner. As I’m pouring the water into the mug, I ask, “Is there anything else you want to go with it? I have some shortbread cookies someone gave me a while ago. They might be nice.”
When she doesn’t answer, I look up to find that I’m alone once again. She scampered back to her room while I wasn’t looking.
“How will I know how much honey you want?” I yell, then hold my breath as I wait for an answer.
Pointlessly, it turns out, because she texts me her answer.
“Just bring the honey, too,” I read out loud. “And a spoon.” Snorting, I set my phone back down. “Fine,” I yell back, not wanting to play the texting game when I know she’s awake and can hear me. I can’t really blame her for not wanting to yell back, though, from the sounds of the coughs coming from her room. They’re deep. Chesty. Reverberating. Sometimes she sounds a little like the sea lions that gather on the beaches in California.
After the tea has steeped for a few minutes, I carefully remove the tea bag, then take the mug, a spoon, and the new honey bear I bought into her room. Once I step inside the door, she lets out aneep!that immediately sets off another coughing fit. This one sounds even worse than before, and from the way she throws back the blankets and hops out of bed, her mouth closed and eyes wide, I think it was productive. I step to the side, letting her out, and set the tea, honey, and spoon on the bedside table.
“Gross,” I hear from the bathroom, followed by the sound of running water.
When she steps back into the bedroom, she glares at me. “You promised to hold your breath,” she croaks, sounding worse than she did before.
“I’m worried about you, Hailey.”
She waves away my concern. “I told you. It’s a cold. I’ve been battling it for about a week already. Flying just made it worse, is all. I’ll be fine in a few days.”
Except she’s not fine in a few days. The next day, she has a fever—or still has a fever, since I’m pretty sure she had one already—and the day after that, she won’t even get out of bed. “I’m calling the doctor,” I announce.
She winces, pulling the blanket over her head and coughing. “I don’t need a doctor,” I barely hear after the coughing subsides. “I told you, I’ll be fine.”
“Hailey. You’re clearly very sick. You won’t be fine if you have pneumonia.” One of the guys I played with knew someone who died of pneumonia. She was friends with his girlfriend, early twenties just like us. She was fine. Healthy. Nothing obviously wrong with her. She just got sick. And sicker. And sicker. Eventually she went to the hospital, and then she was gone.
I’ll be damned if I let the same thing happen to Hailey. Not after?—
I savagely cut that thought off. “You don’t have a choice,” I announce. “I’m calling a doctor. You don’t have to go anywhere or do anything but lie there.”
She flips the blankets down, her eyes wide. “Jason, no!” she hisses. “That’ll be so expensive!” Her voice is pretty much gone, so hissing and whispers are all she can manage right now.
I give her a jaded look. “My insurance would cover it if you agreed to marry me already.”
She throws up her hands. “You want me to marry you likethis?”
Shrugging one shoulder, I pull my phone out. “Honestly, Hailey, if it meant you’d see a doctor? Yes. Absolutely. Right now, though, you’re seeing a doctor either way. I’ll pay for it. I don’t care.”
I’m not sure what she sees when she examines my face, but whatever it is, she sighs and relaxes. “Fine,” she mutters.
“Fine?” I ask, needing to clarify. “Fine you’ll quit objecting to the doctor? Or fine you’ll marry me?”
She glares at me again. “Both.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Hailey
Fortunately,Jason leaves me alone with the doctor, so he doesn’t have to listen to me talk about the color of my snot and the mucus I’m coughing up. Even though I know that he’s only marrying me to help me out, I don’t want him to think I’m disgusting.
The doctor calls in a prescription for me for antibiotics, and I know Jason’s going to have to pay a bunch for that. So as soon as the doctor’s gone, I’m looking for GoodRX coupon codes so it’s less expensive.
“What’s the name of the pharmacy you use again?” I ask, thumbs hovering over my phone.
Despite insisting that he should avoid me, he’s more insistent that I hang out on the couch. “It’s boring being out here by myself when Iknowyou’re in the next room,” he’d said.
And for some reason, that argument was convincing.
He glances at me, eyebrows raised. “Why?”
