“Three ambulances!” Kat adds.
“What are your roommates shouting about?”
“Oh! Err…”
I try to muster up enough energy to sit up and talk to him like a proper human being, but I can’t do it. After losing the contents of my stomach and probably 95% of my body weight down the toilet, I am bone-weary and weak. I close my eyes and drop back down to the floor. My mobile sits on my chest, on speakerphone, so I don’t have to use my arm muscles trying to hold it against my ear.
“Oh, it’s nothing. They think we’re dying.”
“And are you?”
“Maybe.”
“You do sound like death.”
“It’s because of Yaz,” I say, massaging my temples. “She’s poisoned me with dumpster fish.”
“It was supposed to be good! It had loads of good reviews on Yelp!” she argues.
“No, YAZ!” Kat shouts back brusquely. “The other restaurant had good reviews. Yours had no reviews, remember?!”
“Oh shit,” Logan cuts in. “You guys had bad fish?”
“Loads of it. It was just so cheap, and once you got over the sewer smell, it wasn’t so bad.”
“Oh stop. Stop talking about it,” Yasmine says, audibly gagging on her words.
“And now you all have food poisoning,” he posits.
“Bingo.”
“I’ll come over and bring sustenance.”
“You can’t!” I moan.
“Then you come here and I’ll nurse you back to health.”
“I couldn’t walk two feet, let alone make it all the way to your flat.”
“Send me your address and I’ll be there in a second.”
“No! You can’t—”
I’m cut off by Kat reaching out of the shower to yank my mobile off my chest. She’s the one who gives him our address, thus it’s her fault he shows up twenty minutes later and walks right in without even so much as knocking. None of us has moved positions. What’s the point? There’s nothing I could do to improve my appearance at this rate. And besides, I couldn’t summon the energy even if I wanted to.
His shadow falls over my supine body, and I blink one eye open. He’s there in jeans and a white t-shirt with a cool forest green jacket layered on top. His hair looks freshly washed and his skin glows with a healthy, warm tan.
“Hey champ,” he quips, looking down at me.
“Even upside down you’re bloody gorgeous.”
He grins and reaches over to set a bag on the bathroom vanity.
“Don’t look at me too closely,” I warn. “And don’t breathe through your nose or you might pass out.”
The amount of bodily waste that has passed through our plumbing system in the last four hours is alarming, to say the least.
He bends down and brushes my sweaty hair off my forehead, assuring me, “It’s nothing compared to our locker room after a game. Don’t worry.”
“Do you have to be so nice all the time?”
He frowns. “I’m not that nice.”
I think I understand his reaction. Nice is his cute. He doesn’t want to be called nice just like I don’t want to be called cute. It irks him, and that only makes him seem even nicer.
“I brought some electrolyte drinks and broth. I figured you guys wouldn’t be able to stomach anything solid.”
“That sounds lovely. Would you mind just uncapping a drink and waterfalling it straight into my mouth?” I tip my chin up and part my lips.
He suppresses a smile. “You can’t sit up?”
“I’m not sure. I haven’t tried.”
Kat yanks back the shower curtain, and Logan jumps in surprise. Oh right—he didn’t realize she was in there.
Unbothered, she makes a Give it here motion with her hand. “Here, pass one over and I’ll give it a go.”
Over the next half hour, Logan gets us all situated with our drinks. He doesn’t have to—he should be off having people tend to him—but he helps Yasmine to her bed and Kat to the sofa, and then he comes back into my room to see me sitting on the edge of my twin mattress, my head in my hands.
“I’ve just left a message for the school to get a sub for tomorrow. I’m disappointed because I hoped I’d get the chance to go talk to my headmistress about…well…you.”
I look up to see him frown like he’s as disappointed as I am by the turn of events. “You think you’ll still be sick in the morning?”
I peer up at him as he strolls closer.
“Who knows, but even if I’m not, I’ll be dead knackered. No way I’ll be chasing after toddlers in this state.”
“Right. Here, lie back.”
I do as he says as I’m in no position to put up a fight. He tugs back my covers, and I lay my head on my pillow. He lifts the duvet up and over me and then he stands. My hand shoots out to grab his wrist, to keep him near me.
“You aren’t going to rush off, are you?”
He rubs the back of his neck then pulls out his mobile and shakes his head. “I can stay for a little while.”
“Maybe just until I nod off? I haven’t had a proper tending-to like this in ages. It’s quite nice, you know?”
He smiles and sets his mobile down on my nightstand then puts his wallet down beside it. After, he sits down on the edge of my bed and turns to look at me.
We don’t say anything for a little while. There’s a silence that feels heavy and powerful, and I’m scared if I pop it with a needle by opening my mouth, everything I think about him will tumble right out into the open.
His mobile buzzes on the nightstand, but he ignores it. I smile and prod his thigh with the tip of my finger.
“All right, Nurse Matthews, tell me something about yourself.”
His brows furrow in confusion. “What do you want to know?”
“What are your parents like? Your mum? Is she really pretty? Must be to have made a lad like you.”
I swear he sort of goes rosy on his cheeks as he looks away.
“There’s not much to say. I grew up in Florida. My dad has an orange orchard, and my mom teaches.”
“She’s a teacher as well? Like me?”
“Yeah. She teaches physics, up at the high school. She studied aerospace engineering in school though.”
“Bloody hell. She sounds brilliant. I haven’t got the head for maths or science. It’s why I stick with the youngsters. Best to let them think I’m smarter than them, though I swear there are a few who could outpace me in a round of Jeopardy.”
He laughs like he doesn’t quite believe me (he should), and then I continue on, “How’d your mum end up teaching then?”
He shrugs. “She just sort of fell into it. She had a job working for NASA. She wanted to go to space and was even accepted into their astronaut training program and everything, but then one of her friends introduced her to my dad.”
“She gave it all up for him?”
He aims a lopsided grin at me. “Well, it’s not like she was about to leave for Mars the very next day or anything, but yeah, they dated for three weeks then he proposed. Said he wouldn’t be able to live without her if she went up into space.”