Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
For a college student, his social media presence is scarily absent.
I’m lying on my couch feeling sorry for myself when the buzzer for my front door sounds. I half roll, half fall off the couch onto my knees and slowly stand to get to the door.
I greet Whit with a sniff.
My eyes are still itchy, and my nose is like a faucet. “Did I ever mention how much I hate spring?”
“Your boss told me you were actually sick, not being a whiny baby.”
“Wow, some friend you are. You’re supposed to say puffy eyes is the new sexy.”
Whit’s mouth drops open. Then closes.
“Coming in?” I step aside.
“Only if you’re up for it.”
“Like I told Tanner. I’m not actually sick.”
Whit enters and takes off his coat. “It’s March. The trees are still bare.”
“I swear I walked past a tree that sprayed its sex pollen all over me. It only takes one tree, Whit. I’ve been sneezing ever since.”
“Sex pollen …” Whit blinks at me.
“That’s what it is!”
“I will never look at trees the same way again. Does that make bees, like, nature’s pimps?”
I laugh and then wince. Fucking sinuses. “Laughing hurts my head.”
“Aww, poor baby. Can I get you anything? Do you have allergy meds?”
“Ran out.”
“And you didn’t go buy more because …”
“Who are you, my mother? I didn’t get to the store. I had plans to, and then I hurt. So I sat down. And then I slept. It’s a catch-22. To feel better I need to go outside, but to go outside, I need to feel better.”
“Are you sure allergies is all it is?” Whit’s hand comes up to try to touch my forehead, but I swat it away.
“It’s allergies.”
“Maybe it’s a head cold.” Whit winces and steps back. “Maybe it’s the flu. I can’t get that. Coach will kill me.”
“It’s not the flu, jackass, but good to know where your priorities are at. Hockey trumps our friendship. Got it.”
“Are you one of those people who always downplays being sick or injured?”
Why, yes. Yes, I am. How do you think I ended up with a career-ending injury?
Whit keeps talking. “Like, say you severed your pinky while cooking. Would you be the kind of guy to shake it off and say it’s fine or run screaming to the hospital?”
“Who needs a pinky finger? I mean, really. Least useful finger of them all.”
Whit grabs my shoulders and spins me toward my bedroom. “As I suspected. Okay, it’s bedtime for you.”
“What?”
“Bedtime.”
The deep rumble of his voice sends a shiver through me. It was not at all a sexual remark, but for some reason my body takes it that way.
Or maybe I really do have a fever.
Maybe it is the flu.
Yes. Flu can totally make your dick twitch. His large hands on me have nothing to do with it.
My brain’s all muddy with hay fever. That’s it.
Nothing else.
“Rainn?” Whit’s hands leave my shoulders, and he steps in front of me.
“What?”
“Bed.”
I grumble, though I can’t say I hate it. I can’t remember when someone last took care of me like this. Probably my mother before I left for college.
While I get into bed, Whit moves around my apartment, opening cabinet doors in the bathroom and kitchen.
“What are you doing?” I call out.
“Trying to find some cold medicine.”
“I told you, it’s not a cold.”
“And I told you, I don’t trust your judgment.”
He said that? “You did? When?”
“Oh. Maybe I was thinking it.”
“You’re mean when I’m sick.”
He appears in my doorway. “Aha. You admit you’re sick.”
“No. You’re sick. You shut up.”
Whit shoves a bottle of NyQuil at me. “Drink.”
“This will only make me go to sleep.”
“Good. Sleep it off.”
I reluctantly take the cold medicine and drink it down, but I’m confused when Whit comes to the other side of my bed and sits, using the headboard as a backrest.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“I’m going to sit with you until you’re asleep and make sure you have what you need.”
“It’s not the flu.”
“I hope not. I better not catch whatever it is.”
I close my eyes with a sleepy smile. “Just don’t go kissing me, and you’ll be fine.”
He doesn’t reply, and the air in the room suddenly feels thick. But I’m too busy falling asleep to ask about it.
I wake up with my head feeling worse than it did yesterday, so that sucks, and my brain is foggy with confusion about my surroundings.
I’m in my bed. It’s my bedroom. Those are my black curtains to keep the sun out, though they’re doing a piss-poor job because they’re open. The light filters over my bookcase, my closet, the discarded clothes on the floor … I’m definitely in the right room.
But the arm draped over my stomach isn’t mine, and the continuous light snoring is definitely not mine.
I turn my head and come face-to-face with a sleeping Whit.
In my bed.