Under Your Spell

Chapter Fifteen

I dream there’s a burglar in my room. But it’s not a dream, it’s real, and the burglar is crawling on the ceiling and he has red eyes behind a mask and they’re staring at me and when he reaches towards me he has long, grasping arms like a satanic Mr Tickle.

‘Don’t let him get me, don’t let him get me,’ I pant, grabbing on to the (thankfully normal-sized) arm beside me on the bed.

‘I won’t let him get you,’ a gentle voice reassures me. ‘I promise, Clemmie, you’re safe. Go back to sleep.’

I look back at the burglar but he’s gone and I feel panicked. Where is he? Then Theo is there, right in front of me, and he cups my face between his hands while he says slowly, carefully, ‘There’s no one here but me, sweetheart. You’re safe, I promise.’

‘Okay,’ I agree, closing my eyes. ‘You won’t let him get me.’

When I next wake it’s because someone is touching my face and I don’t like it. I bat the hand away with my own.

‘Get off.’ I try to wiggle away, but it seems that my whole body is made of lead and even prying my eyelids open is a struggle.

‘I’m trying to take your temperature.’ Theo’s face comes into focus above me and he sounds annoyed. ‘Just stay still.’

‘You have to point it at her forehead and press the button until it beeps,’ a disembodied voice floats through the air.

‘Oh no!’ I moan hoarsely. ‘It’s David! He’s here! He knows the secret!’

‘What secret?’ David’s voice is suspicious and I peer around wildly, trying to find him. Perhaps he is under the bed? That seems a reasonable assumption.

‘Don’t listen to her,’ Theo huffs. ‘She’s hallucinating, doesn’t know what she’s saying.’

‘That’s good,’ I whisper with approval. ‘Don’t let him find out about the biscuits. Maybe we should just keep him under the bed?’

There’s a beeping noise. ‘It says 39.4 degrees,’ Theo says, talking over me. ‘And it’s flashing red. I take it that’s not good?’

‘She’s definitely got a fever.’ David’s voice sounds even more pissed off than usual. ‘You need to—’

Theo picks up his phone and holds it to his ear. David’s voice stops and I close my eyes in relief.

‘Yeah,’ Theo nods. ‘Yeah. Okay. Yeah, put her through if you can.’ There’s a pause before he says, ‘Doctor Swain, thank you for getting back to me.’

I sit up and sneeze. Once, twice, five times. Each time it jars my whole body. Theo hands me a tissue out of the box on the nightstand and I blow my nose. Ow.

‘That’s right,’ he carries on talking into the phone. ‘Over thirty-nine degrees and she’s been having nightmares, hallucinating I think. She was sick last night but nothing so far this morning. Now she’s sneezing and she looks’ – he eyes me consideringly and I try to stretch my mouth into a smile – ‘awful. Really pale and clammy.’

Charming.

Theo listens for another moment, a frown on his face. ‘How would I know what her glands feel like?’ He casts me a nervous look. ‘Right, right, I’m going to put the phone on speaker.’ He places his mobile carefully on the nightstand and advances on me like I’m a horse he doesn’t want to spook. ‘I just need to feel your neck a moment, Clemmie.’

‘I don’t think I want your hands round my neck,’ I say.

‘Believe me, if anyone’s going to throttle you it will be David,’ he grimaces. ‘He definitely heard that biscuit comment.’ And then his fingers start pressing up the side of my neck, under my chin.

‘Not really sure what I’m doing here, Doc,’ he says, louder.

‘You want to press just under her jaw, either side of her throat,’ an American woman’s voice comes through the speaker.

‘Owwwwww!’ I whimper moments later.

‘I think that means they’re swollen,’ Theo says, and he looks all grim and shaky like he’s had to perform some kind of intense medical procedure rather than simply touch my neck. I would roll my eyes if I didn’t think that would make me pass out.

‘Clementine?’ The woman’s voice cuts through the air. ‘Can you tell me a little about how you’re feeling?’

‘My head hurts,’ I manage. ‘And my throat hurts. And… my bones hurt.’

‘Okay, well, it sounds to me like it’s a virus, possibly the flu. Theo, if you take me off speakerphone I’ll give you some instructions.’ The doctor is calm, business-like, and while Theo walks away talking to her in a low voice, I slump back against my pillow, closing my eyes again. God, everything is aching. I can feel every millimetre of my skin that is being touched by my heavy, scratchy duvet and suddenly I understand Theo’s obsession with his bedsheets. Why am I sleeping in actual sandpaper like an idiot? The doctor thinks I have the flu, but I don’t know, it seems more likely that the bubonic plague is staging a comeback. My head throbs and I feel the hot trickle of tears coming from under my eyelids.

‘Are you crying?’ Theo’s horrified question alerts me that he is off the phone and back in the room.

‘I don’t feel good,’ I sniffle, my voice small. I don’t even have the energy to put a bright face on it. Serena was not wrong: I am a useless ill person. Absolutely the world’s biggest baby. I am almost thirty-three and I want my mum and a McDonald’s strawberry milkshake.

‘Okay, I need you to get up,’ Theo says firmly.

I crack one eye open. ‘Is that a sick joke?’

‘No. I just need you to get from here to my car. I have to go and get things and I don’t know how long I’ll be and I don’t want to leave you here on your own. You can bring your duvet.’ He says this last part like he’s tempting me with a special treat.

‘I don’t want my duvet. I hate it. It’s hurting me.’

There’s a gusty sigh. ‘Right, then let’s go and escape from the evil duvet.’

When I don’t reply his tone gets sly. ‘Clementine Monroe, if you don’t get your butt out of bed right now, I’m going to call David and tell him you’ve been feeding me frozen chicken nuggets.’

Oh crap. I forgot about the nuggets. I don’t even like them, but I had shoved some in the trolley correctly suspecting that Theo would love them. I was going to get him the ones in the shape of dinosaurs next.

With a lot of swearing on both our parts I let Theo lever me out of bed and then he basically carries me to the car. I’m too ill to even appreciate the feel of all those muscles wrapped around me.

He straps me into the passenger seat and my head lolls against the headrest. I’m wearing my pyjamas and a pair of fluffy socks that Theo put on my feet while I watched in detached silence. The daylight is too bright and I whine about it until he slips his sunglasses onto my nose. He also tucks a blanket over me. I think he’s nervous.

It’s another thing I should care about, but when the car starts moving I decide instead that my energy is better spent focussing on not throwing up again. We drive in silence, except for the drone of the sat nav, directing Theo to wherever we are going. I turn my head and decide to distract myself by focussing on the man beside me. I’m wearing sunglasses and he’s concentrating on the road so I know I can look my fill for once.

I start at the top. His hair is messy, all rumpled, and not in an artful way. There’s a little tuft sticking out at the back. His eyebrows tip down in a frown but his profile is just as beautiful as that first day I glimpsed it in the church: long eyelashes, a perfectly straight nose, full, soft lips. His unshaven jaw sports a couple of days’ worth of dark stubble and it makes him look like one of those models in a razor advert. I imagine him, stripped to the waist, dragging a blade slowly up under his chin the way they do, rinsing the razor off in the sink. I shiver because the image is the most powerfully erotic thing that’s ever entered my head.

His collar bones are visible above the top of his shirt. He’s wearing a black T-shirt today, one of those collarless ones with the little buttons at the top that looks like it’s been sprayed on. It stretches tight over his biceps and I follow the line of his arms down to where his hands are on the steering wheel. Long fingers wrapped around the leather.

I think my fever might be getting worse. It’s so hot in here I can feel a trickle of sweat running down my neck.

‘We’re here,’ he mutters, breaking the spell, and I gaze blearily out of the window. We’re in town, outside the pharmacy, and Theo parallel-parks the car on the street.

Holy shit.Forget the imaginary shaving advert… effortlessly parallel-parking a car on the first go? One hand spinning the steering wheel, while the other braces on the headrest next to my face? Apparently that’s my kink, because this is the most turned on I have been in my life.

His forearm is right there in front of me. Muscles and ink and soft, gold skin.

‘Ow! Jesus, Clemmie! Did you just bite me?’ Theo exclaims, and I snort, ready to deny such an outlandish accusation.

Only now that I look again there does seem to be the perfect pink imprint of two little rows of teeth pressed into his skin.

‘Huh,’ I mumble in confusion. ‘Sorry.’

Theo turns off the ignition and pulls his arm away, holding it in front of him to look at it more closely. ‘Let’s hope this isn’t the start of the zombie apocalypse.’

I snicker, but actually it feels like it could be true.

‘I’m going to go and pick up the stuff Doctor Swain ordered,’ he says with a sigh. ‘I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move.’

‘Not really an option,’ I agree.

He gets out the car, and I must drift off because it seems like it’s only seconds before he’s back clutching four bursting carrier bags.

‘Did you buy everything they had in there?’ I ask blearily.

He gives me a look that says he doesn’t need to hear it from me right now, and pulls a bottle of water and a packet of tablets from one of the bags. ‘Take these,’ he says, putting two pills in my hand.

‘What are they?’ I ask suspiciously, because I’m not about to go popping any old thing a rock star asks me to.

A muscle by Theo’s eye twitches and I get the impression he’s trying very hard not to shout at me. ‘Some anti-viral medicine the doctor prescribed. Just take them.’

I do, as well as the extra-strength painkillers he offers me next.

Theo exhales heavily and pulls his seatbelt across his chest. ‘Right. Let’s get you back to bed.’

‘Thank you for looking after me,’ I say after we’ve been driving for a few minutes.

He just shrugs.

‘But why are you being so nice to me?’ I ask, the words muffled from where I’ve burrowed back under my blanket.

I peek over at him. He looks offended. ‘What do you mean? I am nice.’

‘Not to me,’ I say forlornly. ‘Not anymore.’

Theo frowns. ‘I’m not not nice to you,’ he says carefully.

‘I suppose,’ I agree. ‘But you’ve been ignoring me. I don’t like it. You think I’m bad at my job.’

He grips the steering wheel harder, keeps his eyes ahead. He doesn’t say anything for a long time and I can feel the pills he gave me starting to kick in. The sharp edges of the pain seem to dull and I feel woozy, heavy-eyed, everything seems softer now – me, the car, Theo, we’re all blurring gently together.

‘I’m sorry.’ Theo’s voice is soft too. I look over at him and he offers me a small, wry smile. His lips curve, his dimple flashes. ‘I was just trying… it doesn’t matter. I was an idiot. I’m really sorry, Clemmie.’

I want to lick your dimple, I think, only it’s possible I don’t just think it because Theo makes a strange choking sound.

‘You’ll feel better when we’re home,’ he says firmly.

And even though it doesn’t really mean anything at all, the way he says ‘we’ and ‘home’ has me smiling like an idiot as I fall back to sleep.