Seven | Ethan
Seven
Ethan
“Get the paperwork drawn up and have it delivered to me this afternoon,” I ordered before I hung up the phone. I glanced at myself in the mirror of the tiny bathroom in Eva’s apartment, where I had been taking the majority of my business calls while she slept.
In the four hours I had been there, she had slept the majority of the time, tossing and turning as she struggled to get comfortable. When I decided to show up at her apartment, I was prepared to talk to her about what had happened the other day in the copy room. I hadn’t meant to lose my temper with her, and she definitely didn’t deserve the response she got from me. But then I found how sick she was, and I couldn’t leave her if I wanted to. There was this overwhelming instinct to stay close to her and make sure she was okay.
Thankfully, I was able to convince the woman at the front desk to allow me access to her apartment so that I could do a welfare check. When Eva attempted to answer us through the front door, her words were jumbled and she sounded delirious. That was when I realized just how sick she was.
Having a mother who was a retired nurse was helpful as she guided me on what to do to help bring Eva’s temperature down, as well as what to look for before taking her to the emergency room. Her fever was high, but my mother assured me that it was okay and to let her body do what it needed to fight the illness. That didn’t make it any easier watching her tremble beneath a pile of blankets or whimper in her sleep.
I was sitting in the chair across from her, working on the laptop that I had brought over earlier when she rolled over, and her eyes fluttered open. It took her a few minutes to focus before she realized that I was there. She slowly lifted herself to a sitting position and rubbed her throat before coughing.
“Why are you here?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.
“To take care of you.” I folded my hands in my lap and tried to keep the emotion out of my voice so she didn’t hear how worried I had been over her. It was one thing to be concerned as her boss, but it was another to admit that my concern stretched far beyond that to a point that was inappropriate.
“Thank you, but you can go. I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
She pulled her shoulders back defiantly as she tried to narrow her eyes at me. Suddenly, without warning, she sneezed. I watched as her body flinched in response, her hand grabbing her side as she tried to brace herself for the next one. She leaned forward and grabbed the box of tissues from the table before she leaned back against the couch.
“Eva, stop being so stubborn and let me take care of you,” I practically begged as I set my computer on the floor beside me. I got up to get her a glass of water from the kitchen so she could take some of the medicine that I had delivered earlier. I popped a few tablets out of the package and carried them with me, waiting for her to finish sneezing before I sat down on the edge of the couch beside her. I extended my hand with the pills to her and waited for her to take them.
“What are these?” she asked suspiciously.
“Cold and flu, something or another. Sorry, I don’t remember the name. I just told them to get whatever was best for the flu since that’s what you seem to have. I can get the package if you want to look at it.”
“You had someone deliver drugs to you?” She arched a brow as she reached out and took the pills and the glass of water from me.
“Well, that makes me sound like a drug dealer, so no—I didn’t have someone deliver drugs to me. I had my assistant bring me medicine, as well as a few other things.”
“A man with a plan,” she teased quietly before taking the pills and swallowing the drink of water. “Thank you. I appreciate the medicine.”
“You’re welcome.”
I stood up and glanced at the mess around her. There was a trashcan next to her on the floor, but it was full of tissues overflowing from the top of it. I went to the kitchen and opened the cabinet under the sink, thankful when I found the trash bags right away. I pulled one out and shook it open as I made my way back to where she was sitting on the couch. I held it in front of her, waiting for her to collect the used tissues and toss them in. I grabbed the trashcan from the floor and emptied it into the bag as well. There were a few empty Gatorade containers on the coffee table that I added to the bag before setting it by the door to take out later when I left.
“What do you feel like for dinner?” I asked, taking my place in the chair across from her again.
She scrunched her nose and shook her head.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You still need to eat,” I said gently, not wanting to push boundaries with her.
“I’ll eat some crackers or something later.” She tried to brush me off as she turned her attention to the TV to avoid looking at me.
I got up and sat on the coffee table, blocking her view as I forced her to look at me.
“Eva,” I warned. “You will eat dinner one way or another. I’m not leaving here until you do. So you can either make this easy and tell me what you want, or I will decide for you. But one way or another, you will eat. Do I make myself clear?”
Color washed over her face and neck as she looked at me.
“I must really get under your skin if you think you can come into my apartment—uninvited, I might add—and tell me what to do. You might be my boss when we’re at the office, but you sure as hell aren’t the boss right now.”
“I’m not trying to be your boss. I’m trying to make sure you’re okay and that you don’t end up in the emergency room because you’re being too stubborn to let me take care of you,” I growled, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees as I stared at her.
“I didn’t ask you to take care of me.” She threw her hands in the air in frustration.
“No. You’re right. You didn’t. But regardless, I’m here, Eva. And believe it or not—I care about you. Which means I can’t walk out of here and leave you alone while you’re sick when the least I can do is help take care of you. Please stop making it so damn difficult.”
“I’m not the one who makes things difficult,” she shot out, then immediately pressed her lips together to keep from talking as her eyes widened.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, knowing that we were finally going to clear the air between us.
“Nothing.” She folded her arms over her chest and looked away.
“Bullshit. Say what you’ve been wanting to say, Eva.”
“I said it’s nothing,” she objected before she started coughing.
I grabbed the glass of water and waited until she was done before offering it to her. She side-eyed me as she took it, and I had to pretend I didn’t feel the electrical currents running over my skin as her fingers brushed against mine.
“I’ll order some soup and pasta from the Italian place on the corner,” I said, not bothering to wait for her to object to it as I got up and walked into the kitchen to place my order.
Whether she wanted my company or not didn’t matter at this point. She was obviously sick, and I was worried about her well-being, which meant it was my job to stay and make sure she was okay for as long as she needed.
By the time the food got there, Eva was asleep on the couch again. I knew that she needed her rest, but given how restless she was, I didn’t feel bad waking her up to eat.
“Dinner is ready,” I said softly as she glared at me and wiped the sleep from her eyes.
“I told you I would eat later.”
“Yeah, and I told you that you would eat now.”
It wasn’t the most mature response, and it was a little more aggressive than I would have liked, but seeing her so weak made it hard for me to care. I wanted to get her better as fast as possible because knowing she was so sick made my heart ache.
I set a bowl of soup on the table in front of her and then went back to grab the plate with pasta that I had prepared for her. I had no idea what she might like or what might upset her stomach, so I tried to go with light dishes. Overall, the goal was to nourish her body in any way I could.
“This tastes delicious,” she said softly as she lifted the spoon to her mouth and took a sip of the broth. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I went with some of the basics. I was going to cook you dinner but didn’t find much in your freezer other than ice cream and a couple of TV dinners.”
“Yeah, I could’ve told you that you weren’t going to find anything in there,” she said with a laugh as she leaned back against the pillows without spilling the bowl of soup. “I come from a large family of Latin women, and I’m the only one who can’t cook.”
“Really?” I asked, my eyes narrowing as I waited to see if she was messing with me. It wasn’t like I was all that great about keeping my freezer and fridge stocked with food, so I couldn’t blame her for hers being empty. I knew what it was like to be so busy all the time that it was easier to grab takeout instead of trying to cook.
“Yep. While my mom was busy teaching my sisters to cook, I was always up in my room studying. I guess my mom just gave up on trying to domesticate me when I was more interested in school than cooking.”
“Eh, there’s a lot of people who don’t like to cook,” I offered, twirling pasta on my fork before taking a bite.
“Oh, it’s not that I don’t like to cook. I literally cannot cook. One time, I almost caught our kitchen on fire trying to make toast. I’ve also ruined macaroni and cheese so many times that no one allows me to even look at the box anymore.”
“How did you almost catch the house on fire? Toasters are fairly simple to use.” I quirked a brow, eager to hear how she could have possibly screwed that up.
“It wasn’t all my fault. My family has a really old toaster that is built into the wall. You pull the side of it out, pop the bread in, then press the lever down and it makes the toast. I, however, thought it was a good idea to push the side back into the wall after I pressed the lever down. There was nowhere for the heat to go other than in the wall.”
I reached up and smoothed a hand down the scruff on my face as I struggled to hide my grin. The look on her face was adorable, and I could picture her as a na?ve little girl attempting to make toast without realizing what she was doing.
“Okay, that’s pretty bad,” I said as I laughed. “But we all do silly stuff when we’re kids.”
“That was just last week,” she said, her tone serious and her face straight as she watched for my reaction.
I closed my eyes and bit the inside of my lip to keep from laughing.
“You’re kidding, right?” I asked quickly before I lost control.
“Yeah,” she said playfully, her voice still raspy. “It was two weeks ago.”
I shook my head and laughed, loving that her playful side had returned.