Chapter 8 #2
“Uh-huh, just a little cut that he didn’t tell anybody about.
” Christopher rolled his eyes. “And he keeps getting skinnier and skinnier. He’s running this wild fever, and he looks gray.
We’re asking each other that the hell? Finally, I get one of those point-and-shoot thermometers.
The ones where you don’t have to touch or wait? ”
Dawes was fascinated. “Yeah. I got one of them.”
“Well, he’s running a hundred and four-degree temperature.
I panic and run him to the emergency room, and he gets blood work, X-rays, all the shit.
He’s got sepsis from this stupid foot infection which got in his blood.
Two weeks in the hospital.” Topher pointed to Nick.
“This guy here was one of the nutritionists at the hospital who got brought in because Shay’s weight was so low. ”
Nick nodded, eyes wide. “You should have seen him; he looked like a walking skeleton because he’d been losing weight for this role.
Right? He’d been a little skinny, but then he was super skinny.
Well, I saw him, and I just told him the truth.
We had to get this figured out or he was gonna die one day.
One thing led to another, and by the time it was two weeks in the hospital and they were sending him home, I went with him.
Me and Christopher were there together, and I was learning how I was supposed to deal with both of these fools. Can you imagine?”
Dawes took the bait, offering over a grin. “I sort of can. Just a little bit.”
Seamus’s lips opened in shock, and he started laughing.
Jesus, it was just not fair. How could anybody be that fucking pretty?
“Do you hear how he’s maligning me?”
Christopher snorted too. If that man was an animal, he’d be a bucking bull. “Oh no, I don’t think he can be maligning you if it’s the truth. Shay, I really don’t.”
“You are all assholes. So mean to me.”
Seamus’s laughter kept on, though, warm and happy, filling the air like sunlight.
Dawson rubbed his chest because it actually throbbed.
This man was so beautiful and happy and amazing that he made Dawson ache.
It was crazy, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
Hell, maybe he wasn’t supposed to do anything about it.
Maybe he was supposed to bask in Seamus’s reflected sunlight and then watch him walk away.
But he wasn’t going to get mad about it anymore, because that didn’t do him no good.
No, sir. Dawson was gonna enjoy it while he could and be in the moment.
Nick served up the food, and it sure smelled good for something that had all sorts of micronutrients and vegetables in it. The sauce, he figured, was going to go a long way toward making it yummy, and he did love him some brown rice.
“This looks amazing,” Dawson told him. “Thank you so much for inviting me.”
Seamus and Christopher had dug in by the time Nick sat down with his bowl.
Nick scoffed at them, shaking his head, but then he grinned at Dawson.
“You’re super most welcome, Mr. Dawson. Everyone deserves a good meal, and you’re healing up from an injury.
I think you could totally use some of this deep vegetable action. ”
“Yeah, they’ve had me drinking protein drinks and broth to help with the bones. But I get what you mean.”
“You guys need a lot of protein, which I’m not saying is a bad thing. It’s great for muscles and everything, but you really need all the different nutrients.”
Dawson raised an eyebrow and shoveled some food into his mouth to keep himself from saying anything else. They guessed Nick had been kind of scrutinizing their diet after all, and he refused to be ashamed of it.
He didn’t have to be pretty to do his job. End of story.
Christopher chuckled and he tried hard not to glare at the guy.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that.” Christopher said. “I can tell you want to tell him to “stuff it” where the sun doesn’t shine.”
“No, that’s not exactly true.” And he didn’t want to tell Nick to stuff it that much anyway. “I just think probably we need a little bit different food to do our respective jobs, that’s all.”
“Oh, no doubt.” Nick picked up a piece of broccoli with chopsticks.
He didn’t know how the man was going to eat all that rice with chopsticks.
He knew lots of people all over the world did it, but Dawson had never managed to figure it out worth a shit.
“But I could probably design you a meal plan that would give you everything you wanted, including hamburgers and fried stuff, while also giving you a fuller range of nutrients without you having to drink a shake or broth.”
“Well, if you can tailor it to being on the road and having to eat out a lot, I’d go with it. That doesn’t mean while I’m here, I’m going to ask Mr. Coke and Dillon to change everything or Miss Tracy to cook something special for me.”
Dawson wasn’t going to make any more work for anybody. They had plenty to do already, and it wasn’t on them to take care of him like a baby.
“I tell you what. Why don’t you eat one meal a day with us, even when everyone is here? See how you feel by the time we are done. It could be lunch, if you want, because I know you enjoy your hearty breakfast, and Mr. Coke and Ms. Tracy both like to cook for dinner.”
Dawson tilted his head and looked at Seamus, asking the obvious question. Nick and Christopher were on this man’s staff. He didn’t want to push his way in to that at all.
Seamus nodded, his cheeks pink. “That would be great; I would love that. You could eat with us, and we can talk about all the things I did wrong in the morning.”
Dawson hooted, “Well, how could I turn that down? Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll eat with you midday, and you can stuff me full of whatever exotic amazingness you want to.”
When all three of them turned to stare at him as if he’d lost his mind, Dawson replayed that in his head and realized what it sounded like, and he couldn’t help but laugh, even as his ears heated up to the point where he thought they might flame right off his head.
“Let me rephrase that. You can feed me all the weird food you want.”
“Oi! Maybe I liked it better the other way,” Seamus said.
He was definitely gonna go up in flames, but what a way to go. He had to admit he liked the way Seamus was looking at him right now.
If he could keep the guy staring at him that way through the rest of the time he was there, this was all going to be worth it, even if they never laid a hand on each other.