6. Snuggling a Pizza Oven
Snuggling a Pizza Oven
Josie
Ever tried to hoist a feverish, six-foot-four-ish, two-hundred-something-pound man into bed?
Would not recommend. Negative stars. Scathing Yelp review to follow.
“Can you”—I grunt, shoving at Wyatt’s torso—“just get up there?”
The man draped over me only groans. His eyes are closed. A little drool escapes the corner of his mouth.
I really hope this is the right call—putting him in bed rather than going straight to the ER.
When I awoke in total darkness, my bladder was about to explode.
There were a few moments of heart-pounding panic where I had to remind myself where I was and realized my nap had stretched well beyond the hour or two I’d expected.
Then I almost tripped over Wyatt’s big body in the hallway just outside my door. Where he’d apparently collapsed right after I did. The difference being, of course, that I was in a bed and he was on the floor, burning up with fever.
I don’t have a great feeling about putting him in bed rather than in the car, but I also want to respect Wyatt’s desire to stay home.
If we don’t need to go to the hospital, I don’t want to.
Maybe he’s just got a virus. Which I will undoubtedly catch after being practically plastered to him like this.
An even worse possibility is that it’s some kind of infection. If Wyatt had surgery—and I don’t know if he did or didn’t— the incision site could be infected. The lack of information I’m working with here kills me.
It’s the opposite of my normal job, where six-year-old Daisy Whittaker came in with a skinned knee from the playground and proceeded to tell me about her mother’s facelift recovery protocol. Elementary school kids will spill all the beans.
After I get Wyatt in bed, I’ll call Jacob and ask. He has to have some information since he knows Wyatt hasn’t been going to his scheduled appointments.
What I won’t do is panic and assume the worst.
After my brother’s actual brush with death, I had years of medical-related PTSD. Which is understandable given that Jacob almost died due to a simple mosquito bite.
The mosquito bite turned into something much worse when Jacob scratched the heck out of it and then spent hours in hockey gear.
You don’t want to know what kind of bacteria can exist inside stinky hockey gear.
And then, of course, Jacob was a preteen boy who didn’t think to mention the redness and swelling until he became septic.
In his defense, who thinks of mosquito bites as life-threatening?
Turns out, when it comes to bacteria and infection, almost anything can be. One of Jacob’s nurses told me she had a patient almost die from a zit, which got infected and created an abscess on the brain.
Obviously, Jacob didn’t die, though he did stop playing hockey after that and has a very mild limp most people wouldn’t notice.
Me? I ended up in therapy a few years later because a simple well-visit to the doctor made me hyperventilate and I was convinced even a paper cut might kill me.
Almost losing your big brother to something as simple as a mosquito bite will do that to a person.
Therapy worked so well, I ended up interested in nursing. Though I never wanted to work inside a hospital. And I still sometimes, like right now, for example, have to battle invasive thoughts about the worst-case scenario in any given situation.
Wyatt doesn’t have sepsis , I tell myself. If the fever doesn’t go down with meds or if he gets worse, we’ll go in. Everything is fine.
What’s not going to be fine is my back if I can’t heft his bulk into bed and stop wearing him like a scarf.
“Come on,” I grunt, forcing a cheer I don’t feel. My legs are shaking.
“Tired,” he mumbles, not opening his eyes.
“Then let’s get you in bed.”
Instead of complying, he leans harder into me.
I’m grateful his bedroom is only about ten steps from where we stand in the hallway.
Otherwise I couldn’t play the part of his half crutch, half wheelbarrow.
I’m sweating profusely, clothes sweat-damp and stuck to my slick skin.
And I’m still not nearly as hot as Wyatt with his fever.
Holding him up is like snuggling a pizza oven.
I’ve always been a little awed and intimidated by Wyatt’s size. He’s tall and broad. Well muscled. Thighs thicker than a normal person’s torso.
But there’s a difference between acknowledging his size from a distance and wearing all that bulk like a very heavy, very hot scarf draped over my shoulders. This close he is practically bigfoot-ish compared to me. And he feels like he outweighs a hippo.
Surprisingly I don’t feel any of my normal discomfort from being so physically close to a man this size. Just the physical discomfort from hoisting his giant body.
With a groan he snuggle-slumps into me, and my arms tighten around his waist to keep him from tilting over. I definitely don’t think I could get him off the ground if he falls. Not unless I’m endowed with the kind of adrenaline that helps mothers lift cars off their infants.
Is that even a real thing? I wonder as Wyatt’s scruff bristles against my neck.
A little shiver moves through me at the gentle scratch on my sensitive skin. It’s been a long time since a man has been this close to me. Since I’ve wanted a man this close to me.
Not that I want Wyatt nuzzled into my neck. I don’t. It’s Wyatt . With his personality pricklier than his uncharacteristic stubble.
But there’s a surprising sense of emotional warmth—not to be confused with the feverishly warm physical sensation of Wyatt—spreading through my chest. Probably because I like taking care of people.
He is, if nothing else, a person.
A person who is starting to drift into feverish sleep, his breath hot like a desert wind on my throat.
Which is, apparently, the theme right now. Hot, hot, hot.
“Here we go, buddy. One, two, three!”
Using what feels like the last of my energy, I bend my knees and try to launch Wyatt up onto the queen-size bed. Thankfully, the frame is low, and I manage to get his torso firmly on the mattress. Which leaves my face pressed to his abs.
I jerk away. He moans, smacking his lips. I’d laugh if I were less exhausted. And if I didn’t still have to get his tree trunk thighs up into the bed.
As I’m working to lift and move them up with almost no help from him—all while trying not to jostle his injured foot—I chastise myself. I should have seen this earlier. The flush in his cheeks. The sweating. The constant clench in his jaw.
I can blame my own heat exhaustion for this or maybe the fact that I don’t often allow myself to really look at Wyatt.
I’m looking now.
And I feel like I’ve failed him. It makes me doubly irritated because since when did it become my job to oversee Wyatt?
Since today, when I decided to consider taking a paycheck I do want for a job that I really, really don’t . Technically, I guess it was yesterday. The quick glance at my phone before I left my room told me it’s five in the morning.
Once Wyatt’s in bed and my muscles feel like they’re going on strike, I grab ibuprofen from my bag and the rest of my bottled water from the living room. I still need to pee, but right now, Wyatt takes precedence over my bladder.
“I’ve got your medicine,” I say. “Up we go.”
Wyatt groans as I lift his hot, heavy head enough that he can take the pills with a swallow of water.
I watch the way his throat moves as he drinks, wishing my observations felt more clinical and less...personal. Somewhere in the last half hour, I became emotionally invested. Fabulous.
When he pulls back slightly, I move the bottle from his lips and guide his head down to the pillow.
“I don’t like this,” I whisper, unsure if he’s already asleep. “I’m concerned.”
He opens one eye. His mouth lifts in the smallest of smiles. “You’re concerned. About me.”
“Only because my brother will take a massive pay cut if you die,” I tell him, though it isn’t true. I mean, yes—the pay cut part is true. But it’s not why I’m concerned.
He releases a soft breath, almost a chuckle, and his eyes flutter closed again. Just when I’m about to slide my hand out from under his head, he cracks his eyes open again.
“So pretty,” he whispers.
I freeze, my mouth dropping open as his eyes drop closed. His head lolls, and I slide my hand from under it, telling myself he doesn’t know what he’s saying. And he certainly won’t remember saying it.
But for just for the tiniest moment, I allow Wyatt’s words to curl around me, to mean something. Even if they don’t.