Chapter 24 Eve
EVE
“Alright, Evie girl,” he says, his voice low in my ear. “Let’s get you showered and into bed.”
I shake my head, pressing my face further into his skin. This is all I need. No shower. No bed. Just him, holding me on my kitchen floor when I can’t even make it fully into my house.
“You’ll feel better once you’re clean and in bed.”
“No, I won’t.” Because you’ll leave and I’ll be left to deal with this mess alone in silence.
His thumb runs along my hairline, and as much as I want to live in that tiny touch for the rest of my existence, I feel another sneeze coming and quickly redirect it into my elbow.
I can’t be sick. Not when I have petals to dry and seeds to roast. If I don’t start the process now—or tomorrow morning at the latest—all the sunflowers in the truck and the buckets outside will go bad.
“Come on,” he says, grabbing onto the counter and using it to hoist both of us up. He drapes the blankets around my shoulders, holding them tight underneath my chin. With one hand on my back, he guides me into the living room up the stairs. “Do you have cold medicine?”
I shake my head as I shuffle into my bedroom. “I don’t need medicine.”
“Not what I asked,” he says, following me into the bathroom and opening up the medicine cabinet.
When he doesn’t find what he’s looking for, he looks underneath the sink.
He shakes his head, coming to his full height in front of me with his hands on his hips, that strong chest on full display.
“You have three singular pills of ibuprofen that have been expired for four years.”
I shrug, my eyes drawn to his bare skin rather than the slightly scold-y expression he’s giving me that I really don’t hate. “I don’t get sick.” I sniffle again.
He raises his eyebrows. “Alright.” He takes a step past me, starts the shower, and gently unwraps the blankets from around my shoulders. “Are you okay to shower on your own?”
I roll my eyes. “Been doing it for about three decades. I think I can manage it.”
He grins, resting his hands on either side of my face. “I’m glad feisty Evie is back, even if she’s sick.”
“I’m not sick!”
“I’m going to run out for medicine while I still can. Do you need anything else?”
“I don’t need medicine. I’ll be fine.”
“Christ, Eve, can you just tell me if you need something? I’m going out whether you like it or not so you might as well place your requests now.”
I press my lips together. “Take my car. Yours will be roadside decoration.”
His smiles. “Any medicine requests? Food requests?”
I shake my head. “Just—”
“Just what?”
“Be careful?”
He pauses, his grin widening. He nods as he tugs me into his chest. “I promise.”
And with another wet kiss on my hair, he leaves me.
I undress when I hear him pulling his stuff together downstairs, and just after I step under the gloriously warm water, he knocks on the bathroom door.
“Yeah?”
“Can I come in?”
I glance down at myself, then at the frosted-but-not-quite-frosted-enough glass that's quickly fogging up. “Sure.”
“I’m leaving your phone outside the shower,” he says, and I see only a blob of rain jacket as he bends to place it outside the door.
“If you need anything, call me and I’ll come straight back.
Or call 911, I guess. That’s probably the better thing to do if you fall or something.
But then call me and I’ll come right back. ”
“Ryder, I’m a fully capable human being.”
The blob holds his hands up. “Well excuse me for caring too much.”
Before he can leave again, I tap on the glass. He pauses, presumably turning back to see if it was intentional.
I use my fist to wipe a small clear circle I can peer out of. “Thank you, Ryder.”
“You’re welcome.”
Despite the warmth of the shower, a bone-deep cold has settled throughout my body.
I grab my heated blanket from the bathroom closet before I leave, my towel wrapped around me, and toss it onto the bed as I take in the setup Ryder has put together.
TV trays loaded with the same snacks he brought me in his gift basket. A variety of cold medicines that make me think he just bought one of each. Water, Gatorade, tea packets, a book of sudoku.
He scrambles up from the armchair by the window when he sees the blanket, already searching for an outlet by the bed.
“I’ll get out of your hair in a couple minutes, just wanted to make sure there wasn’t anything else you needed,” he says, as he clicks the heated blanket on. His brow furrows, and he clicks it again, leaning over to check the outlet behind my nightstand.
“Just… warmth,” I say, beelining for the bed and pulling the blanket over me.
And… it’s not warm. And while it’s not cold, either, it’s definitely not heated.
He clicks the button again, his eyes finding mine as he presses his lips together. He reaches forward, clicking my lamp on to check the outlet and promptly turning it off again. He sighs, dropping the remote for the heated blanket on the bed next to me. “Something tells me this is broken.”
I grab the button and click it to make sure—as if I didn’t see his attempt with my own two eyes—and yup, there’s nothing going on there.
I grumble, pushing my legs underneath the comforter and tugging all of my blankets over me.
“I’d offer you body heat again, but you just showered.”
Without thinking, I offer up a solution to this argument.
Call me addicted, if you must.
“Go shower.” I blink, realizing how desperate this must come off. “You can’t drive the BMW in this weather anyway. And you broke my blanket so you owe me.”
“I broke your blanket? Come on, that thing has probably been sitting in that closet for years. Time broke that blanket.”
I shake my head. “So rude of you.” I let out a long breath that promptly turns into a sneeze. “I’m so cold.”
“Alright, alright. Let me just get my bag from my car,” he says, pulling the blankets up higher over my neck. “Good thing I was planning on heading up to New York or I’d end up smelling like a sunflower.”
“It’s lavender, Ryder. Grace trades me lavender things for sunflower things.”
He snorts. “I’m sorry for misidentifying the smell.”
I shake my head. “I’m deeply offended,” I say, my nose getting stuffy from the repetitive sneezing. He runs his fingers through my damp hair, and I close my eyes at the touch.
“I’ll be right back, okay?”
I nod, listening as he shuffles around the room.
“TV remotes,” he says, dropping them on the bed next to me. “Can I feed you some medicine real quick?”
My eyes pop open so I can eye him, and I slowly sit up. “I don’t need medicine.”
“What’s ailing you? Sneezing and sniffling obviously,” he starts, pulling a few of the bottles forward. He holds a hand to my forehead and grimaces. “Fever, if I had to guess.” Without any input from me, he grabs a big, dark blue bottle. “Let’s try this and see how you feel in an hour.”
“I’m fine now,” I say, as he tears the plastic off and pours a dose according to the directions on the back. He leaves the little cup on the TV table between us, and I quickly grab it and tip it into my mouth. “I’m not sick.”
He takes the cup into the bathroom to rinse it out and returns with it a few moments later, resting it right back on top of the bottle. “That’ll have you feeling better in no time.”
I nod, leaning back into my pillow. “Thank you.”
His thumb trails along the line of my jaw again. “Of course.”
Twenty minutes later, Ryder climbs into bed with me, his skin still damp from his shower and smelling like one of those shampoo bottles with weird manly names like field musk. He’s wearing only a thin pair of gray sweatpants that—good lord—should be illegal.
And it momentarily distracts me from my sniffly nose and the intense chill that I can’t seem to get rid of.
He moves closer, propping my spare pillow against the headboard so he can see the TV and wrapping an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in tight.
I don’t hesitate to curl in around him, abandoning whatever silly sitcom is playing and focusing instead on extracting every ounce of heat available to me.
“Wow, you’re still really cold,” he says, as my hand skates along his abs and they bunch in response.
I nod, pressing my face into the crook of his arm and stuffing a tissue under my nose so I don’t dribble onto him.
His hands run easily over my skin, leaving a trail of warmth everywhere they touch me.
I wind my legs into his, and when he wraps his arms around me and just hugs me, I feel like I could break.
I relax into him, stealing all his warmth and undoubtedly turning him into an icicle, but he only kisses my head, sighing lightly as he pulls the blankets up higher.
I wake up warm.
And super disoriented.
The only light in the room is the TV, the sound off and captions turned on. And underneath me is a heated log.
A… Ryder.
I blink, struggling to get a breath in through my stuffed nose. I reach for another tissue, quickly blowing my nose and discarding the tissue in the bin Ryder placed next to the bed.
“Good evening, Sunflower,” he says, his voice low as his fingers gently rub my back. “Do you feel a little better?”
I shake my head, struggling to swallow over a sore throat and nearly crying at the pain of it. “I feel terrible,” I croak.
“Aw,” he says, his voice full of sorrow as he sits up, resting the back of his hand on my forehead. “Yeah, you’re burning up.” He grabs his phone presumably to check the time. “I think we can probably use some of the sleepy stuff now and knock you out until morning. How does that sound?”
I grab another tissue from the box. “Sounds great. Can’t feel like shit if I’m unconscious.”
He nods. “Yeah, that’s the great thing about cold medicine,” he says, grabbing a bottle and doling out a dose for me. “Even if it doesn’t do everything you want it to, it’s the closest thing we’ve got to a wormhole that spits you out on the other side of a cold.”
“I don’t have a cold.”
He holds the plastic cup up out. “Drink up, gorgeous.”
He waits for me to knock it back before taking the cup into the bathroom and washing it out.
And then he melds so easily back into my bed that it seems kind of like he belongs there, his hands running all across my skin, pushing damp hair out of my face and tugging me down under the covers with him.
“You should go. You’re going to get sick,” I tell him, angling the hotbed of germs that is my face away from him.
“Was that your evil plan all along? Pretend like you need me just long enough to send me out in the worst part of the storm?”
I shake my head. “God, I forgot about the storm,” I say as wind whistles outside and the house creaks. “You should stay on the couch. So you don’t get sick.”
His hands skate along my arms and find my hands, squeezing them between us as he grins. “How would I get sick? I don’t see any sick people around here.”
I huff, sniffling and clearing my throat as I turn away from him. “The hurricane makes people sick.”
“But not you, of course. You’re not sick.”
“No. But you will be if you hang around me.” I pause. “I mean, the hurricane.”
He winds an arm around my waist, pulling my ass back against him.
And I give up the joke as I reach for another tissue. “Ryder, seriously. I don’t want you to get sick. I’ve been medicated. I’m not an ice cube anymore. Take care of yourself now.”
“Well maybe I’m cold and need you to warm me up.
Besides, I bought every preventative medicine on the shelves, too.
I’m so full of vitamins they’re going to start leaking out of my skin.
And honestly, I’m not sure keeping my distance now will make any difference.
I’ve already taken the brunt of your germs.”
“Ryder, you’re knowingly hanging out in a cesspool. A bad one.”
He shrugs. “I’d rather hang out in a cesspool of bad germs than weather the storm without you.”
I twist around to face him, and without missing a beat, his hands brush my hair out of my face again, his expression soft as his eyes dart around my face. “Why?”
He raises his eyebrows. “You’ve asked me that question before.”
“Answer it again.”
He sighs, one hand coming to rest on the skin of my waist where my shirt has ridden up. “Because I like you, Evie. And I really want you to get better so I can actually do something about it.”