Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Scottie
Lucas is conspicuously smiley.
I’m watching my favorite comfort movie—Taken (yes, the one with Liam Neeson)—hopped up on every combination of flu medicine Dr. Google approved and feeling particularly floaty while Lucas’s chicken noodle soup is simmering in the kitchen.
He’s sitting on the other side of the couch from me, and every once in a while, a big grin crosses his face.
“What are you smiling about now?” I ask. “He just electrocuted a guy with a car battery.”
“It’s heartwarming.”
“It’s not heartwarming.”
“The guy is murdering half of Europe for his daughter. If that’s not heartwarming, I don’t know what is.”
With my legs stretched across the couch, I kick him. “You’re ridiculous.”
“If it’s not heartwarming, why on earth are you watching it when you’re sick?”
“Oh,” I say, nodding slowly and wishing my whole body didn’t ache to the touch. “You think I identify with the daughter. I’m Liam Neeson here.”
“You do have a particular set of skills,” he says.
We both turn back to the movie, but a few minutes later—right as Liam Neeson’s throwing someone off a balcony—he has that big smile on his face again, and I can’t help but stare.
Why is he so happy?
“Do I have something on my face?” he asks, catching me looking.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I just, uh, wanted to say thanks. For the medicine. And stuff.”
He shrugs. “Of course. It was nothing.”
It’s not nothing.
Especially not with him smiling like that.
Oh, stop. His default is happy. He probably smiles during slasher movies.
Or maybe he’s happy to be here with you.
Yeah right.
The second I got in Jake’s Lamborghini on Saturday night after the hockey game, I sniffed, and he made a disgusted face.
“You’re sick! You let me kiss you all night, and you’re sick!”
“I didn’t let you kiss me, bozo. You did it all yourself. You couldn’t wait to show up on the freaking kiss cam.”
“That did look pretty good,” he said with a smirk that made me want to gag. “But if I’d realized how sick you were, I’d have let Fischer kiss you, instead. He was staring at you all night.”
I hated the way he threw that in my face, hated thinking Lucas was watching us. “Maybe he’s starstruck. You’re Jake Rodgers and he’s a minor league player, after all.”
“Maybe,” he said, turning his face toward his cracked window. “Either way, no more kissing until you’re better.”
“Gee. Shucks,” I said, looking out the window at the dark streets. “Did you at least get the Old Spice deal your agent emailed me about?”
“Signed the contract this morning.”
“Good. Maybe we can break up before Spring Training then.”
“Nah, Agent wants this happening through March.”
“March? We already agreed that it would be the start of Spring Training, Jake.”
“It’s an extra week.”
“Five weeks,” I corrected, laughing bitterly. “We’ll be married with kids if it’s up to him.”
Jake chuckled. “Good point.” Then he ruffled my hair, the way he used to when we were kids and I pretended it didn’t bug me. “Don’t worry. Beginning of March will be fine.”
He didn’t so much as give me a chance to disagree. “Right. If you can make good choices like a big boy.”
“Maybe not, then,” he said, and we both chuckled, but it didn’t erase the mounting sickness I felt inside, both physically and emotionally.
When Jake texted the next morning about filming B-roll, I told him I was too sick and made him swear not to come over. He sent a thumbs-up. That was that.
That was yesterday. I’ve been out of commission for thirty-six hours, and as much as I hate to admit it, I’m not out of the woods yet.
I feel like trash. Achy, sensitive to the touch, cold then hot then cold again.
I’m sure I look—and smell—like death. But if Lucas weren’t here making me sip electrolytes and alternate acetaminophen and ibuprofen every two hours, I’d be a lot worse off.
I didn’t take a single pill yesterday. I just lay in bed moaning and shaking and wishing for sleep.
It’s depressing to think about. Worse to admit.
Why didn’t I even take pain medicine?
Was I simply too tired? Too out of it? Why did it take Lucas showing up for me to finally take something?
That’s … not great.
I frown at the thought, not sure I want to look at it too closely.
A text comes in from my mom.
Mom
How are you feeling, sweetie?
Scottie
Crappy. Thanks for checking.
Mom
I’m sorry! What can I do? Do you have enough NyQuil? DayQuil? Need some soup? I could hop on a plane right now and come take care of you.
Scottie
It’s not a big deal. I’ll feel better in a day or two. You’d get on a plane just to turn back around.
Mom
Are you sure? I know you don’t want to risk Jake getting sick, but I’ve taught elementary schoolers for thirty years. I’m sick-proof.
Scottie
You’re nice, Mom. Thanks for caring. I’ll be okay. Love you!
Mom
Love you, too. Keep me posted!
I stare at the exchange on my phone, not sure why I have a bad taste in my mouth.
My parents are wonderful. They’re the kind of people who canceled an anniversary trip to pick up a twelve-year-old Jake when they found out he’d tried to run away.
The kind who would convert a third-car garage to an extra bedroom with its own entrance so he always had a safe place to stay.
The kind who missed their daughter’s dance recital because they had to pick Jake up from a baseball tournament in Harrisburg after his mom just … didn’t.
I know they love me.
Just not as much as they love Jake.
Just not enough to go to the ends of the earth for me the way they would for him.
And maybe that’s my problem with her message. She offered to fly out.
But if I were Jake, she’d already be on the plane.
I want someone to love me the way my parents love him—unquestioning, all in, without needing to be asked.
Someone who doesn’t hear “I’m fine” and take it at face value.
I wince at the embarrassing reality and duck my head, wishing my emotional pain wasn’t suddenly eclipsing the physical.
For once, I don’t push the feeling down. I just let it sit there, embarrassing and true.
“Are you okay?”
Lucas’s voice cuts into my thoughts, pulling me from a place darker than I want to be. The movie continues in the background—lots of gunfire and shouting.
“I’m fine.”
Lucas doesn’t look convinced.
“Are you sure? Liam Neeson just”—he glances at the TV—“threatened a man with jumper cables, and you didn’t even blink.”
I blink several times. “There. Better?”
He watches me for a beat longer, then softens.
“Do you need anything?”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” I say.
“It’s not a trouble,” he replies immediately. “I’m happy to help. What do you need?”
“It’s not a big deal.”
Lucas shifts on the couch toward me, and the cushions dip under his weight, shrinking the space between us.
“It is a big deal,” he says. “You have the flu. When I came in, you had a fever of almost one-oh-four.”
I open my mouth, but he keeps talking—not steamrolling me, just … not done.
“I don’t know how much experience you have with this stuff, but my family was on constant watch when my mom was sick, and one thing I know for certain is that one-oh-three-point-eight is intense.” The muscles in his jaw tense. “You must feel like you got hit by a truck.”
I shrug, but even the feeling of my pajamas against my sensitive skin makes me almost hiss.
His attention feels heavier, like it has a physical weight, or a gravitational pull, maybe. It tugs at me until I look up.
“Why do you keep doing that?” he asks, his blue eyes studying me.
“Doing what?”
“Diminishing your own pain. You know you don’t get points for suffering with a stiff upper lip, right?”
“Why are you thinking about my lips?”
“Stop it,” he says, but there’s no bite to it. “Why won’t you admit you’re in pain?”
My throat constricts. The backs of my eyes ache.
“What does it matter if I admit it?” I ask. “It doesn’t change anything.”
“Doesn’t it?” He tilts his head slightly. “Doesn’t admitting you need help change something?”
“Not in my experience.”
Lucas looks like I just shoved him, like my words hurt. “I don’t want that to be true,” he says quietly.
I look away, focusing very hard on the TV.
“Don’t listen to me,” I say. He doesn’t move. “I’ll admit it, okay? I feel like crap, and it’s affecting my thinking. I get dramatic when I’m sick.” I sniff. “Man, you don’t know how to take no for an answer.”
“Yes, I do,” Lucas says. His voice is so gentle, it doesn’t feel like an argument at all. “I just know the difference between no and … not no.”
“Not no?” I repeat, trying to sound light and teasing, in spite of how rough my voice sounds. “I don’t think that’s grammatically possible.”
His lips twitch. “I’m not trying to push. I just hate that you won’t let yourself admit that you need help.”
I frown. “It’s not that I won’t let myself,” I say. “It’s that …”
“What’s the point?” he asks gently, echoing my words from earlier.
I swallow, not answering. The movie keeps playing—another punch, another crash—but it feels far away now.
Lucas waits. When I don’t speak, he stands.
“I’m going to go check on the soup.”
The smell of chicken and herbs grows stronger as he walks toward the kitchen.
He’s almost out of the room when I whisper, “Thanks.”
“My pleasure,” he says quietly.
He says it like he means it.
And for the first time, I can’t bring myself to convince him otherwise.