Chapter 25 #2
“Nope.” I shrug off my jacket and toss it on a chair. “You need looking after. And lucky for you, I’m devastatingly good at it.”
She blinks at me, forehead glazed in sweat from the fever. “You’re supposed to be with your family today.”
“I am spending it with family.” I roll up my sleeves, exposing forearms that usually make people shut up. “You’re the only family I need today.”
I call Trace while filling a kettle for tea. “Bad news. Fallon is sick,” I tell my brother. “Can’t make it, mate.”
“You’re skipping Thanksgiving?” The shock level in his voice astonishes me. “The whole day? Not even later for football?”
“Aye,” I say proudly.
There’s a pause, then a low chuckle. “You may not be a real boyfriend, but she’s got you under her green thumb.”
“Go to hell,” I growl and hang up.
As I work out how to make steamed tea of herbs used to make these medicine balls I hear about, numerous texts start lighting up my phone.
Mum: Please tell Fallon to feel better!
Shea-Lynne: Sorry to hear Fallon isn’t well. We can’t wait to meet her when she’s better.
I bring a mug on a tray to Fallon with some crackers. She’s curled on the couch under a knitted quilt that could have come from my Gran’s home in Waterford.
Her hairline is damp. Her lips are pale. And my chest aches for her in a way I’ve not felt before.
“Here, sit up,” I say, kneeling to press the warm cup into her hands. “Small sips, love, it’s hot.”
She obeys, eyes fluttering shut as she sips. “What’s in this?”
“Jade, citrus, and mint. Not from the jungle you made for me,” I say to be playful.
“It’s amazing.” She sniffs and drinks. “Quiet, Basil!”
Groaning, I say, “Do you want me to…take care of him?”
Her eyes flash wide. “No. I would never ask…”
“Never ask me to hurt someone for you?” I lean in and keep the mug tilted so she takes more sips. “You would never have to ask. I would just do it. I already have.”
Here I go with more confessions. More blackmail dollars that I have to make it rain on her. I’ll have to kiss her on New Year’s Eve and buy her six dozen roses on Valentine’s Day.
None of it sounds completely awful, and that chokes me up.
Fallon clears her throat and looks at me with red-rimmed eyes. “I know you have.”
“That guy who broke into my flat was after me, not you.”
“I meant the guy who bothered me in the garden. Bill. His name was Bill. You dragged him into the park and hurt him so badly he went to the hospital.” She sounds as calm as I am in Connor’s tunnel, describing to some eejit how he’s going to die.
Shite. She can call the police at any time. But Fallon has no intention of snitching on me. That’s not who she is.
“You’re right. I severely hurt that man because of how he talked to you, and it took a lot of willpower to let those bastards at Friendsgiving keep enough of their teeth to eat another meal.”
We stare, and something shifts between us.
“Thank you,” she whispers with lips that I now see as fuckable.
I’ve thought about fucking her, but to take my obsession to the level of making her suck my cock?
She looks at me longingly, and I physically feel the pull of how she wants me.
But in her state of unwellness… God, no. I can’t touch her yet.
Instead, I tuck the blanket tighter around her, then grab a cool cloth from the bathroom and lay it on her forehead. She sighs like I’ve injected her with morphine.
“Do you want toast?” I ask softly.
“You’re staying? I don’t want you to miss dinner with your family,” she mumbles.
“I don’t care about dinner.” I brush her cheek. “I already texted them and told them I wasn’t coming. They’re more worried that you’re sick than me not being there.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” She sounds on the verge of tears. “No one’s ever really worried about me since my mother died.”
“That fucking changes today, love.”
I strut back into her tiny kitchen to make the toast, buttering it the way my mum did when I was sick. I even add a squeeze of honey and cut it diagonally. Fallon strikes me as the kind of person who likes it better that way.
She nibbles on half a triangle, then the other, smiling, proving my instincts were right.
I let her fall asleep in my lap, and it’s the best I’ve felt in a really long time.
Watching football, I sit there for hours, holding her while she sleeps.
My phone buzzes a dozen times, but I ignore it. I don’t want to move and disturb her. This is more important.
Fallon makes a tiny sniffling noise and burrows closer, her warm cheek pressed to my thigh. Something in my chest loosens, and something else tightens. I don’t know which is stronger or which I like more.
Hours later, when her fever finally breaks, I ease her back against the cushions with the blanket. After standing and a good stretch, I gather the used tissues into a trash bag, not caring about her snots or phlegm. I wash the mug and the plate and lower the lights.
I carry her to her bed, feeling an urge I’ve never known to crawl in there with her.
I can’t do that.
Just taking care of her feels…right.
Too right.
I stare at this strange, fragile chaos of a woman who talks to plants and got under my skin without permission.
She thinks I’m her boyfriend.
Looks like right now… I am.