Chapter 34
THIRTY-FOUR
“Mav? Buddy, where are you?” I call as I enter his apartment. He’s got a one-bedroom ground level unit. On a normal day it’s already darker than ours upstairs, but today all the lights are off, the TV too, so it’s like a cave.
The place is awesome. Nice leather furniture, a huge TV that takes up the better part of one wall, he’s even got throw pillows. Why he always wants to hang at our place is beyond me.
Charli barks and I follow the sound to the bedroom where my buddy is on his back with the comforter and blanket thrown off the bed and an arm over his eyes. Charli lies at the end of the mattress near his feet.
“You don’t look so good.” I step closer and then back. “Or smell so good.”
“I think I threw up a kidney.” His voice is raspy and pained.
“What can I do? Do you need water? Soup? I can make a call about getting you a new kidney.”
A knock at the door has me looking back through the living room to the front door. “Are you expecting someone else?”
“It’s food. Can you grab it?”
I cross through the apartment and open the door, taking a deep breath of clean, uncontaminated air. After thanking the delivery guy, I take the bag of food back to the sick room.
“Here ya go.”
“Not for me.” He heaves. “Oh, just the smell makes me want to hurl again. It’s for you, so you’ll stay with me.”
“You didn’t need to bribe me.”
“Look, I know I’m your favorite person, but eventually your stomach would have convinced you to leave me.”
I chuckle and take the bag back out to the kitchen. “There is a lot of food in here.”
“You’re a hungry bitch.”
He’s in the same position, but Charli has moved up to his hip and Maverick strokes her with the hand closest.
“What do you need?”
“I just want to lie here until the room stops moving. Tell me a story.”
I take a seat on the floor near the door and lean my back up against the wall. I like the dude, but he smells, and I don’t want whatever he has. “A story?”
“Anything to distract me.” He peeks out from under his arm and then reaches over to his nightstand and tosses me his Shakespeare textbook. “Read to me. Do the funny voices.”
“I thought you were done with Shakespeare.”
“I am. We’re on Shelley now, but that book is all the way in my backpack.”
I hesitate.
“Come on. Pleeeease? I dig the rhyming shit; it’s beautiful.”
“All right, all right.” I open the book and start.
Maverick falls asleep about five minutes in, which is good because reading sappy words about love is the last thing I want to be doing. I go out to the living room and eat, feed Charli, and then take her out for a quick walk.
Back inside, I take my spot in his room sitting on the floor and I must pass out because the next thing I know, Charli is licking my face, and Maverick is standing in front of me with a grin.
“Feeling better?” I ask, nudging Charli away and wiping a hand across my slobbery cheek.
“I think so. I’m gonna try to eat.”
I follow him out to the kitchen, and he heats up some of the Chinese he ordered.
We sit on stools at the counter. The smell of food has me heating up a plate too a few minutes later.
Ginny texted while I was asleep to let me know the plans for tonight, meeting up at The Hideout with our friends.
I’m real nervous about whatever she wants to talk to me about, but I do my best to push it out of my mind for now.
Mav finishes about half the food on his plate and then pats his stomach. “Thanks for hanging.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You’re not as hot as Nanny Laura, but it did the trick.”
“Nanny Laura?”
“She was my favorite. Had these gigantic boobs that were like pillows.” He nuzzles his head to the side like he’s remembering it.
“She’d sing to me when I was sick or when I was upset—which was a lot because Dad was always flaking on shit.
I think I got more hugs from her in the year or so that she was my nanny than I have from him my entire life. Parents are bullshit.”
I’m quiet. Don’t really know what to say. For all the shitty things that happened growing up, physical contact was never in short supply. Sometimes my mom clung to me all day as if I was the only thing keeping her connected to the planet.
My stomach twists and I push away my plate.
“Sorry, man, didn’t mean to go dark.”
“Nah, it’s fine. I don’t feel so well.” I stand and I break out in a cool sweat, my mouth waters.
“Ah shit,” Mav says right before I take off in a dead run toward the bathroom.
After puking for the better part of three hours, I join Maverick in the living room. I stripped down to my boxers—everything else is wet from sweat.
“God, you weren’t kidding. All my organs feel like they’ve shifted. Is that a thing?”
“No clue.” He nods with his head toward the kitchen. “Ginny brought soup and Jell-O.”
“Ginny was here?”
“Your phone was going off, so I texted her.”
I find my phone on the counter and see that she did text several times about tonight and then to tell me to feel better and let her know if I need anything.
“She wanted me to tell you that she’d be by later to check in.” He shakes his head. “That Ginny, she’s a peach.”
“She’s the best,” I say because even though I’m a little freaked out, I know it’s true.
I text her back to thank her for the food and tell her not to bother coming again until we’re on the mend.
The last thing she needs is to catch whatever this is.
I feel like I’ve been run over by a bus.
I take a seat in the recliner. The cool leather feels nice against my skin. I’m pretty sure I have a fever.
“I need a Ginny.” Maverick sighs and Charli whines.
“I think Charli would take issue with getting kicked out of your bed for a chick.”
We spend the late afternoon and evening watching TV. Just when I think things are taking a turn for the better, one of us gets sick again. We reek. The whole apartment probably does, but I’ve lost the ability to smell it.
Ginny continues to text, but I don’t respond. Nobody needs to be around this. I miss her though. Weird to admit to myself how much I’ve gotten used to having her around. That even though I’m freaked about her loving me, I still want her.
I’ve had girls that I hung out with, not exactly friends but ones that were part of my circle of friends, and girls I’ve hooked up with for a month or two, but I’ve never had one that ticks both those boxes.
I’m delirious enough I think about calling her and telling her that, but something tells me I’d fumble up the message.
Thanks for letting me do you, and also for being cool enough I want to be with you even when we’re not naked. Let’s keep things like they are. Cool?
Shakespeare, I am not.
As I lie there, alternating sweating and then shivering, I think about her and what I’m going to say when she tells me she loves me. That’s what she wants to talk to me about, right? Is she expecting me to say it back? And if I don’t, what does it really change? Nothing? Everything?
My mom was quick to tell me she loved me, still is. And, yeah, I believe she means it, and even meant it then when she barely knew what day of the week it was, but it always felt like the words I love you came as a substitute for I’m going to do right by you.
Things with Ginny are amazing, and I don’t want this pure and good thing we have to become an excuse to hurt one another when we could do better.
Fuck, I don’t even know if I’m making sense. My head is fuzzy and my stomach aches.
I wake up sometime later that night, stuck to the recliner. Mav must have thrown a blanket over me and gone to bed because he’s not here and I’m tucked in like a child.
The next forty-eight hours is much the same. I wake up Thursday morning finally feeling like I might be able to get up, but my entire body hurts. I’m laying here staring up at the ceiling when I notice Ginny on the couch.
“You’re alive.”
“Barely.”
She sits up. “I tried to text a few times to check on you.”
“My phone died. I wasn’t in much shape to talk anyway.”
“Do you want me to stay with you? I brought some more soup and Jell-O. It’s in the kitchen.” She jabs a thumb in that direction. “Do you want some?”
“You didn’t need to do that. I’m fine. I just want to lie here for a minute before I go to practice.”
“You’re going to practice? Can’t you take another day off?”
“Could, but I’ve played in worse shape. I’ll be fine.” We’ve got Vermont this weekend and I don’t want to miss it.
She smiles and it hits me in the gut. Either that or I’m gonna be sick again.
“Okay, well, I’m going back to my dorm before class. Call me later?”
She looks uncertain and I hate that. Hate it but can’t seem to bring myself to reassure her. I also don’t want to get much closer in case I’m still contagious.
“Yeah, of course, I’ll call you later tonight. I have a feeling after practice I’m going to need a nap.”
“Okay.” She steps back and gives me one of those sweet, Ginny smiles. “Feel better.”