Chapter 3
THREE
Iwake up Saturday morning wanting to die.
Josh had decided I needed to celebrate how well the press briefing had gone and ordered shots for the table. Not one to turn down a free drink, I indulged—with maybe a little too much enthusiasm.
Good God, this headache.
Josh’s excitement for me was cute. I know he has a crush on me. I’ve known for a while, really, and if I weren’t so busy with work, I might have acted on it. He’s cute, a little goofy, and the textbook definition of a golden-retriever guy. Definitely my type.
Too bad I have zero time for dating.
I force myself out of bed. And yes, force is absolutely the right word. It feels like my entire body is made of lead. Just getting my feet to the floor takes every bit of energy I have.
What was in those drinks?
Annie’s in the kitchen, humming a cheery pop song as she makes breakfast. The smell of freshly brewed coffee reaches my nostrils, and I moan. Actually moan.
She spins around and looks me up and down.
“Honey, this is concerning.”
I drag a hand over my face, still working on getting my legs to carry me to the coffee pot. “I’m hungover,” I say in a croak.
“I can tell.” The lovely woman I adore so much pours me a cup and hands it to me. “Did you finally bang Josh?”
I add a perfectly reasonable amount of cream and sugar, ignore Annie’s judgmental stare, and take a long sip. “No.”
She starts piling breakfast onto a plate. “You need to put that man out of his misery.”
“He’s fine,” I say, reaching for a piece of bacon. She smacks my hand.
“He’s like a lovesick puppy. Either fuck him or stop stringing him along.”
I frown. “I’m not stringing him along.”
She sits down and starts shoveling food into her mouth. “Sure you’re not,” she says between bites.
“I’m not.”
She rolls her eyes and changes the subject. “While you were out partying like a college freshman and batting your eyelashes, I was here at home doing research into the fucking virus.”
“Research?”
“Yeah. They should hire me. I googled the shit out of it.”
I make my way to the fridge and start pulling out anything that looks edible. Two-day-old spaghetti bolognese for breakfast? You betcha. Stale string cheese while I wait for it to heat up in the microwave? Uh-huh.
“So what did you learn?”
She gestures with her fork in the air. “They have no clue how it spreads. It just pops up randomly in the population. Like, they can’t trace the cases back to each other. So they’re speculating that maybe it lies dormant in the body, and the fertility crisis activated it or something.”
I turn around, string cheese in hand. “So we could have it? Like, right now?”
“If they’re right, then yeah. You could wake up one morning, dying, with your only cure being to get fucked by that greasy guy on the third floor—” I make a face. She continues. “—and there would be nothing you could do to prevent it from happening. Like, how fucked up is that?”
“If the most compatible person for me is Greasy Guy, then maybe I’ll just let the virus end me.”
“Fair.”
I spend the rest of the day rotting in bed.
This has truly been the worst hangover of my life, and I can’t even remember drinking that much.
I definitely had more than I should have, but I didn’t black out.
I got home fine, without needing any help, and even washed off my makeup before going to bed.
Annie pokes her head into my room sometime in the afternoon to let me know she’s heading to spin class. I’m still in bed when she gets back.
On Sunday morning, I get a call from Mr. Bennett. And you know, when you really think about it, why should I be free from work on the weekend? Think of the shareholders!
He wants me to prepare an agenda for a meeting and reorganize all the files on his laptop.
He also wants to go over what I plan to say to the press.
The Green House project is bleeding money, and the company is considering cutting a few corners.
Mr. Bennett does not want the press to run with that angle.
I’m supposed to have answers for him—some way to spin it—but I don’t. I’ve spent the entire weekend rotting in bed and feeling like crap instead of getting on top of it. He’s not impressed.
Now it’s Monday, the day of my second-ever press briefing, and I have a fever.
It’s not super high, but it’s still a fever.
My entire body aches, I can’t stop shivering, and my head is pounding.
But I don’t have time to take a sick day right now, especially not today.
So I head to the office and pray it goes away before the press arrives.
“Let’s see,” Mr. Bennett pulls up an article. “‘BenCo Cuts the Green from Green House’—very creative.” He clicks on another. “Oh, what about this one? ‘Green House Confirmed as Financial Nightmare, Near Ruin.’ It’s a little too dramatic for my taste, but I get it. They need the clicks to survive.”
I stare at the hands folded in my lap. He’s going to fire me. I’m sure of it.
The press conference went terribly. I felt dizzy from the fever and couldn’t think straight. As a result, I wasn’t careful with my wording, and the reporters quickly picked up on the project’s financial issues.
“Are you going to explain yourself?”
I force myself to meet his eyes. Disappointment and anger sit plainly on his face.
How am I going to help Mom without any income? She’ll lose the house because I fucked up.
“I’m so sorry, sir. I wasn’t—I mean, I—” I’m struggling to find the right words. I don’t want to make excuses for myself. I should have let someone else handle the briefing. I should have taken a sick day. “I thought I could handle it. I was wrong.”
I’m fighting tears at this point, but I’m also fighting just to stay upright.
I’m starting to get very, very dizzy.
“What I don’t understand is—”
I blink as his muffled voice grows more distant. There’s a loud thud, and suddenly a blurry figure hovers above me. “Miss Michaels?”
Something touches my face.
“Jesus, you’re burning up.”
No, I’m shivering. It’s freezing in here.
Someone is carrying me, and I realize, with utter mortification, that it’s my boss. I want to protest, but I’m so out of it that I can’t even tell where we are. Are those sirens? Oh god.
Oh god, oh god, oh god.
Please don’t let that be an ambulance.
“I can walk,” I manage to get out.
“You can barely open your eyes,” Mr. Bennett replies, way too close for comfort.
“I can—”
Darkness.
I wake up in a hospital bed. There are flowers on the little table next to me, tulips in various colors. I glance at the note. It’s from BenCo. Geez, that’s quick. I bet Martha in HR was on the phone with the florist the second the ambulance pulled up.
Ambulance.
Someone called an ambulance.
That is so fucking embarrassing.
Just as I’m about to suffocate myself with a pillow, a doctor strolls in. She’s in her mid-forties and wears a grim expression.
“Hello, Carly. Glad to see you’re awake.” She doesn’t look very glad. “I’m Dr. Shaw, and I’ve been treating you for the past few hours. Could you tell me about the last thing you remember?”
I tell her about sitting in Mr. Bennett’s office, feeling dizzy, and being carried by him. She nods while writing in a notepad.
“I figured you wouldn’t remember getting here. You seemed pretty delirious.”
Where’s the fucking pillow?
“You came in with a very high fever. We’ve managed to get it down a bit, but I’m sorry to say it’s likely only temporary.”
“What do you mean? Am I dying or something?”
She puts her notepad away and looks me straight in the eyes.
“You have RHV.”
I feel itchy all over. “RHV?”
“Reproductive Homeostasis Virus.”
“Is that—” My voice becomes a high-pitched squeak. “The sex virus?”
“It’s a reproductive homeo—” She stops herself. Sighs. “Yeah.”
I pass out again.
The doctor is still standing next to me when I wake up.
“How long was I out?” I mumble.
“About a minute or so. Drink this.” She hands me a glass of water. “I understand this is a lot to take in. I’m here to answer any questions you might have—to the best of my ability. It’s still a new virus, and there’s much we don’t know.”
I take a sip of the cold water. It’s soothing. I hadn’t realized how dry my throat was until now.
“But before we go through the details, I was wondering if there’s anyone you’d like us to call? Maybe a family member?”
I shake my head. I’m not going to call my mother and tell her I have the sex virus.
She grabs a chair from the corner of the room and sits down beside the bed.
“So you have RHV,” she begins. “I’m assuming you’ve heard of this virus before?”
I nod.
“It’s a delicate situation, and I understand you might feel uncomfortable, or even scared, about what this means for you—” She leans forward, hands clasped between her knees. “—but I promise you we will do everything in our power to ensure that your treatment is safe, clinical, and respectful.”
“How?” I try my best to keep the venom out of my voice, but I don’t think I’m very successful. It’s misdirected, I know that. But I just can’t believe this is fucking happening.
The “treatment” is me having sex with someone, someone who could be a stranger, and she’s talking about it as if I’m going to get a dose of medication or something. I get what she’s trying to do, but I just—Fuck.
“You’re going to be treated here at the hospital. We have a room set up specifically for this. I have spoken with your partner—”
“Who?” I demand. “Who’s my partner?”
She pauses, and I feel like puking. What if it’s Greasy Guy?
Or that shit bag who catcalled me the other day?
Or what if it’s someone I know, like Josh?
It would be so weird to go to work every day and act normal around him after something like that.
And his crush on me would make it so messy.
I pray for a stranger. A clean, respectful stranger I never have to talk to outside of this.
“It’s Andrew Bennett, the man who came with you in the ambulance.”
Mr. Bennett came with me in the ambulance?
Wait.
Hold on.
Ice settles in my stomach.
No.
No. No. No.
Nonononononononononono.
I shake my head violently.
“Nope, no way. He’s my boss. Nope. Nope. Nope.” The doctor tries to put a hand on my shoulder. I shake it off. “This is not happening. This is not fucking happening.”
“I understand that this—”
“No, you don’t get it,” I hiss. “He’s my boss. I can’t fuck my boss.”
“You don’t have to have intercourse with him. It’s enough if he just brings you to climax.”
I laugh. It’s short, dry, and laced with acid. “Oh, well, that changes everything. I don’t have to fuck my boss. He just has to get me off. That’s nothing.” My voice is getting louder, but I can’t stop. “My boss, who—by the way—is incredibly angry with me right now, just has to make me come.”
She once again rests a hand on my shoulder. “You need to calm down.”
My eyebrows shoot up to my forehead, and I’m just about to start screaming when her palm goes up.
“I’m not saying you’re overreacting. You’re not. This situation is unfair—incredibly so. But you’re sick. Very, very sick. You don’t feel it right now because of the strong emotions you’re going through. But you’re still sick. You need to calm down for your health, okay?”
“I’m sorry,” I say, suddenly embarrassed by my outburst. And my language.
She shakes her head. “You don’t need to apologize.
This virus is cruel, and I understand how incredibly difficult this arrangement will be for you.
You are allowed to feel angry. Just try not to raise your heart rate.
” She pats my shoulder and stands. “Your phone is on the table next to you, in case you change your mind about calling someone.”
The second Dr. Shaw closes the door behind her, I reach for the phone and tap Annie’s contact. She picks up after two rings.
“What’s up?”
“I have the fucking virus, and Mr. Bennett is my partner.”
The line goes silent.
“Annie?”
“I’m sorry. I think I just blacked out.”
“I’ll give you a moment to process.”
“Thank y—What the actual fuck?”
A string of curses comes through the phone. It’s a little therapeutic. After a minute or so, she calms down.
“So let me get this straight,” she says in a matter-of-fact way. “Your boss, who has a huge fucking stick up his ass and generally sucks, has to flick your bean—otherwise you die?”
My stomach churns. This is officially the worst day of my life.
“I think I’m just going to let nature take its course. I had a good run, didn’t I?”
“Nope.” There’s a loud scratch. I think she’s shaking her head. “You’re going to let that creepy cyborg put his hands down your pants, or so help me God, I will strap you to a bed and put it there myself.”
I snort. “Well, that’s not rapey at all.”
“It’s that or you die, Car. I’m not fucking letting you die.”