Chapter 14 Clover
Clover
“Open up,” Bennett says two minutes after he last took my temperature.
“You just did this.” My throat is sandpaper.
“Actually, it was forty-five minutes ago. I gave you an extra fifteen minutes.”
I open my mouth and hold the thermometer between my lips. “Do you want a prize for that?” My eyes are still closed and my words are a garbled mess.
“Still at a hundred and two and still a smart ass.”
He keeps talking about doctors and spending money however he pleases, but I’m drifting back to sleep and I think I use his sleeve to wipe a bit of sweat from my forehead. But that can’t be true. That would be mortifying and disgusting.
The next time I hear anything is Bennett on the phone with someone.
“I’m calling on behalf of my wife.” There’s a firm, nonnegotiable quality to his voice.
My wife. That sounds … nice. It’s nice to belong to someone.
“Still at a hundred and two,” he says. “No, no nausea currently. But she did say she hasn’t been able to keep food down.”
I shush him. I want it to be quiet again and I’m cold and my hands are grabbing for blankets they can’t find. Then I’m enveloped in warmth, and I huddle my head underneath so that his words become more muffled.
The last thing I hear him say is: “What should I do to break the fever if it goes up? And you’ll do a house call if that doesn’t work?”
That sounds expensive.
I reach for something warm and hug myself to it. Something cool presses to my forehead and even though I’m cold, my face feels warm.
Bennett’s voice wakes me again, though he’s trying to be quiet. “The prescription is under her name. Get some over-the-counter stuff too. I don’t know. Just ask the pharmacist. Literally buy everything he tells you to. She really doesn’t want to go—I know. She still feels warm.”
“I need tampons,” I croak and my voice is louder than I mean for it to be. It’s a sudden thought that I can’t stop myself from saying. I don’t need them now, but I will in a few days.
“Is there a certain kind, Clo?”
I picture the logo on the box in my head and that feels good enough.
Light washes over me as the door opens and closes. There are two voices and some bickering. I open my eyes and begin to sit up. “I’m thirsty.”
Bennett and Julian turn around and look surprised to see me alert.
I slump back against the pillows and accidentally hit my head on the wooden headboard. “Fuck,” I moan.
Bennett is there, gently lifting my head and putting another pillow behind me. “Good girl,” he says. “I need you to take one of these before you fall back asleep.”
I nod as he turns the cap on an orange pill bottle. “I can’t have amoxicillin,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says in a soothing voice that feels like a pat on the head. “Our moms made us memorize each other’s allergies before we went on that trip with my dad to Ontario, remember?”
I do, vaguely. They didn’t trust his dad to know the important details, I think.
The pill takes two tries to swallow because my throat is so dry, but once it’s down, the water feels so good. I gulp until there’s nothing left.
“Eat a cracker for me,” he says. “It’s the buttery ones you like.”
He laughs softly and I think I’m frowning again.
“What are we supposed to do with all this shit?” he asks.
“You told me to be thorough.” I think it’s Julian.
“That bitch loves shopping,” I mumble.
The next time I wake up, I am dizzy and hot and everything feels too close and too much.
I sit up and manage to swing my legs over the edge of the bed.
“Clo?” Bennett asks somewhere behind me, but now he’s the sleepy one.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I announce.
I use the wall facing my side of the bed to stand up, but my legs feel a little like jelly.
The room is suddenly brighter.
“Not the big light,” I tell him as I squint against the harshness of the overhead light.
He’s at my side with an arm around my waist. “Let’s save the shower for when you’re feeling a little better.”
“I need it now. It’s too hot.” And it is. I want the feeling of a cold drink of water, but all over my body.
I move toward the door and use the bed to steady myself.
“So fucking stubborn,” he mutters.
Some drawers open and close behind me.
The hallway is quiet and still until he runs up beside me with his arms full.
“You know you don’t have pants on, right?” he asks.
“They were in the way.”
The bathroom is gender neutral, so the showers are little stalls with doors instead of curtains.
Bennett leaves me to sit on a bench while he runs into the first free stall with some of my things.
He comes back out and helps me up. “I’ll wait just out here.”
I nod and close the door behind me. The shower is already going and I reach my fingers out to find that it’s nice and cool but not freezing.
It takes some wrestling, but I’m out of my shirt a few moments later.
The effort makes me dizzy and I step into the shower’s spray with my underwear and bra still on.
My legs are tired of being legs, so I let them take a break and plop myself onto the wet tile, taking down some bottles in the process.
Whatever. It’s fine.
My head isn’t even resting against the tile when the door cracks open.
“Are you okay?” His voice is nervous. “Did you fall?”
“I’m too tired,” I tell him. “I just need to close my eyes for a minute.”
“No. No way am I letting you fall asleep in the shower. Let’s go back to the dorm.”
“Will you wash my hair?” In a distant part of my brain, I know that I would normally rather sit here by myself for hours than ask him for help, but I don’t have it in me to be embarrassed for my future self.
I’m also imagining the feeling of my mother washing my hair when I was a little girl and her fingers working into my scalp.
I think it’s the only thing that will fix me right now.
At first, I don’t think he heard me, but then he asks, “Are you sure you want me to come in there?”
The cold water feels so good, but my skin is still sticky from all the sweat. “Yes.”
He enters carefully and I open my eyes all the way to see he’s still in his suit pants and tux shirt, which I guess he fell asleep in. He strips out of his pants and shirt and steps right into the shower wearing a white undershirt and black boxer briefs. “Do you want to sit down or stand up?”
“You’re going to get wet.”
“That’s typically what happens in showers.”
“And boning,” I tell him. “I hear people boning in here all the time.”
He grunts out a laugh. “Up or down?”
“Down.”
“Okay,” he says. “Let’s scoot you closer to the spray.”
He helps me slide forward, and then he sits behind me and my body happily sinks against him.
“You make a really good armchair,” I tell him. “I know you don’t have to work because you’re rich, but you could be an armchair.”
“Armchair for hire,” he says.
A small wiggling thought in my brain is telling me that I shouldn’t feel so cozy against him, but I’m tired and the water feels good and with him there, my body doesn’t have to make any effort to support itself.
He leans back a little so the water isn’t directly on me when he begins to massage shampoo into my hair and I let out a low moan.
“Bet you never thought you’d do something to get that sound out of me.”
He scoffs and then guides me closer to the water, his hand shielding my eyes from the soap. “You have no idea what I’m capable of, Clover Rowan Walsh.”
“Does that statement come with a warranty?” I ask. “Orgasm guaranteed or your money back.”
“Satisfaction guaranteed.” Behind me, he groans softly and his hips shift, like he’s trying to create space, but there is nowhere else for him to go.
My head lolls and I smile. I think I could live with this. With someone bathing me every day.
There’s something stiff at the base of my spine and I tilt my head farther back so I can see him. “You have an erection,” I pronounce.
“I’m holding a pretty, barely clothed girl in the shower. I’m sorry.” He sounds genuine and a little uneasy, his bravado having worn off.
“I’m flattered.” Again, embarrassment is a problem for Future Clover.
The stall is infused with vanilla and amber the moment he opens my conditioner. “Only use a little bit on my ends,” I tell him. “It’s almost gone and I’m going to have to switch to the cheap stuff.”
My ridiculously expensive conditioner is probably one of the things I miss most. I didn’t even realize it was expensive because it was always just there and part of the household shopping list. For the last two years, Mom has splurged on it for Christmas, and I do my best to make it last, only using it every few showers and applying it sparingly when I do.
“It smells like you,” he says.
“I’ve used it since I was in sixth grade, but now it’s just a treat.”
I relax into him and slip in and out of consciousness as he applies the conditioner and then rubs some body wash into my legs and arms before rinsing me off completely.
When the shower turns off, he helps me to stand and I lean my back into his chest. His shirt is soaked through completely, and I feel his nose in my hair.
“That felt so good,” I tell him. “I could kiss you.”
His laugh sounds uncomfortable this time as he rubs a fresh towel up and down my limbs and in my hair.
For a moment, he leaves me to stand on my own and spreads my clean clothes out.
“I’m going to turn around while you change,” he says.
I shrug and immediately begin to unhook my bra.
He spins around so fast that he practically crashes into the wall.
I find my favorite sleep shorts, a Calvin Prep Fall Festival T-shirt, and fresh underwear waiting for me, so I toss my wet clothes on top of his discarded shirt and pants.
Bennett sits me on the bench outside while he gets changed, and when he comes out, he’s carrying our laundry and wearing nothing but tux pants slung low on his hips.
In our room, he changes and I definitely do not accidentally open one eye to see his butt, because that would be creepy. (It has dimples like his cheeks. The ones on his face.)
He gives me another glass of water and sits behind me again so he can brush my hair. He even remembers my leave-in conditioner.
Just as I’m falling asleep, he feeds me the thermometer again, and this time when it beeps, I hear him make a satisfied sound.
“Thank you for taking care of me,” I whisper.
“Thanks for letting me.” One of his fingers brushes over my forehead.
Only because you have a cute butt, I think to myself.
I fall asleep and I dream of his arrogant laugh and a light kiss on the forehead. As far as dreams go, it’s not too bad.