Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 99545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
He coughs.
“Are you sure you don’t want a shower? It might help your aching muscles.” I pour a dollop of milk into the tea, stirring it gently. “How hard were you hit?”
“Erm…I don’t remember.” With his head turned and facing the window, Jack looks peacefully at rest.
I don’t want to bother him with questions, but I have to make sure he’s okay.
“If you feel anything change, you’ll tell me, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
“Yes, of course.”
Hmm. “Okay. Because I know how you boys can be.” I give him a flirty wink, though he’s not paying me the least bit of attention.
Jack sighs heavily, glancing my way again. Reaches out his hand to take hold of the dainty tea cup in his large palm.
Watching him sip it gingerly makes me smile. It’s a frail and fragile cup, hand painted with blue flowers and petals on a pristine white porcelain, beauty clutched in his massive fingers.
A contradiction.
His lips sip, puckered. “This is good, Eliza. Thank you.”
“Finish it all—I hear tea is good for you. And for the soul.”
“Indeed.” He quietly drinks the rest, and the silence has me shifting on my heels near the door, unsure of my place in the room.
“Well…if you want more hot water, let me know. You can text me, I’ll be down the hall.”
“Don’t go.” He pats the space beside him with his free hand. “Stay here and keep me company.”
I hesitate. “You need rest.”
He doesn’t need me prattling on beside him, chatting away to fill the void.
“Get your sketch pad and I’ll turn the telly on.”
“You need sleep, Jack.”
“Come on, Liza, please?”
It’s the first time he’s called me by a nickname; it’s the same one my friends and family from back home use. It’s one I’ve always adored, and hearing him use it now has my heart skipping a small beat.
I go to my room to fetch my notebook and a pen, retracing my steps back to his bedroom and climbing up onto his big bed. Everything is gray: the sheets, the pillowcases, the comforter—his curtains, too.
“Are you sure this is all right? I don’t want to bother you.”
“I invited you up here because I want your company,” he tells me with his eyes still closed. “I’m not that tired.”
“All right,” I allow. “If you insist.”
“I insist,” he says with a small chuckle—then he groans as if it pains him to laugh, emitting yet another suppressed cough.
I wonder how a sports injury can conjure up coughing fits but don’t ask the question out loud. It’s not my place to judge him, and I don’t want him to feel any more humiliated than he already does for the way he played today.
Jack begins flipping through the channels, stopping to read the descriptions of several action films and another few comedies before settling on a home improvement network, a show where they’re house-hunting for properties in the Caribbean.
Not at all what I would expect him to watch, and it makes me hide a smile.
“You don’t want to watch Batman? Or The Avengers?”
“Too noisy. Too much for my eyes to focus on, probably not good for my brain.”
He has a point.
“Besides, I love this show. My favorite part is trying to guess which house they’ll choose at the end.” He pauses. “I also love to nitpick on their walk-throughs the same way they do.”
I pick up where I left off in my notebook—the sketch of an immortal zombie I started at the beginning of the week—adding details to the torso, admiring my work along the way.
Jack moves restlessly beside me, shifting in place, unable to get comfortable.
“You said you felt okay,” I say, setting down my things and turning my body toward him so I can see him better.
“I did feel okay,” he grunts. “I didn’t think I would feel like this after having that delicious tea.”
“What are your symptoms?”
“I don’t know, I think I might have a headache. Or a fever? You should check.”
I scoot over, placing my palm in the center of his forehead, then on his cheeks, pressing down the way my mother does when I’m not feeling well.
“You don’t feel warm.” But that doesn’t mean he isn’t sick. “Are you sure you don’t want to take a shower? Maybe a cold one?”
“Quite sure. I just want to lie here.” His head turns into my palm, lips pressing into the center of it.
Warm.
Hot.
Breath.
My body stills before I pull my hand back, shocked by the tingles coursing through me, the contact burning my skin where his mouth just was.
Did he do that on purpose, or was it merely a coincidence? Surely he wasn’t kissing my palm.
He can’t be feeling like himself—maybe he isn’t aware that putting his mouth on my palm is so intimate.
Perhaps…he did?
Jack moans.
“What’s wrong?”
He lies back, sinking deeper into his fluffy pillow, gazing up at the ceiling. “Nothing.”