Then the feel of Luke’s weight against my stomach.
I breathe through my nose, trying to focus on the terrible TV show. How cute Luke is. How hot Cade is.
Anything to rid myself of this growing sense of nausea.
It’s when Luke leans close and puts one clammy hand on my cheek that things go south.
“Willa, you have the prettiest hair,” he murmurs sweetly. But his breath is all crackers and ginger ale and damp heat and I can’t stay here anymore.
I clamp my lips together and start fumbling with prying his legs off me. “Thank you, baby. But I need out.”
His brow furrows. He looks mildly offended, but not as offended as he’ll be if I barf on him. I catch a flash of Cade’s concerned face as I literally jog down the hall toward the bathroom. The seat makes a loud clanking noise as I flick it open and empty myself with the most unladylike roaring noise.
When the urge ends, I flush and peer up to find Cade and Luke standing in the doorway watching me. As if hearing me barf wasn’t bad enough, the two boys are standing there staring like they’ve never seen a person get sick.
“At least you got yours in the toilet,” Luke says with an earnest look on his face.
I can’t help but laugh as I look back into the bowl, the sound of my chuckle echoing against the porcelain.
“Luke, go back to the couch.”
I see his small form departing from the corner of my eye, but Cade doesn’t move, still standing in the doorway. He’s staring at his toes and the brass room divider where the hardwood floors swap to tiles.
“You going to stand here and watch?”
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles without glancing up.
“For watching me barf? You should be. I don’t know how I’ll look you in the eye anymore.”
He scoffs. “That you’re sick.”
“Well, it’s not like you did this to me.”
His head raises slowly. “No, but you were here taking care of Luke. You stayed with him all night. You helped him, and now you’re paying for it.”
I hum at that, reaching for a piece of toilet paper to wipe my mouth, because if Cade Eaton sees me with barf on my face, I will dive headfirst into this toilet bowl and flush myself down it. With a small shrug, I glance over at the man standing in the doorway—tall and broad and imposing, with the sweetest expression of concern on his face.
“He’s worth it,” I say, with a watery smile.
Sadly, smiling makes me feel nauseous again and within seconds, I’m frantically waving a hand at Cade, hoping he’ll just leave me to be sick alone.
He does.
But only briefly.
He’s back with some sort of war kit, and I watch him place things on the counter. Thermometer, Tylenol, water, ginger ale and . . . one of his T-shirts?
“What are you doing?” I grumble as I wipe at my watery eyes, no doubt smudged with mascara.
“Taking care of you,” he replies without even looking my way. His tone says that I just asked him a stupid question.
“That’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but you don’t have to because I’m here to help.” He says it so matter-of-factly. Like doing this for someone is the most obvious thing in the world. And I wonder if, for him, maybe it is.
He stepped in to take care of his siblings in the wake of tragedy. He stepped up to be a single parent to his son.
Barfing babysitter? That’s a perfect job for him too.
At his core, Cade is a caretaker. Selfless. With such a big heart I almost can’t wrap my head around it.
He turns now, lips tipped down and brow furrowed. I’ve started thinking of this expression as resting scowl face—it’s just his default.
I startle when he holds the thermometer gun to my forehead where I’m kneeling on the floor.
“I’m just taking your temperature.” His face softens.
“I know.” I push my hair off my face. “It still feels like a weapon to me.”
He clicks the button. When it beeps, he frowns. “101.4—it’s red.” He turns to show it to me, like I don’t trust his ability to read or something.
“Okay.”
“Did it come out of nowhere?”
I shrug. “You’re neurotic cleaning really was giving me a headache. And then it was Luke’s weight on my stomach and the smell of his cracker breath.”
A deep rumble rolls around in his chest. “Well, if Luke is anything to go by, it seems short lived. The bad news is—”
“I’m going to be barfing my brains out for the next several hours?” I ask.