“My hero,” I say dryly.
“You can keep all of it,” Bo says, looking at our piles. “Well, maybe I’ll keep the book and the”—he holds up the black T-shirt with white writing on it, wearing a lopsided smirk—“Call me Daddy shirt.” He waggles his eyebrows suggestively.
“Sarah is a pervert,” I say.
“I heard that!” She swipes a cracker from Bo’s open tray as she walks by.
I glare at her as she and Caleb begin uncorking a bottle of wine together. “Keep your half,” I say to Bo. “I distributed it fairly.”
“But this,” he points between us, “isn’t particularly fair either. From where I’m standing, you’re doing all the work. I’m like the kid who asks to see the group project the day before the presentation.”
I admire his pile thoughtfully. “Okay, fine. I want this, and you take this.” I take some ginger candies—which, in hindsight, were probably meant for my nausea anyway—and hand him the pack of twenty questions. “You can be in charge of asking those. A little piece of responsibility.”
“Great.” He smiles.
I walk over to the sink and fetch an empty cup to fill, feeling a little flushed.
“You okay?” Sarah asks.
“Yeah, just getting that my-stomach-is-turning-upside-down feeling.” I turn off the tap and bring the glass to my lips.
“What feeling?” Bo steps nearer, his eyes narrowed on me in concern.
“Nausea,” I say, trying to sip slowly. “It can come out of nowhere sometimes.” Clammy skin, rushing blood, quickening heartbeat. Everything begins smelling weird all of a sudden, and my tongue feels too big for my mouth. All the usual signs that point toward needing to get to a bathroom quickly. “I’ll be right back. Are you okay?” I ask Bo.
Bo looks taken aback at my question, his head jarring backward. “Yes, of course. I’m fine. Go, I’ll—”
I don’t let him finish before I’m running to the main floor’s powder room, fighting the vomit forcing its way up my throat from escaping too soon.
CHAPTER 12
A soft knock is drowned out by the sound of the toilet flushing.
“You okay in there, champ?” Sarah asks from the other side of the door.
I groan, letting my forehead hit the cool tiled wall next to the toilet seat.
“Do you need anything? Water?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I say, reaching for the toilet paper to wipe my mouth, my throat dry. “Water, please.”
“Okay, Bo’s coming in.”
What? No! He can’t see me like—
“Hey,” Bo says, his voice full of sympathy as he opens, then immediately shuts, the door.
I whine internally as I imagine what I must look like, tucked in an upright foetal position against the wall. Sarah’s aversion to anything bloody or gross is turning out to be extremely inconvenient. She could have at least sent Caleb in instead.
“I have water and some of those ginger candies. Sarah said they might help.” He hands me the glass of water, then twists open the paper candy wrapper. “Do you want one?”
I nod, avoiding eye contact, and present my palm to Bo. He drops the golden candy into it, then tosses the wrapper into the garbage next to the toilet.
“So this is an everyday thing, huh?” he asks, opening a drawer under the sink.
“A few times a day lately.”
“Shit, Win. I’m sorry,” he says. I look toward him when I hear the sink turn on. He’s holding a washcloth under the water, letting it soak. Seconds later, he turns off the tap and wrings it out twice before folding it into a neat rectangle.
With a firm grip on the corner of the bathroom’s vanity, Bo supports his weight as he lowers to one knee. “Here,” he says, delicately pushing my hair aside and placing the cool cloth on the back of my neck.
I have to admit, it feels amazing. Though Bo’s far-too-big body is far too near in Sarah’s far-too-small half bath. I can’t tell if the nausea is residual or a sign of more to come, or if it’s overwhelm due to Bo’s looming proximity.
“Can you open the door?” I ask, letting myself look into his eyes as I take the washcloth from him and bring it to my cheek. They’re such nice eyes. Gentle. “I think I need some… space.”
“Yeah, of course.” He twists to stand with a groan. “Let me know when you’re ready to go. Sarah gathered up all your things, and I’ll be just out there if you need anything else, okay?”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say as he bows his head and shuts the door.
I press the cool cloth to my forehead, letting it also fall against my closed eyelids and the bridge of my nose. Another fun symptom. Whenever I throw up, my head starts aching. Eventually, a pressure headache forms behind my eyes, making my vision blurry and every sound all too intense.
My next appointment with Doctor Salim is in five weeks. I’ve set that as a benchmark for how long I’ll tolerate feeling like a walking vomit factory. If it goes beyond that, I may simply let the illness take me. I’ll go to the seaside like all the sick or slightly insane women used to, and I’ll will myself to either be done with it or enjoy an early grave.
Or, perhaps, I’ll ask Doctor Salim to prescribe that medicine she suggested.
One of those two things.
When my stomach finally rests and my glass of water is empty, I slowly stand, wash my hands, and rinse out my mouth. Leaving the bathroom, I offer polite murmured goodbyes to Sarah and Caleb as Bo carries all my things out to his car.
The crisp winter air helps slightly, and I don’t even attempt to put my coat on before getting into the passenger seat, enjoying the cool air on my clammy, hot skin.
“Are you warm enough?” Bo asks, shutting his door behind him, a cluster of snow falling and melting instantly inside his car.
“Balancing out,” I answer, resting my cheek on the headrest.
“Okay. Mess with the dials however you’d like,” he says, opening the GPS on his screen. I give him my address, and then we’re off.
At some point in the twenty-ish-minute drive between my house and Sarah’s, I fall asleep.
I’m woken up by the sound of gravel under tires in the back parking lot of my building. I lift my forehead away from the window and attempt to subtly wipe the drool off my chin. Bo pulls into a visitor’s spot as I blink awake like a startled creature.
The tiny nap and cool air did help, though. I feel a lot better.
“Sorry, uh, I fell asleep.”
“Yeah, I figured that out halfway through my drawn-out tale of my own public puking incident in middle school.” He smiles at me, his hand on the gearshift between us. “Probably for the best,” he says, putting the car in park.
“Ah, well, next time.” I unbuckle and look at the back seat with all my items. “Thanks for the ride,” I say, beginning the mental calculation of how I’ll balance the gift basket, my purse, and the plant Sarah begged me to take and revive. I’m a pro at this point—you’d be amazed what you can do with one-and-a-half hands and a bull-like stubbornness.
“I’ll walk you in,” Bo says, already turning off the car. I don’t bother to argue, though I probably should. I haven’t cleaned my apartment other than some dishes and laundry in a few weeks between the exhaustion and the not-so-morning morning sickness. Work pretty much takes up all my energy, and by the time I’m home, I just fall asleep. I can barely muster up the desire to bathe.