“Like what?”

“Regurgitated death.”

He lets out a noise that’s half laugh, half groan. “Go away. I can’t spar with you today.”

It’s too late. I’ve already shut the door and am preparing a plan of action.

He really does look awful. His hair’s a curling mess, he obviously hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, his eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, and I’m not even sure what he’s wearing. Sweatpants, but he seems to have paired them with a godawful, vaguely holiday-looking sweater.

“I was cold,” he said, apparently reading my thoughts even through his illness. “Or at least I was. Now I’m hot.”

“Well, that’s because you’ve got a fever,” I say, gently placing my hand on his back and guiding him toward his bedroom. I figure I’ll have plenty of time to snoop later, so I just take in the basics, confirming that his apartment’s basically exactly like mine, except reversed, bedroom on the right instead of the left, et cetera.

The second we enter his bedroom, I know it’s where the poor guy’s spent the better part of the past two days. His apartment’s otherwise as tidy and anal as I’d expect, but his bedroom smells like a stuffy sick ward.

It says a lot about how just un-Andrew-like he is right now that he doesn’t seem to register how wrinkled and uninviting the bed looks.

“Hold up there, sickie,” I say, grabbing the back of his sweater and pulling him back with more ease than I should. “Let’s just take a pause, sit in this nice chair here for a second.”

I help him toward the black leather chair in the corner, pulling a blanket off the arm and tucking it around him.

“Want to sleep,” he says, leaning his head against the wall.

“I know you do,” I say, feeling a wave of tenderness as his lashes sweep down onto the dark shadows beneath his eyes. I let my fingers touch his hair, just for a moment, before I spring into action. “One minute, ’kay?”

Acting fast, I open the window. It’s in the low forties outside, but the room desperately needs fresh air, and with that hideous sweater and the blanket, he’ll be fine.

His linen closet’s in the same place as mine, right across from the bathroom. His spare set of sheets is dark gray and impressively folded, right down to the fitted sheet.

I rush back to the bedroom, but he hasn’t moved; he’s fast asleep, upright in the chair. Poor guy.

I hurriedly strip the bed of the wrinkled old sheets and replace them with the fresh, clean ones. I fold back one corner to make it easy for him to get in, and return to his side.

“Andrew.” I kneel beside him, touch his arm. “Andrew?”

His eyes flutter open, and he looks surprised to see me there. “Georgiana.”

“Still with that?” I ask with a smile.

“Always,” he murmurs.

I laugh softly. “All right, then. Let’s get you into bed, okay?”

He gives me a sleepy nod, letting me help him out of the chair and shuffle him the few steps toward the bed.

Andrew gives me a startled look, apparently not too sick to register that the sheets have been changed. “You did this?”

“Yup, the Scarecrow figured it out,” I say without heat as I half shove him into bed. I wait until he slowly hauls his legs onto the mattress, which seems to take an eternity in his current state, and then pull the covers up to his chin.

I tuck them around his shoulders, the way my mom always did for me when I was little, and maybe I let my fingers brush against the stubble of his jawline, just a little.

His eyes are closed again, and I think he’s asleep already, but when I start to pull away, he reaches up, grabs my wrist.

It’s like the other day when he was angry, and yet . . . different.

“Thank you,” he murmurs.

“You’re welcome.” I bite my lip. “I can leave if you want, or I’m happy to stay—”

“Stay.” His eyes close again, and his next words are a sleep-filled murmur, but they stop my heart for a second anyway. “Need you,” he says, his voice low and exhausted.

Need you.

Andrew Mulroney needs me. And go ahead, call me a sissy, but my eyes water, just a little.

It’s sort of nice to be needed.

Especially by him.

Georgie

WEDNESDAY, EARLY EVENING

The poor guy sleeps all day. I mean, like, all day.

When I finally hear his bedroom door open, it’s four-thirty in the afternoon, and I’m standing at his stove with a wooden spoon in one hand, a glass of buttery Chardonnay in the other.

He shuffles into the kitchen and then freezes when he sees me.

Oh my heart. Rumpled, sleepy Andrew Mulroney is . . . well, he’ll kill me for thinking this, but he’s sort of adorable.

His eyes are sleepy, his hair’s even messier than it was this morning, and he looks like he wants to rub his eyes and see if I’m really there.

I give a little wave with the spoon before I resume stirring the soup. “Morning, sunshine.” I take a sip of the wine.

He blinks. Blinks again.

Then without a word, he turns and walks into the bathroom, muttering something that sounds like shower.

A moment later I hear the sound of water running, and I go back to my wine. Now that he’s up, I turn on some music on my phone, opting for Norah Jones’s old-school debut album, because really, nobody can complain about that goodness.

I’m pouring myself a second glass of wine when I hear the water shut off.

When Andrew appears a few minutes later he still doesn’t look like himself, but at least death doesn’t seem to be knocking on his door anymore.

His hair’s damp, making it look darker than it usually does, but already it’s starting to curl a little. He’s wearing another pair of gray sweatpants, the loose cotton kind, not the ones he wears to the gym, and a formfitting white T-shirt that strains a little bit over his chest, as though he usually wears it under something. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if this guy didn’t have an arsenal of comfy shirts like regular people, and had to settle for an undershirt. It beats the holiday sweater.

“You didn’t shave,” I say as he lowers himself to the bar stool at his kitchen counter.

“Too tired,” he mutters.

I lean back against the counter opposite from him and cross my legs at the ankles.