I see him shake his head. “Ridiculous,” he says as he gently drops two pills onto my tongue.

I swallow them with the Gatorade and hand the empty glass back to him before letting myself fall back onto the pillows.

“You changed,” I say, watching him through half-closed eyes, struggling to stay awake.

He glances down at his jeans and sweater. “Didn’t have a candy-striper outfit, but I figured this was better than the suit for playing nurse.”

“Nurse Ratched,” I mutter, feeling pretty pleased that I can still banter despite having only two functioning brain cells. “You’re not going to work?”

I see him shrug. “I can catch up on most things from your living room.”

My heart flutters. “You’re staying?”

“Looks like. Any requests, patient?” he asks as he pulls the sheets and comforter back to my chin. I think I feel the pad of his thumb brush unnecessarily along my cheek, but that could be the delirium.

“Yes,” I say.

“Soup?” he asks. “I know a girl who just whipped up some pretty decent homemade stuff.”

“She sounds nice.”

“Nicer than I deserve,” he says quietly.

I smile sleepily. “That’s true. But no, soup wasn’t my request.”

“Tell me.”

I reach out my hand, fumbling around for his. He’s not as emotionally stunted as I thought, because he senses what I want and reaches for my floundering hand.

I squeeze his fingers. “Stay?”

“Sure.” He squeezes back. “Call if you need anything. I’ll be in the living room.”

“No, stay here,” I say, tugging his hand.

He’s silent for a moment. “In your bedroom?”

“Hate being sick,” I whisper. “It’s so lonely.”

“Georgiana—”

“Please. You won’t get sick, you’ve already had this plague.”

“Surely there’s someone I can call. Someone you actually like.”

“Lots of people.”

He winces, and I squeeze his hand harder, deciding to go for broke. “Need you.”

I wonder if that phrase does the same thing for him that it did for me yesterday. It must, because a second later I hear him kick off his shoes and ease his hand away, only to come around to the other side of the bed.

It’s been a long time since someone’s been in this bed beside me, and I immediately roll toward him, curling into him for warmth.

I feel his chest extend under my cheek as he sighs. Then, very slowly, his arms go around me, pulling me close, and I realize that somehow, even sick as I am, this is the happiest I’ve felt in a long, long time.

Georgie

FRIDAY EVENING

My sickness has more or less the same timeline as Andrew’s, and after two days of getting out of bed only to pee and groggily take a very necessary shower, I finally emerge from my death cave sometime around six o’clock on Friday night feeling human again.

There’s no sign of Andrew, but I don’t really expect there to be.

I don’t remember much about yesterday, but I know he stayed with me the whole day. Ordered me to drink fluids, have a couple of spoonfuls of soup.

I refused to move long enough for him to change my sheets, but he did come in throughout the day, opening the window for a few minutes at a time to get some much-needed fresh air into the bedroom.

Around three yesterday I was cranky as all heck, tired of being sick but also too tired to be anything else. He turned on the TV in my bedroom and, without asking, put on Enchanted.

I don’t know how he knew it was the only movie I could watch two days in a row without ever getting sick of it, but he knew. Plus I got to see the ending this time. I went to sleep the second the credits started rolling, and when I woke, the TV was off and Andrew was gone.

The loneliness and disappointment were almost . . . crippling.

So when he stopped by this morning wearing a suit, clearly on his way to work, it had been almost a relief. A reminder that the last thing my life needs is to start relying on a workaholic.

He regretfully told me he needed to check in at the office, at least for a couple of hours, after being gone all week, and I breezily told him I’d be fine.

I take a long-ass shower, and though I’m feeling almost back to almost normal, I don’t feel like blow-drying my hair. I towel-dry it and then pull it into a messy bun on top of my head. My skin looks atrocious, so I put on a facial mask and head into the kitchen, a little surprised and relieved to realize that I’m famished.

The fridge is stocked with plenty of the leftover soup I made for Andrew, and I heat some in the microwave as I scroll through the phone Andrew plugged in for me. I’ve got about a million text messages, and it occurs to me that I missed a lot and yet . . . nothing at all.

Plenty of people have been checking in. Marley wants to know if I’m dead, my mom tells me she wants to chat and to call her back, my dad unsubtly tells me about a job available at the company that I’d be a great fit for, and everyone wants to know if I’m really dating Andrew or if it’s just tabloid nonsense.

Most curious of all seems to be Hailey. Of all my friends, she’s possibly the nicest, and if I’m reading the tone of these messages right, she seems really hopeful that the Andrew rumors aren’t true. Her last message is especially telling: Would you please call me when you get this? It’s driving me crazy that I may have been flirting with YOUR guy at the party last week!

What should I say to her? Well, yes, you were flirting, but he’s not my guy. Sure, Andrew returned the favor and took care of me when I was sick, but I’d hardly call it romantic. Because kissing me was a mistake.

I decide to rip the Band-Aid off and have the hard conversation with my friend. I pull my soup out of the microwave and stir it halfheartedly to cool it down while I wait for Hailey to pick up, which she does.

“Georgie! Oh my gosh, you’re alive!”

“Barely,” I say, scooping up some soup and blowing. “Sorry for the radio silence, I came down with some nasty bug.”

“Oh, ick. Are you feeling better?”

“Much, thanks.”

“So you’re coming out tonight?!”

“Not that much better. Count me out until next week.”

“Ugh, that sucks. We miss you. Did you hear about Brody and his baby mama?”