23. Chapter 23

Chapter twenty-three

Caleb

"We should take your temperature," I said, already getting up to retrieve the thermometer from the kitchen.

I came back to Juliette flicking through the titles. It was late. One-in-the-morning late. She propped herself up and I scanned her forehead. "One hundred one?" she asked.

"Yep."

"I rarely ever go higher." She fell back onto the pillow. "I have to throw up again, but I can't get up. There's nothing left." She drooped her forearm over her eyes. I sat at her feet again and considered the likelihood she would welcome me draping those legs over my lap.

"Well, it's only lasting twenty-four hours. So, you have," mathematics was too taxing on my brain at the moment, "less than twenty-four to go."

"You feel better?" she peeked at me.

"Queasy, but fine."

"Pick something. I'll be right back." Juliette stood, then wobbled.

I caught her hips in my hands, steadying her shaky knees. Juliette grabbed my wrists for balance.

I shot up to standing, our bodies pressed together for a split second. I wrapped an arm around her waist. "Okay, let's go."

"I'm okay."

"Uh huh," I took a step, taking her with me.

Juliette swatted me away. "I don't need help," she snapped, and ran off.

We would see about that. Not that I wanted her to get as sickly and helpless as I had been this morning, but the color had drained from her skin so much that even her freckles were losing their tone.

I shook my head as I watcher her stumble up the stairs. She should just accept the help. She'd found me naked on the bathroom floor, after all. A little humiliation wouldn't hurt her high and mighty attitude.

I folded up Kelsey's discarded blanket, draping it over the chaise part of the couch she had occupied while I sat between them, Juliette laying with her head propped on the arm of the couch to my left. Pacing back and forth for a minute, I debated where to sit while I could still hear Juliette heaving in the bathroom.

It was ridiculous, really. I was acting like choosing a spot on a couch meant anything at all, or would send a secret code to Juliette when she came back. If I sat in the same spot, would she want me to move away? If I sat in the chaise to the far side, would she assume I was grossed out by her vomiting? Did she want me to sit close to her or far away? Did she need comfort? Was I able to provide her with that comfort? I agonized over where to park my ass, and I didn't enjoy it.

Then I remembered FedEx asshole with his hand up her skirt.

"Did you pick something?" her voice floated in from up the stairs.

I had never sat down so quickly in my entire life, even counting the times I almost got caught goofing off in elementary school behind the teacher's back.

Superhero movie, classic. I glanced to my left, noticing that I had left her less room to lay down. Yeah, maybe I did it intentionally. To see if she'd choose to take the much more comfortable and socially distant chaise. I had enough dignity to ignore that I really, really, hoped she didn't.

"Everything hurts," Juliette said, her voice small and defeated. She took an icepack out of the freezer and I held my breath as she padded pathetically to the couch. She plopped down to my left again, rested her head in her hands to press the icepack to her forehead. I took it for granted, how Juliette's personality radiated out of her, gave her the illusion of being taller and larger than she truly was. Hunched over next to me, without the vivid color and texture of her aura, she seemed smaller, helpless. Stubborn for refusing aid, and feeble .

I felt the familiar pull in my chest that haunted me for a decade, the desire to take care of somebody—to be their haven. I knew that simply wanting did not make me worthy. That evening this score between us meant more for me. Bringing me home, for Juliette, had been a practical solution. When I reached for her shoulders and pulled her gently down onto my lap, it was purely emotional. Satisfying the fantasy that she'd come back and sat this close because I made her feel better. Because she wanted me to.

"Come here," I murmured. Juliette only hesitated for a second before giving in and laying down on me with a pitiful sigh. I took the gel icepack from her and draped it over her eyes and forehead, smoothing the sweaty hair from her face and neck. "I get sick all the time, but stomach viruses are the worst." A barely audible, pained moan escaped her as she wriggled to find a comfortable position.

My thigh was putting her neck at a strained angle, so I tucked a pillow under her shoulders to even the slope of her spine. I pulled a blanket over her and started the film. Ignored the thoughts about my feelings. Decided it was okay to enjoy these hours of make-believe.

"I never got into the superhero thing," Juliette mused as the opening credits started.

"I'm embarrassingly into it."

"Do you collect the memorabilia?"

I laughed and lied right through my teeth. "Not that embarrassing." She'd never know about my limited-edition Spider-Verse collection. I would take that to my grave.

After fifteen minutes of filling her in on all the characters, their abilities, and how they were connected, I glanced down at her to see if she was still awake. A faint smile played up on her lips. I lifted back the ice-pack and she peeked up at me through one eye.

"I'm listening," Juliette whispered. She had lovely, long, light-brown lashes.

"I believe you."

Her smile widened to show her teeth and she turned to her side. I swept her hair back from her face again, gathered it up from her nape. She flinched when I pressed the icepack there, a little whimper and a shiver rumbling in her chest until the heat of her fever and my hand had warmed the gel and I tossed it aside.

The next time she got up, she allowed herself to lean on me all the way to the bathroom, and I soothed her spine as she wretched and trembled.

"You can go to sleep in my room," she offered in the glow of the epic battle on the screen, head on my lap again.

"I'm fine right here."

I thought I felt her snuggle closer to me in response. Could have been her shivering, though. Idly, I massaged her scalp, careful to be as gentle with my hands as possible. She watched the screen, but I mostly watched her. I felt, not for the first time, dangerously close to liking Juliette as if she were my favorite person. As if all the people I knew before her had let me down so that I could end up here, stroking the hair of a woman who was light-years too good for me.

Towards the end of the movie, she finally drank a few sips of water and laid down with her feet towards me, dropping into a restless, fevered sleep. I gathered her knees and resisted the temptation to follow the slope of her calves with my fingertips. I draped her legs over my lap, pulling her blanket over us both, and tucked her feet in. The sequel played on as I forced myself to stay awake as Juliette whimpered in her sleep.

"This is the worst of it," I soothed in a whisper when she'd awoken slightly.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled.

"Don't be," I said, steeling myself against a wave of something powerful and profoundly tender. Against something I knew I shouldn't feel. The urge to kiss her forehead and lay next to her so excruciating I had to focus on the screen to make the tide recede to where it belonged—to nothingness.

I could not fall in love with this woman. I could not want her in all the ways my foolish heart was beginning to collect. This easy way we fell into a routine as allies, as parents, was make-believe. Play-pretend. Not real .

But it felt natural.

And good.

And whole.

And her body so close to mine felt like the first warm day in spring.

It's not real.

I took in the anguished expression on Juliette's beautiful face.

It's not real.

Hours later, before my eyes fluttered open, I registered the weight of Juliette's legs on my lap. I rubbed the back of my neck to ease the muscle strain from sleeping upright, and gritted my teeth against the pain of turning my head over to check on her.

"Shit," I hissed. Her hair was drenched in sweat and under the blanket she was shivering violently. I touched her temple as if I knew what the fuck I was doing. I grabbed the thermometer and, sure enough, she was almost at one hundred four. My heart pounded against my ribcage in panic. "Juliette," I whispered as I peeled back the blanket, trying to wake her more gently than she had me the day before.

She groaned, shivering even in her voice, her lips as pale as the rest of her skin.

"Your fever is too high. We should get you in the tub."

"How's Kelsey?"

"She hasn't come down yet. Come on." I slipped my arm under her neck and shoulders, helping her to sit up. She'd sweat so badly her tee-shirt was soaked through and clinging to her skin.

"Now I know why you were naked on the tile floor," she coughed, stood, and tipped over, catching herself on the arm rest before she could hit the ground.

She was dizzy from the dehydration and the weak feeling this virus carried with it. I faintly remembered crawling quite a bit in my fevered stupor. "I've got you."

"I'm fine. I just stood up too fast."

"For fuck's sake, Juliette," I hooked my arm under her shoulder, "You're too proud for your own good." She leaned into me, her small waist flinching under my grasp .

She shut her eyes as I guided her upwards, stumbling down the hallway towards the bathroom. "The stairs are spinning," she said.

I set her down on the closed toilet seat and pulled the shower curtain back, revealing at least twenty-something colorful potions and elixirs cluttering the edges of the tub and recessed shelves. Turning a few around, I searched for whatever would bubble.

"Were you this disoriented?" Juliette asked. I stole a glance over my shoulder and caught sight of her, head in her hands, doubled over and sinking slowly off the seat towards the floor.

I knocked over a little plant that was thriving on the edge of the tub, catching it before it fell into the water. I turned the little pink flower away from me, so that it couldn't bear witness to my pathetic slide into devotion.

Thankfully, she couldn't see the look of panic that crossed my features as I remembered what happened yesterday, thinking of her. Dreaming of her. I cleared the ball of embarrassment in my throat and replied, "Yeah, I was. If I remember correctly, this is the part where I force you to take a freezing bath. The revenge will taste oh-so-sweet."

Over the sound of the running water, while I tested the temperature, Juliette's voice was barely audible. "Looking for an excuse to see me naked, are you?"

My head snapped to catch her eyes. "No," I felt the burn creeping up the back of my neck. "I was just saying, because—Yesterday you—"

Juliette's smile stretched slowly across her blanched lips as I stuttered.

Narrowing my eyes and meeting her grin with my own I teased, "Listen, just because you take no issue in leering at a man at his most vulnerable, doesn't mean everyone else would have taken advantage of the opportunity." I swirled the contents of the tub to encourage a shower gel to foam. "I, unlike you, have decency and class."

"I wasn't leering," she protested with a weak chortle. "I covered you up."

"Enjoy your bath of cold knives."

Her breathy laugh echoed against the tile. It did nothing to slow my decent to madness.