Page 241 of Tell Me Lies

Once the doctor had departed, Jorge took the prescription from his brother’s hand. He turned to Cecily.

“Make a grocery list and I’ll go get these filled, pick up something he can eat. Give me your car keys, Javier.”

He had curled into a knot on the bed after Russo left but he lifted his head. “To the Porsche?”

“Unless you have another car here, yeah. Don’t you trust me?”

Trust. If asked a day ago, Javier would claim he trusted no one. In his solitary world, he had no one to rely on and didn’t. Everything he did, from each job to his daily existence, he handled alone. In the Army, he had depended on his fellow soldiers but only to a point. Snipers usually work alone except for spotters. Javier had trusted him but in his post-military life, he had no spotter.

Once, though, he had trusted Jorge with everything—his secrets, his dreams, his hopes, and his fears. Javier realized he still did but he dug deep into his soul for the realization. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t have wanted his brother here.

“I do, with my life. Keys should be on the table by that couch, in the other room.”

He heard the jingle when Jorge picked them up.

“I hoped you still did.” There was no joking in his brother’s serious tone. “Anything you want to get?”

“Some cola,” Javier said. “You know what I like and maybe cherry limeade sherbet.”

After he’d gone, Javier wanted Cecily. “Come lay with me, Azúcar. I don’t like being alone.”

Shoes off, she crawled behind him on the bed and lay against his back, her arms around him. “Tell me if I hurt you.”

“You’re good, right where I want you to be.”

She snuggled closer. “Am I your sugar?”

Azúcar. “That and more, Chica.”

Cold enveloped him and he began to shake. Cecily held him tight in her arms and although he couldn’t say anything else, not with chills, Javier resolved that he would. He just had to figure out for himself exactly what this love thing meant. This was new, beyond anything he’d experienced. Too sick to think straight, overwhelmed with emotions between his brother and his woman, he shut his eyes and endured.

Chapter Five

Wretched didn’t begin to describe how he felt. Jorge returned with the meds, so Javier choked down the first dose, four pills that tried to stick in his throat. He fought to keep them down after his stomach rebelled and won that battle. Cecily fixed him a very small bowl of sherbet, which he ate. The cool contrasted with his fever, hot enough his skin ached as it baked. He thought he might improve after the dose, but it didn’t work that way.

“It’s not magic,” his brother stated. “Probably take several rounds before you feel any different, just like antibiotics.”

Javier groaned. First, he burned as if he’d been thrust into a fire as a human sacrifice, then he trembled with biting cold when the chills struck. His head pounded like a motherfucker and his stomach ached with nausea. Sometimes it just hurt with a sharp pain. Almost every part of his body betrayed him, sore and in misery.

“I think I might die this time,” he voiced his fear, aware it wasn’t logical or rational.

Cecily cried out in wordless dismay. It reminded him of the sound she’d made when he took out the financier on the roof. That seemed like a lifetime ago, not just days. Javier realized he had no idea what day of the week it was or how long he’d been ill.

“Don’t say that.” Her gentle hands placed another wet compress on his forehead. “You’re not.”

“I can call Dr. Russo back if you’re worse,” Jorge told him. “At least you’re not delirious now.”

“Was I?”

“Talking out of your head with the fever? A little. Are you worse?”

“No,” Javier gasped. “I’m just not better.”

“You will be. Give it time.”

That prompted him to ask. “What time is it? What day?”

Jorge’s voice had an almost tender note. “Do you have someplace to be? Midnight, and it’s almost Sunday. I need to go sleep a little. I haven’t since I got here. I’ll be the one down sick next if I don’t.”

---