Page 23 of About Last Night

Derek stared at her, feeling luckier by the minute to be unencumbered by a female. "I don't need your advice, medical or otherwise."

She nodded, then he was horrified to see the shimmer of tears in her eyes.

"Oh, no," he said, feeling like a heel. "Don't cry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I'm sorry."

"It's not you," she whispered. "It's the wedding, and now this q-quarantine..."

"Are you feeling ill?" He'd hate to think he'd given her whatever he had. Derek bit down on the inside of his cheek—there he went again, caring.

"I don't think so." But her lower lip trembled.

He stood and walked over to her, then gently clasped her shoulders and turned her around to face the bathroom. "Why don't you take a nice, long bath?" he said in the voice he saved for his most neurotic clients. "I'm sure you'll feel much better."

She nodded mutely and disappeared behind the closed door. The water splashed on and, too late, he realized his cold medicine was still on the bathroom vanity. Derek blew his nose, then lowered himself to the floor for push-ups before he had to stop and sneeze again. He gave up and pulled an accordion file marked Phillips Honey from the bag he'd repacked, along with three pint-size clear plastic containers of Phillips's products: nearly transparent wildwood honey, pale yellow honey butterand a mahogany-colored sourwood honey with a chunk of the waxy honeycomb imbedded in its murky depths.

Derek stared at the honey, willing a brilliant idea to leap to his blank pad of paper. After a few seconds without a revelation, he numbered lines on the pad from one to twenty. He would start with trite ideas, but sometimes when he reached the end of the list, something fresh would occur to him.

A honey of a taste.

How sweet it is.

He kept glancing toward the bathroom, wondering what she was doing in there.

Sweet, sweet surrender.

He tossed down his pen in disgust.

Picking up the container of light honey, he rolled it between his hands to warm and loosen the contents, then opened the flip-top lid and squeezed a tiny dollop onto his finger. He smelled the translucent stickiness, jotting down notes about the aroma—sweet but pungent and a little wild. He tasted the honey, sucking it from his finger, allowing it to dissolve in his mouth, wondering why, instead of images of warm biscuits, the nutty sweet flavor of the honey evoked images of the woman bathing in the next room. Probably because she was a nut, he reasoned, then massaged his aching temples.

A knock on the room door interrupted his rambling thoughts. Derek pulled his sweatshirt over his head and ran a hand through his hair, then checked the peephole to see two sets of suited shoulders. He opened the door to Dr. Pedro and a tall blond man who introduced himself as the general manager. The doctor carried a black leather bag, and the manager sported a clipboard that held down a one-inch stack of papers. Both men appeared weary, their eyes bloodshot.

"Mr. Stillman," the doctor said. "I understand you're not feeling well. I need to examine you, draw some blood and record your symptoms."

Derek invited them inside. The general manager hung back, then peered around warily as he entered. "Isn't Janine Murphy in this room?"

A strange sound emerged from the bathroom. The men stopped and Derek identified the low noise as… singing? He looked at Mr. Oliver and nodded toward the closed door. "Janine." When she hit a particularly off-key note, he felt compelled to add, "I, uh, don't really know her."

The doctor offered him a tight smile. "She informed us of your, um, unusual circumstances." While Derek ponderedthatconversation, the shorter man pulled the straight-back chair toward the foot of the bed. "Shall we get started?"

Derek sat in the chair and allowed the doctor to take his vital signs. "What's the status of the quarantine?"

"Still on," the man muttered, while peering into Derek's ears with a lighted instrument. He made notes on a pad of yellow forms.

"Have you identified the illness?"

"Yes," the doctor replied. "But not the source. Open your mouth and say 'ah.'"

Derek obeyed, realizing he'd have to drag answers out of the man. Meanwhile, he watched Mr. Oliver pivot and take in details of the room. The man stopped, his gaze on the pink-and-black bustier lying on top of the bedcovers where Derek had tossed it after using it as a shield. With an inward groan, Derek resisted the urge to jump up and discard the misleading evidence. Mr. Oliver's perusal continued, this time stopping to stare at the stash of honey on the nightstand. One of the manager's eyebrows arched and he slid a glance toward Derek.

Great. He thinks I'm doing kinky things with the woman braying in the bathroom.

"Your throat is irritated," the doctor announced.

Derek gagged on the tongue depressor, then pulled away and swallowed. "I could've told you that."

"When did you arrive at the hotel?"

"Yesterday, around three o'clock."

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