Page 38 of The Last Time

“Have you taken any more medicine since I left?”

All I’ve done was sleep. I’m afraid to answer him, but judging by the look on his face, he knows my answer.

He huffs out a breath of frustration. I think I hear him mumble that he shouldn’t have left me alone last night, but that can’t be right. My health isn’t his responsibility.

He reaches for the medicine on the nightstand and pours me another dose.

“I’m guessing you also didn’t eat the soup that I put in the fridge.”

“Asher, all I did was sleep and avoid getting up to even pee. No, I didn’t eat the soup. Plus, it’s boring in here. There’s no T.V. or anything for me to do. Sleeping was my only option.”

He looks around the room and then back at me.

“You stay here. I’m gonna run to the store. I’ll be right back.”

I don’t get a chance to ask him where he’s going before he is out of my room and running down the stairs.

This man is seriously infuriating. He is making my brain spin in circles trying to figure out what he’s thinking. And who storms into someone’s house, shoves medicine in their mouth angrily, then turns around and leaves just as quickly?

My body begins to shiver again. I hate having a fever; it’s such a contradicting concept to have my body sweat and yet feel so cold.

Since I must’ve slept twenty hours straight, there’s no going back to sleep. I lie here with my eyes closed, thinking about this mysterious man who is taking care of me.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride since we’ve been back in each other’s lives.

When I hear the door open downstairs, I at least know now that no one is here to murder me.

It takes him longer than expected to get up the stairs, but when he walks into my room, he’s holding a large box and grunting. I don’t even know what to think.

“What is that?” I ask hoarsely.

“Just a small dresser. I figured I could set it up in here. You could put some clothes in the drawers and a T.V. on the top.”

“Oh my gosh. Asher, when I said that, I didn’t intend for you to go out and buy me a dresser. I don’t even have a T.V. here.”

He grunts again as he opens the box. I’m shocked to see it’s a really nice dresser. It only needs the hardware put on and the legs twisted at the bottom; everything else is in one piece. Nothing cheap comes already put together.

“I happened to have a spare at my house. Still in the box and everything. I stopped at home to get it.”

Before he moves to get it out of the box, he turns to me. “I can tell you want to say something, but it’s not worth it. This was an easy fix. Not only are you sick, but you’re also going to be here all summer. You need something to keep you entertained.”

With that, he goes back to work, leaving me with nothing to say. I guess if I can’t argue with how over the top this is, I might as well enjoy the view.

Watching him lift it out of the box, his arms flexed to the max, makes me forget about the aches and pains all over my body. At one point, he lifts his shirt to wipe off a drip of sweat from his forehead. A glimpse of his abs makes my panties get the slightest bit of moisture in them. Even when I’m sick and in pain, this man can produce a reaction like this from my body.

After the dresser is ready and the hardware installed, he runs downstairs to get the T.V.

“I just realized I don’t have cable turned on here,” I begin as he plugs it in.

He chuckles, then looks at me over his arm. “You think I did all this and didn’t think about that? I have a box right here where you can connect to the internet and access all of your apps.”

Once it’s all hooked up and ready to go, Asher shocks me by lying next to me on the bed with the remote. He opens up an app for me and then asks for my username and password.

He signs into my account and then starts to go through my recently watched shows and movies.

“What are you doing?” I ask while I lie next to him.

It feels so strange to be lying in bed with Asher, my teenage crush, like it’s no big deal. I always pictured it going differently if we were ever in bed together.

---