Page 23 of Secret Shifters Next Door

Emily put the bag down and pulled out the medicine. “I’ll be right back.”

She returned a few minutes later with the bright green liquid in a small plastic cup. Looking at the viscous drink made me want to hurl again. I didn’t think I could stomach it, but Emily was insistent. Thankfully, it had a minty flavor and wasn’t as thick as other medicines. It went down easily, and I lay back on the bed. Emily dug into her purse and pulled out several small bottles.

She held them up. “Essential oils. I’m not a hippy or anything, but I am a little crunchy, I guess.”

She dabbed some on my forehead and temples, then raised my shirt to drip another oil on my stomach. The smell was… weird, but it did ease my nausea. Emily had been here less than ten minutes, and I already felt better. Mentally, I congratulated myself on making at least one good decision in the last three months.

Emily pulled the chair close to the bed and smiled at me in concern. “Harley, are you sure you don’t want to go to the hospital? You really don’t look good.”

I shook my head. “It’s just the flu or something. Maybe the flu and food poisoning? It’s not that serious.”

“Yeah, but it can’t be good for the baby if you can’t keep anything down. You have to think about that, right?”

She had a point. I hadn’t thought about what the tiny person growing inside me was going through, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d peed. Maybe I was dehydrated. That had to be dangerous for a fetus.

I waved at the brown shopping bag. “Can I have a Gatorade?”

“Sure.” She handed me the bottle.

I sipped at it at first, worried I would spew it back up immediately. Instead, when the lemony drink hit my tongue, a devastating wave of thirst washed over me. I was ravenous for liquid. I gulped half the bottle before Emily snatched it away.

“Hang on. Go slow,” she said with a chuckle.

I nodded. “Okay. I’m going to try to sleep. I promise, if my fever hasn’t gone down, or I get worse, I’ll go to the doctor.”

“Okay,” Emily said. “I’ll stay here as long as you need. I brought a book.”

If I’d been less exhausted, I would have thanked her, but instead, I slipped into a deep sleep. I dreamed about flapping wings and athwap-thwapsound all around me as I was lifted into the air. They weren’t my wings, though. At first, I couldn’t see anything or what was lifting me, then a set of gold reptilianeyes stared at me out of the darkness. It should have been a terrifying dream, but for some reason, both things were almost comforting. It was a strange dream, to say the least.

Sometime later, I woke and found Emily still beside me. She was leaning back in the chair, her left leg draped over her right, holding the book in one hand. I felt human again, and I could tell my fever was gone, as were the body aches and nausea. There was no way I would rate myself as one-hundred percent, but based on before the nap, I was a solid eighty percent better.

When Emily noticed I was awake, she put the book on her lap and leaned forward. “How do you feel?”

Slowly sitting up to rest against the headboard, I said, “Actually? A lot better.”

Emily looked relieved but still worried. Setting the book aside, she dug into the bag and pulled out a can of soup and a pack of crackers.

“Hungry?” she asked.

My stomach rumbled, and not in a bad way. I nodded vigorously. “Yes, please.”

She handed me the crackers, then went to the kitchen to heat the soup. I had eaten half the pack and washed it down with Gatorade by the time she got back and handed me the warm bowl and spoon. I ate, groaning in pleasure between bites.

Emily placed a hand on my thigh. “Harley, I think you should think about telling Tate about the baby.”

I snapped my eyes up to her, nearly dropping the spoon into the bowl. “Absolutely not. The guy already hates me. This would just give him another reason to despise me.”

Emily sighed and shrugged. “I think he’ll be more receptive than you think. He might surprise you.”

Unsure of how she could possibly think that, I asked, “How do you know that?”

“I don’tknowit, but I’ve got a hunch,” Emily said.

After I ate, I felt even better. By the time Emily left, I was close to my old self, which was a good thing since the girls got home a while later. They showed me all the things they’d gotten for school. Mariah had done a good job of helping Jordyn pick out things on sale or clearance, and they both got a surprising amount of things for the limit I’d given them. They gushed about the newest epic superhero movie, and it sounded like Jordyn had a crush on the leading man, which I found rather hilarious. I felt so good that I didn’t even give them a hard time when I found the Cinnabon receipt at the bottom of one of the bags.

As I cooked dinner, my thoughts slipped back to what Emily had said. How would I deal with things if I told Tate about the baby and he rejected it? There was no scenario I could run in my head that had us still living across the street from him if he shunned our child. No possible way I could handle that type of reaction.

Another small part of me wondered though, what might happen if he did accept the baby and, by association, me. I didn’t know him, not really. We were still basically strangers. What if our baby acted like a bridge? What would happen if we were brought together? What would that life even look like?

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