Page 5 of Pack Favero

Regardless, the answer was… it was nothing. I felt too sick to eat.

“Or what brand of shampoo I use for my hair?”

I don’t actually know, I just pick whatever is cheapest.

“How about how many pairs of socks I own?”

That would be six pairs and three singles that have lost their partners somewhere in this rundown apartment I now live in alone.

“Zira, please,” Barnes sighs once more, and I almost feel bad. Almost. It makes me pause, my steps stalling in the bathroom while my hand reaches for the basin while a wave of tired dizziness washes over me. Humming under my breath, I close my eyes and shake my head, leaning it against the cool surface of the mirror while I breathe through the dizzy spell. I’m pretty sure I can hear Barnes talking through the phone, but I can’t make out his words, my ears ringing strangely and his words are completely lost on me.

I’m sure he’s still talking when I breathe, “I have to go. I’m not feeling so good. Stop calling, Barnes.”

I end the call before he can utter another word and, slowly and painfully with my body full of aches, I slide to the floor and lie on my side, soaking in the cold from the floor despite already feeling chilled to the bone from my ice bath that finally broke my heat.

Shutting my eyes and hoping the dizzy spell dissipates enough for me to take a much-needed shower, I wait it out, breathing in and out calmly like Mom taught me.

Not even a minute later, my cell rings again, and I curse out whoever created the mobile device while I blindly reach for it on the sink. It clatters to the floor when I manage to knock it off the edge, and I swipe to answer without checking to see who’s calling first.

“Hello?” I answer, voice faint while I continue to take in deep lungful’s of air.

“Zee, honey? What’s wrong?” Mom asks, her sweet, age-roughened voice bleeding through the speaker.

I’m crying at the first sound of her voice, and I whimper against the cool, tile floors of my bathroom. “I’m not doing sogreat, Mom.”

“Oh, honey. Is it that time?” she asks, knowing me well enough to know why I’m unwell. In all of my twenty-five years, not once have I been sick from anything other than my killer heats that leave me wiped for days after.

“Mhm,” I answer helplessly, hating that she’s not here for me to crawl into bed with and listen to talk while I fall asleep, feeling her fingers run through my hair as she comforts me like my mother does so well.

Logically, I know why she isn’t here. After her valve replacement, something that almost took her from me, Mom needed more care than I could provide, as much as I was sick to admit. Between my job as a librarian at school through the weekdays and my weekend job at the local gym where I teach little ladies the basics of gymnastics, I’m away from the apartment more than I’m in it in order to pay for the stupid thing. Mom didn’t want to burden me further, so when Barnes and his pack offered to pay for a beautiful and high-demand care facility, Mom took it without an ounce of hesitation. She was a week post-op when she moved, and I miss her something fierce despite seeing her every moment I have spare. Moreso now, when I need her just like I’ve always needed her, and she isn’t here to look after me as she used to.

It makes me feel selfish, like I’m a horrible daughter for wanting my mom to look after me when it should be my turn to look after her now, but a daughter never stops needing her mom, no matter her age.

“Alright, honey. I’m going to call someone to help, okay? Sit tight,” she rushes to say, and I try to assure her I’m alright, but my words leave me in a babble of nonsense that likely worries her more than my silence would.

I’m too tired and in pain to offer much more than that, so I shut my mouth and groan, rolling my forehead on the cold tileas I quietly pray for this hell to end already. A long shower and an even longer nap is what I need, yet I can’t seem to drag my sorry self up off the floor in order to do that.

A few minutes later, Mom comes back to the call and says, “Help is on the way, hon. Sit tight, okay? Is your door unlocked?”

“Uh-huh,” I mumble, my body gradually relaxing as the cold seeps deeper into my bones, the towel hanging loosely around my body.

“Alright. I’m going to hang up now, but you’ll be in the safest hands,” she promises, a weird lilt to her voice that I don’t particularly care for but don’t have it in me to question. “Love you, honey.”

“Love you, Mom,” I mumble, having no clue if the call disconnects or not. I don’t have it in me to care.

Instead, I close my eyes and decide that showering is for stronger people. I’ll simply rest my eyes right here, on the bathroom floor, until I no longer feel like I’m knocking on death’s door. That might not come until tomorrow, but it is what it is. If I’m to remain sprawled on the cold tiles until I’m well enough to move again, then that’s simply the cards fate has dealt me.

I must actually doze off, falling asleep in my bathroom, because I’m still completely out of it when I’m plucked from the floor and delicately hauled into a pair of strong arms. “Found her.”

I don’t recognize that voice, and a brief spark of panic flares to life within my body, only doused when I smell a strange concoction of scents that has my entire body fully relaxing into the stranger currently carrying me bridal style like I weigh no more than a feather.

“Fucking hell,” a voice I most certainly do recognize, as well as his scent. Bergamot and incense, strong and intense asthe man currently in my home.

Blinking my bleary eyes open, still weak and hanging on to a damn thread that keeps me conscious, I find Barnes Champion standing in the doorway of my bathroom, a look of deep concern etched into his handsome face.

“Why are you here?” I try to ask, though I’m sure my words leave in a strange jumble of vowels and consonants that don’t actually make up the words I’m aiming for.

Barnes sighs, and the arms holding me bounce as the stranger chuckles deeply, reminding me that I’ve been air lifted by what seems like a giant. Pretty sure the floor shouldn’t be so far away from my body, but what do I know? I’m bordering on delirious, my body rebelling against everything, my mind no better.

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