Page 74 of I Could Be Yours

“I have a wedding in two days. Will I be okay by then?” Nate asks.

“You’ll be much better by tomorrow,” she assures him.

I hold Nate’s hand while she gives him the shot.

“You’ll want to take him back to your room right away,” the nurse informs me. “This will make him groggy, and you don’t want him passing out in a lounge chair by the pool. A sunburn will only exacerbate the problem.”

“I’ll do that right now.”

She hands me a tube of cream. “You can rub this on the affected areas. It will help with the itching, but it’ll be mostly managed by morning.”

“Thank you for everything.” I run my fingers through his hair. “Okay, Nate, we’re going back to the room now.”

“You’re gonna stay with me, right? You’re not gonna leave?” His eyes are glassy from the drugs instead of the pain now.

“No, I won’t leave.”

“Okay. Good.” He lets me help him down from the exam table.

“Congratulations, by the way,” the nurse says. “You’re a beautiful couple.”

“She’s sunshine and a rainbow, and the dark eats the light,” Nate says helpfully. His words are already slurring together.

“Looks like the antihistamines are hitting him hard. You’ll want to get him into bed as soon as possible,” the nurse says.

“That’s his one and only stop.” I’m grateful our block of rooms is close by, because Nate grows progressively less lucid as we go.

I manage to get him into my room, and he barely makes it to the bed, flopping down with a groan. “My back feels raw.”

“Roll over and I’ll put some cream on it.”

He does as I ask and grabs my pillow and Catalina.

“Be careful with her.”

He presses her to his face and inhales deeply. “She smells like you.”

I sit beside him on the bed and gently rub cream over the angry, red welts.

“How bad is it? It feels bad. Not as bad as it did at first, but still not good,” he says into my pillow.

“It looks uncomfortable.”

He turns his head so he’s looking at me. The furrow in his brow deepens. “Where’d the kitty go? I want it.”

“You’re holding it in your other hand.”

“I wanna huff it,” he mumbles.

I move Catalina so she’s in front of his face again. “My pillow probably also smells like me and is in much better shape.”He likely won’t remember any of this come morning, but I certainly will.

“But this is like…embezzled, embroidered, embroizeled, embedded with your scent. Do you snuggle it every night?”

“Pretty much, yeah.” Again, he won’t remember, so it’s not like he’ll be able to make fun of me for traveling with a stuffed cat.

“I would snuggle you every night. I wanna snuggle you right now.” The slur in his words grows more pronounced. “Can we snuggle, Ess?”

“Yeah, Nate, we can snuggle.” He’ll be out like a light in five minutes.

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