Page 74 of Yours to Lose
“Sit with me?” she asks.
“Anything.” I kick my shoes off and walk around to the other side of the bed. Climbing on, I settle in next to Jo with my back against the headboard. I slide an arm around her, and she shifts, curling into me and laying her head on my shoulder.
“Thank you,” she mutters, reaching out and linking her hand with mine. “Feels better with you here.”
I lean down and kiss the top of her head, squeezing her hand, warmth flooding me at her proximity. At the way she asked me to stay and at how I can be what she needs. I like being needed by her. “Hurricane, here is the only place I want to be.”
Jo drifts back to sleep, her breaths evening out and her head heavy on my shoulder. As the sun sets and the bedroom grows darker, I watch over Jo as she sleeps, secure in the belief that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be.
* * *
The coughing wakes me from a sound sleep. The room is pitch black, and a glance at the clock tells me it’s almost two in the morning. Jo’s body shakes against mine as she coughs, and the heat coming from her is a sign that the medicine must have worn off.
Jo shifts, and I feel, rather than see, her wince. “My chest hurts,” she mumbles. “Everything hurts. I’m all hot and sweaty, and I’m freezing. How is that even possible?”
I pull her closer, running a hand up and down her back. “It’s the fever. The medicine brought it down, but you’ve been sleeping for a while, so it’s worn off. I’ll grab you some more, and if you want, I can run the shower really hot, and you can sit in the bathroom in the steam. It’ll help your chest.”
“My mom used to do that for me when I was little and got sick.” Jo’s sentence ends on a cough, and she buries her head in my chest, tightening her arm across my stomach. I could catch the flu from her and be in bed for two weeks straight after this, and it would be worth it just for these moments of having her right here, taking her comfort from me. It’s everything I didn’t know I needed.
I smile against the top of her head. “It’s tried and true.”
“Okay.”
“Let me get everything set up, then I’ll help you in.” I climb off the bed and take Jo’s empty glass to the kitchen, refilling it with ice water. Back in her room, I give her more Tylenol before I go to the bathroom and turn on the shower as hot as it will go, closing the door to let the steam fill the room.
Grabbing a blanket from the couch, I throw it over my shoulder, then carry a chair in from the living room, setting it down in the bathroom.
Jo’s eyes open when I sit on the side of the bed. “Can you sit up? I’ll help you walk to the bathroom.”
She nods, sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed, shoving her long hair out of her eyes with an irritated noise. Grabbing a hair tie from her nightstand, I gather the sweat-dampened strands and pull them into a high ponytail, securing it with the hair tie. When I’m done, Jo stares at me. “Did you just do my hair?”
I shrug. “I mean, kind of? I thought maybe you would want your hair off your neck. It’ll be hot in the bathroom.”
“God, Allie really taught you well,” Jo mutters, her voice full of wonder and her eyes studying my face like she’s seeing me for the first time.
It should be weird hearing the woman I have big feelings for say the name of the woman I thought I would spend the rest of my life with, but it’s not. The way Jo brings Allie up in conversation, says her name, is curious about my life with her, and is interested in it makes me feel like I can have this new part of my life with Jo, all without losing the memories of the first woman I loved. And I fall just a little bit more.
“Well, how to do a ponytail at least.”
Jo smirks at me. It loses a little of its effect when the smirk devolves into a coughing fit, but she recovers quickly. “And also how to change a woman’s clothes while she sleeps? I’m suddenly noticing I’m wearing pajamas, and I know I didn’t put these on myself.”
I glance down at the floor, feeling my cheeks heat. “When I first got here, your clothes were all sweaty. I wanted you to be comfortable while you slept. I didn’t…check you out or anything. Promise.”
Jo’s eyes search my face like she’s looking for something. I don’t know if she finds it, but she shrugs and with her gaze holding mine, says, “I wouldn’t have minded if you did.”
Fuck.
Half the blood in my body rushes south, and that Jo can make my cock hard with a smirk and a single sentence while she has the flu and a sky-high fever tells me pretty much everything I need to know.
I’m in deep.
I clear my throat and try to will my dick to behave. “We’re going to revisit that later.”
Jo’s eyes flash, and what I see in them has my heart lodging itself in my throat. She feels what I feel. I know it as strongly as if she spoke the words out loud into the silence between us. This is happening. She just has to get well first. “Let’s get you into the bathroom.”
I take a couple of steps towards her, and she shakes her head, setting her mouth in a stubborn line. “I’m a grown ass woman, J. I can walk myself to the bathroom.” She stands from the bed and immediately wavers on her feet, sitting back down heavily and blowing out a breath. “Okay, I was just kidding.”
I run a hand over her head and down her ponytail. “You have the flu, Hurricane. That’s not nothing. Let me help you?”
