Page 62 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
Mr. Abboud and Mr. Sharkton are bickering in my kitchen about where things go, and I let them. Bed is the only thing on my mind.
By the time I get to the top of the stairs, I’m covered in sweat but shivering. I took a dose of meds at the Patch, but it hasn’t kicked in yet. The walk down the hallway stretches on to infinity.
Someone knocks at the front door. There’s not a chance in hell that I’m making another trip down four billion stairs.
“I’ve got it, Lottie,” Mr. Abboud calls.
I drag one foot in front of another until I face-plant into my bed.
“Where is she?”
I don’t hear Mr. Abboud’s response as I begin to drift away.
“Sweetheart?”
I swat at hands as they attempt to slip under my shoulders.
“I’m fine, go away,” I grumble.
“Sweet little liar.”
I attempt to open my eyes and manage to get one to flutter to life.
“Hey.” Thane peers down at me with concern etched into his features. It makes my body heat and shiver simultaneously.
“Hey.” Keeping my eyes open is too much work.
“You need to get up, little liar. Your bedsheets are soaked.”
Still? I’d woken tangled in sheets and a little delirious from fever, but that was over an hour ago. Wasn’t it?
I pry my heavy lids open. It’s dark outside. I must have fallen asleep.
“Shh. It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
I’m lifted into the air on a cloud as darkness takes me.
CHAPTERFIFTEEN
THANE
“Sweetheart?”I hold the thermometer to Lottie’s head again. I’ve done it every thirty minutes for the last two hours, and her fever is still far too high, at least according to Medical Web MD.
She groans and rolls over. She’s been out for fifteen hours now, except when I’ve forced her to sit up to drink and take her medicine. Even then, she’s not fully awake.
Her room is nothing like mine back in New York. The walls here are a very pale gray, so light in color that you only see hints of purple in the shadows, but somehow it makes everything softer. I’d always preferred clean white with straight lines and minimal everything.
Yet Lottie has knickknacks and trinkets on every available surface. It’s not messy, per se, more like ordered chaos.
She has seven perfume bottles lined up by height next to a mini figurine of a headless woman whose hands, neck, and arms are used to display jewelry. I placed her clip-on earrings in the open palm of one of them, but they look like costume jewelry, and I know I’ll be replacing them with precious stones before long. Beside that is a framed photograph of her with her brother and another of her with Rowan.
Even the memory of Rowan’s laugh is shrill in my ears.
Pinching the bridge of my nose, I resign myself to what will happen next and pray that I can behave like an adult and not a prepubescent asshole when I turn back to Charlotte.
“Charlotte, I’m going to put a clean T-shirt on you, but I’m not going to look. Okay?”
Her lips tilt lazily, but she doesn’t open her eyes. I called Mrs. Perez for help with this, but she didn’t answer, so my choices are to allow Charlotte to sleep in sweaty clothing that makes her shiver more or figure out how to dress dead weight while staring at the ceiling.
