Bad Romeo (37 page)

I didn’t think I’d ever be one of those girls who’d use her looks to make a man realize he’s missing out on total hotness, but apparently I am. And yet, one of the reasons we fought is because I need him to want more than just my body.

Hypocrisy, thy name is Cassie.

By the time I take my seat in history of theater, I’m a mess of nerves.

It turns out my anxiety is unwarranted. Holt doesn’t show. At first I think he’s just running late, but by lunchtime I have to accept he’s ditched for the day.

I can’t believe it.

I thought that he’d have mulled over our situation by now and would have wanted to talk, but yet again, he chooses to simply avoid the issue.

Mentally labeling him a bastard doesn’t lessen my disappointment, but I do it anyway.

He doesn’t call all Thursday afternoon or night, and he doesn’t come to class again on Friday. By the time Saturday rolls around, Ruby is sick of me compulsively checking my phone and muttering obscenities under my breath when I see that it is, in fact, working.

“Cass, will you please chill the fuck out? Give the boy some time. He has more issues than
People
magazine. You can’t expect him to magically become well adjusted just because you want him to be.”

“I know that, Ruby. I’m being unrealistic and unreasonable, but why won’t he call?!” I slump against the couch and put my head in my hands. “I mean, seriously, I’m going insane not speaking to him. How can he just drop all contact? I don’t understand.”

“Boys are bizarre.”

“It’s like I don’t mean anything to him.”

“I’ll go out on a limb and say that’s not true.”

I sit up straight. “I’m going to call him.”

Ruby snatches my phone. “No, you’re not. You’re coming to the spa with me, so you can stop obsessing over him for a few hours. I can’t trust you not to call him if I leave you alone.”

“I miss him.”

“I know.”

“I want to know that he’s missing me, too.”

She sits and puts her arms around my shoulders. “Cassie, he misses you. I’m sure of it.”

I’m getting more and more sure she’s wrong.

On Sunday, I feel numb.

Well, most of me feels numb. My hoo-hah is hurting like a sonofabitch because yesterday Ruby convinced me that getting a Brazilian would take my mind off things with Holt.

She wasn’t wrong.

For the half hour it took to rip out my pubic hairs by their roots, I completely forgot about Holt and focused on how many ways I could hurt Ruby without getting arrested. I eventually came up with twenty-three.

Now she’s giving me a pedicure to make up for it, but she’s still on my shit list.

My phone rings, and we look at each other as we grab for it at the same time. It flips into the air, and we both bat at it like cats until she catches it and hands it to me. I glance at the caller ID and quickly deflate.

“Hi, Elissa.”

“Cassie! Thank God you’re there! Is Ethan with you?”

I look at Ruby. “Uh … no. Why?”

Ruby frowns and leans closer so she can listen in.

“I can’t get a hold of him, and when I spoke to him on Thursday, he sounded terrible. Now he’s not answering his phone. I’m afraid he’s really sick and can’t get to a doctor.”

“You haven’t been home this weekend?” I ask.

“No. I’m staying with Mom and Dad in New York until Tuesday. So you haven’t seen him?”

I run my hand through my hair. “No. We kind of … well, we had a fight on Wednesday. I haven’t seen or spoken to him since. I thought he was just avoiding me.”

Elissa pauses. “It’s possible. That’s something he’d do. But he usually answers when I call, and he’s not. Can I ask you a really huge favor?”

My stomach knots. “You want me go and check on him?”

“Yes, please, Cassie.”

Ruby shakes her head vehemently and mouths the words “no fucking way,” while waving her hands wildly.

I groan and put my head in my hand. “Elissa, I don’t know. The way things were after our fight … I just don’t think he’d want to see me right now.”

“Cassie, I wouldn’t ask if there was anyone else that could do it. You’re his only friend.”

“What about Jack or Lucas?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s nine a.m. on a Sunday. They’ll still be passed out in a garden bed somewhere, half drunk. Besides, if Ethan is sick, do you really think Jack or Lucas would be capable of helping him?”

She has a point. I screw up my face and take a deep breath. “Okay, fine, I’ll go and check on him. But if I die from an overdose of extreme awkward, you’re paying for my funeral.”

“Oh, thank you! You’re amazing. Call me when you get there and tell me how he is.”

“Wait, Elissa! I need your address.”

“You don’t have it?”

I sigh. “No. I’ve never been to your apartment.”

I can practically hear her incredulity. “Are you freaking kidding me? In all the time you two have been hanging out, he never took you there?”

“Nope.”

“Let me guess, that’s one of the things the fight was about?”

“Pretty much.”

“My brother’s a dick.”

Yes, but I want him to be
my
dick.

“Well,” Elissa says, “Ruby knows where we live. Do you think she’d drive you?”

Ruby rolls her eyes dramatically and throws her arms up in defeat.

“Yeah, I think I can convince her.”

“Okay. Thanks, Cassie. I really owe you for this.”

“You really, really do.”

Twenty minutes later, Ruby pulls up in front of a well-kept apartment building. The whole trip I’ve been praying that Holt’s at death’s door, because that’s the only explanation for why he hasn’t called that doesn’t make my chest hurt.

“Their apartment is number four,” Ruby says as she points to the second floor. “I’ll wait here just in case he’s not sick and you murder him. I can’t go to prison as an accessory. I’m too pretty.”

I get out and head up to his apartment. The building isn’t super-modern, but it’s clean and stylish. The polar opposite of mine.

I reach the top of the stairs and find number four, then take a deep breath before knocking firmly three times.

There’s silence from inside.

I knock again, louder and more insistent. Again there’s nothing, and the little grain of hurt I’ve carried inside me since our fight blossoms into a full-blown ache.

He’s out.

Possibly with another girl.

Possibly having the no-strings-attached orgasms he used to have with me.

I push down my pain.

I’m about to leave, when I hear a noise on the other side of the door. There’s muffled shuffling, then a bang, followed by a whispered, “Fuck!” When I turn back, the door opens a crack to reveal a bleary-eyed and disheveled Holt squinting at me in confusion.

“Taylor?” His voice is hoarse, and so deep it sounds like Barry White on steroids. “What are you doing here?”

An enormous wave of relief washes over me.

“Oh God, Holt, you’re actually sick! Truly, disgustingly sick!”

He frowns and shivers as he leans against the doorframe. “You came all the way down here to gloat? ’Cause honestly, that’s just mean.”

“No, sorry,” I say, composing myself as I take in his greasy hair and sweaty face. “Elissa asked me to come and check in. You weren’t answering your phone, and she was worried.”

He coughs loudly, causing a horrible rattle to echo in his chest.

“It’s just a cold,” he croaks as he leans more heavily against the wall. “I’ll be okay.”

I place my palm against his forehead. He’s burning up, and the dark circles under his eyes make it look like he hasn’t slept in days.

“You’re not okay. You have a fever. Have you taken anything for it?”

“I ran out of Tylenol,” he says, then coughs again. “I think I just need to sleep.”

He closes his eyes and stumbles a little, and I rush to support him. He’s only wearing a thin T-shirt and cotton boxers, and even though he’s clammy and hot to the touch, he’s shivering.

“Come on,” I say, and guide him inside to sit on the couch. “Sit down for a minute.” There’s a blanket on the back of the couch, so I grab it and drape it across his shoulders. He pulls it around himself as he lies down and closes his eyes. His teeth chatter.

“Ethan?”

“Hmmm?” He’s barely awake.

“I’ll be back in a minute, okay? We need supplies.”

He mumbles something unintelligible as I run around his apartment to take a quick inventory of his kitchen and bathroom, before racing downstairs to Ruby, who’s still waiting in the car. I give her a list of things to pick up at the drugstore and ask her to hurry. When I get back to the apartment, Ethan’s where I left him, mumbling and groaning.

His fever is bad. Until Ruby gets back with some Tylenol, I’ll have to try to get his temperature down. I once had to care for my dad when he’d gotten pneumonia while Mom was out of town at a yoga retreat. I knew the procedures pretty well.

“Ethan, can you sit up for me?”

He coughs before struggling into a sitting position. His chest doesn’t sound good.

“I think you have a chest infection. You need to see a doctor.”

“No,” he says in a raspy voice. “The stuff in my throat is green. Bacterial. Doc will just prescribe antibiotics, and I have some in the bathroom, in the cabinet behind the mirror.”

“You have antibiotics just lying around the house?”

“Dad’s a pharmacist.”

“Oh.”

I go to the bathroom and retrieve the pills. I read the label as I head back to Ethan.

“It says here you’re supposed to take these with food. Have you eaten anything today?”

He pulls the blanket around himself and shakes his head. “Stomach doesn’t feel good.”

“Well, Ruby is out getting you some soup, so maybe we’d better wait to take these until she gets back.”

He shivers as he nods. When I press my palm against his forehead, he closes his eyes and leans into my hand.

I press the backs of my fingers to his flushed cheek. “Do you feel strong enough to take a shower? It’ll help cool you down.”

He opens his eyes and looks at me, staring for a moment before whispering, “Cassie, you don’t have to do this.” His voice sounds so husky it makes my eyes water.

“I know, but I want to.”

I hold my hands out and help pull him to his feet. He sways for a few seconds before wrapping his arm around my shoulders. He shivers against me as we slowly walk into his bathroom. I sit him down on the closed toilet before turning on the shower and adjusting the temperature.

When I turn back to him, my heart aches at how miserable he looks. He’s hunched over his knees, breathing heavily and gripping the blanket around his shoulders.

“Come on. This will help you feel better.”

I peel the blanket off and drop it on the floor before tugging his T-shirt over his head. His chest and shoulders are flushed, and when I press my hand against him, he’s burning hot. He wraps his arms around himself. His skin prickles with goose bumps as I coax him into standing.

“Do you need me to help with your boxers?” I ask and rub his upper arms to keep him warm.

He shakes his head, and it kind of creeps me out that even when he’s as sick as a dog, the sight of him shirtless still does crazy things to me.

“Okay, well, I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be right outside. If you get dizzy, just sit down and call to me. I’ll be in here in a second, okay?”

He nods, and I give him a small smile before closing the door behind me.

A few minutes later, there’s a knock on the front door. When I pull it open, Ruby’s there with two bags of supplies. She heads straight into the kitchen and begins unpacking them.

“I got him several types of soup, as well as some bread, because when the fever breaks he’s going to be hella hungry. There’s some pineapple juice to help clear the mucus, and I also got Gatorade for rehydration.”

“Good thinking.”

She finishes unpacking the groceries and moves on to the bag from the drugstore. “There’s Tylenol and Advil, plus a decongestant that will totally knock him out and help him sleep.”

A huge coughing fit echoes down the hallway, and Ruby screws up her face in disgust. “Okay, don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to leave now. Mucus of any kind makes me ralph. You’d better get back to your disgusting patient before he coughs up a lung.”

I laugh and walk her to the door.

“You staying here tonight?” she asks as she steps out into the hallway.

“Yeah, unless he has a miraculous recovery in the next eight hours. That okay?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t molest him in his sleep.”

“Ruby, you act as if I have zero self-control around him.” She stares at me and purses her lips. I glare. “Shut up.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You judged me with your eyes. I’m telling them to shut up.”

“Are you going to be able to cope being alone with him overnight?” she asks. “Or do I have to make you a chastity belt out of aluminum foil?”

“Ruby, there are two reasons nothing is going to happen between us. One, he’s really sick and, yes, disgusting.” I neglect to mention that I would still totally do him. “And two, I’ve drawn a line in the sand as far as our relationship goes, and until he’s willing to own up to his feelings toward me, I don’t intend to cross it. I do have some pride, you know.”

“Yeah, but not much.”

“Again, shut up.”

She hugs me, and I can feel her smiling against my shoulder.

“Could you call Elissa?” I ask. “Let her know what’s going on?”

“Sure. Talk to you tomorrow.”

After she leaves, I head back into Holt’s bedroom. I knock on the bathroom door before opening it a crack.

“Hey, you okay in there?”

There’s a pause and a wet cough. “Yeah. What I’m coughing up looks like something out of a horror movie, but the steam is loosening up my chest a bit.” He’s losing his voice, but I guess it’s to be expected after the amount of coughing he’s just done.

“Want to get out?”

“Soon. Give me a minute.”

I don’t mean to, but I glance through the door and inhale sharply when I see his naked back. His shoulders are straining as he leans his forearms on the wall.