Page 100 of Fly with Me

Stella was wearing her typical flight instructor clothes, aviator sunglasses pushing her hair away from her face.

“Oh, Olive.” She dropped several bags of groceries and hugged her. “Why didn’t you call me. Who’s been walking your dog?”

“Gus is with Derek.” Olive stumbled as she meandered back to the couch. Horizontal good. Vertical bad. Stella pretty. Her voice was mostly a combination of slurs and mumbles at this point. “Fake girlfriend shouldn’t have to deal with real sickness.”

Stella was silent for a few moments. Olive remained immobile, her body having completely betrayed her. The crinkle of paper bags. The refrigerator opening and closing. The scrape of pots and pans.

“I brought you soup. I didn’t know what kind to get, so I got all of them, including some plain broth. I got you a wide selection of teas. Yogurt since you said you were on antibiotics, and Gatorade. I also brought ginger ale, because ginger ale is always nice when you’re sick.” Pressure moved the couch beside her. Stella pulled the blanket away from Olive’s face and pressed her cool hand on Olive’s forehead. “And oh my god, you have a fever. You’re burning up.”

Olive may have leaned in to Stella’s touch a little. “I started the new antibiotic yesterday. Fever should be gone by tomorrow.”

“Do you have fever medicine?”

“Out on the counter.” Olive flailed a hand. “Ginger ale, please.”

“Of course.” More movement in the room. “What did you take? Not that high-out-of-her-mind Olive isn’t adorable, because you absolutely are, but seriously?”

“Mough cedicine. With cocaine. No, that’s not right. That’s illegal. With codeine.” She added another slur of garbled syllables. More time passed and there was a cool compress on her forehead.

“I have your ginger ale.”

Olive blinked. How much time had passed? Stella was wearing that Embry-Riddle sweatshirt again. She recognized it even though the lines were blurred, partly because her contacts weren’t in and partly because all of reality was a blur right now. She sucked down ginger ale from a straw and threw a couple of pills Stella offered down her throat.

Stella combed the sweaty hair off Olive’s face and kissed her forehead.

“Rest. I’m going to make you the soup.”

“Jake made soup when I was sick once.”

The sounds of cabinets and pots and pans came from her tiny galley kitchen. “He sounds like he was a good brother.”

“The best. I got sick a lot the first year I was a nurse. He brought me soup. I miss him.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“I missed you when I didn’t see you.”

The movement stopped. “I missed you too.”

“Where did you go?”

“Orlando, Tampa, Cincinnati, Austin.”

“I can never spell Cincinnati. How many cs? How many ns? How many ts? It’s all a mystery.”

“It definitely is. Gosh, you’re so high.”

“You said I was adorable. I didn’t forget, see.” Olive tapped her temple.

“You are adorable. I don’t want you to forget that I think you’re adorable. Why would I?”

Olive muttered something akin to “fake girlfriend” but hoped Stella hadn’t heard.

And then a delicious steamy smell was wafting into her nose. She opened her eyes. “Soup?”

“Yeah. Soup.”

She sat up and leaned against Stella while she ate, with a long, slender arm draped gently over her shoulders.