Page 33 of Lovesick (The Minnesota Mustangs #1)

Faded Polaroids of her friends and family form a collage on the adjoining wall as sleek, ivory frames harbor everything from Sakura prints, bows and cherries illustrated in watercolor brushstrokes, and a quote in cursive that reads: “Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind. Always.” But the pièce de resistance is the candy floss bed curtains that form a canopy over her mattress.

I managed to find myself a pair of oversized shorts that fit me, but the shirt department was…lacking. So, I squeezed myself into one of her MU T-shirts, which cuts off just below my navel.

I sit down on her bed and stroke her head comfortingly.

A mantle of moonlight filters in from the slats in her blinds, projecting alabaster striations over her bed that slice through the impinging darkness.

She stirs a little under my touch as exhaustion lassoes her and drags her further into the depths of semiconsciousness.

“Crew, my stomach hurts,” she whines, burying her face in her pillow.

I grab her a glass of water and three pills of ibuprofen, offering them to her. “I know, Mer. Can you take these for me please? They’re going to make you feel better.”

She spies the small respite in my hand with a slitted gaze. “Do you promise?”

“Pinky promise,” I swear, sticking out the pinky on my free hand.

It takes her a second to warm up to the idea of putting anything else in her belly, and then she interlocks her pinky around mine. Acquiescing with a sigh, she throws the painkillers into her mouth and chases them down with a hearty gulp of water.

“Atta girl.”

Merit—even on the verge of passing out—still blanches at the praise. “This wasn’t how I wanted the night to end.”

“You mean you didn’t want to spend it with your head over the toilet?” I jest.

She glances up at me with her big Bambi eyes, wanton desire swimming in the rings of her irises. “We were supposed to have the sex.”

A chuckle loosens from my chest, and I wrestle back a smile. “‘ The sex ?’”

“Yup,” she says, popping the “p.” “We were going to kiss, and you were going to put your beef thermometer inside me.”

My… what ?

I know getting physical should be the last thing on my mind—and trust me, it was until Merit brought it up—but now my… soldier …is standing at very obvious attention, more than ready to fulfill her wishes. “Wait, you wanted to have sex again? Even with your dad complicating everything?”

Merit nods and brushes her hand over my leg. “Duh. You’re the best I’ve ever had. You knew just how to make me feel good. My bean machine doesn’t even compare to your tongue. It’s like you’re— hic —the God of orgasms.”

Bean machine? I don’t even have the bandwidth to unpack that.

Fuck. Why is she telling me this? Why couldn’t she be a quiet drunk? As much as I’d like nothing more than to give her as many orgasms as she wants, I’d never take advantage of her when she’s this incapacitated.

But my body doesn’t seem to be getting the memo because all that her loose-lipped confession is doing is inflating my cock. I need to get myself under control.

I try to cross my legs discreetly, mentally picturing my grandmother in a bikini.

Saggy grandma boobs. Saggy grandma boobs. Saggy grandma boo ? —

“Aw, look! He’s happy to see me,” Merit coos, gesturing to the bulge in my shorts. “We should just fuck right now. Get it out of our systems. Wouldn’t you like that, big guy?”

Jesus Christ. She’s talking to my dick.

It feels like she’s triggered this entire room with bear traps, except I’m blindfolded and one step away from getting my ankle gnawed off by metal teeth. That honestly sounds less painful than the boner I’m experiencing.

I redirect her attention by plugging in her heating pad and placing it over her belly. “Not tonight, Princess. Not when you need to rest.”

She frowns, all her deceptive shyness sheared away. “Don’t you want to fuck me?”

A malaise of guilt sinks its claws into my thrashing heart, leaving me winded and short a few brain cells.

Is she serious? Merit Lawson is the most irresistible woman in all of Minnesota, and I’d give up one of my goddamn kidneys just to kiss her again. You can live without a kidney, right?

“You have no idea,” I breathe. “But your wellness is my first priority, and when we do fuck again, it won’t be some spur-of-the-moment decision brought on by one too many drinks.”

With a half-hearted whimper, she stops pushing, going boneless against the mattress as she struggles to keep her eyes open.

God, she’s stunning. With makeup, without it.

I normally never see her without a full face, but I’ve been gifted with one of the best blessings in the entire universe—witnessing her raw beauty for everything that it’s worth.

The clearness of her skin, the beauty mark peppered above the right corner of her upper lip, her long lashes that skirt the hills of her cheekbones.

I could stare at her for eternity, and it wouldn’t be long enough.

“Will you…will you stay with me tonight?” she asks quietly.

I give her arm a little squeeze. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She wears a satisfied expression, burrowing further underneath her covers. “I thought for sure that I’d scare you away with all my emotional baggage.”

Huh? What is she talking about?

“Emotional baggage?”

“Yeah, you know—my cheating ex,” she answers point-blank, as if this has been a previously discussed talking point.

“ Remember? He said he loved me, but after I collapsed in front of the entire school, he just up and vanished! Then he cheated on me while I was recovering in the hospital! And even worse, he told me that his teammates pitied me because I was the ‘sick’ girl.”

Huh? She collapsed? She was in the hospital? What does she mean by “sick”? I don’t think getting angry would be helpful in this situation, though I’m already fantasizing about ways I can beat some respect into Fuck-Up Felix.

I force myself to get over the initial speed bump of shock. “What do you mean by the ‘sick’ girl?”

“Oh, I just have some heart complications. I fainted during the biggest competition in my dance career. Everyone caught it on camera. I ruined everything for my teammates, my dance teacher, the whole school. It went viral within hours. I’m surprised you never came across it.”

This is all…a lot to take in. I don’t even know where to start. Why wouldn’t she tell me early on that she had heart complications?

“I’m so sorry, Merit. I can’t imagine having to go through all of that. You’re the last person who deserves to be treated that way, and your ex is the biggest fucking coward on the planet.”

Her levity cuts me to the quick. “It’s alright. It’s why I moved here, you know. That plus my parents wanting to monitor my health.”

If she needed to move back home to be under surveillance, her health is worse than she’s letting on. Heart complications and fainting aren’t things you just casually drop into a conversation.

I don’t know how to approach the situation without potentially offending her. So, dressing my voice in a gentle tone, I throw caution to the wind and hope that my risk-taking bears some framework of an explanation. “Princess, how did you get that scar on your chest? ”

Her brow crumples. “Hmm?”

She then looks down the neckline of her shirt as if to confirm that the laceration is, in fact, still there. “Oh, this? You weren’t supposed to see it,” she sing-songs.

I wasn’t supposed to… see …it? I mean, I didn’t see it during our first night together, or any time in between when she wore low-cut dresses. Has she been hiding it from me this whole time?

“I got it from heart surgery. Crazy, right? I don’t even know how I’m still alive.”

Jesus. Heart surgery? I broke my arm once when I was playing hockey, and even then, the injury didn’t require surgery. I can’t imagine what her body has been through.

I’m scared to ask, but I have to now—to guarantee her safety. “Why did you need surgery, baby?”

“Well, it’s a long story. When I was born, I had a hole in my heart that needed to be closed so I could live.

And then after it was closed, I developed bigenima…

bigimanyjeans…big…eminy. It means my heart goes like this a lot.

” She flails her hand around to demonstrate.

“The doctor said I have a sixty percent chance of making it to thirty-five. I don’t even know if I’ll be married by then!

Oh, that would be sad if I never got married or had kids. ”

And just like that, the bluff underneath my feet starts to crumble, breaking off into chunks that descend into the restless ocean below, shattering on spiky sea stacks and fighting against cresting whitecaps. My whole world has been destroyed by one measly truth.

A hole in her heart? A condition where it now beats sporadically? I’ve never heard of those diagnoses before, but I’m assuming she’s downplaying their severity for my sake.

Sixty percent chance. Thirty-five. No marriage. No kids. No promise of growing old. How can Merit just… keep going …knowing that her life has an unfair expiration date? Fuck, I do n’t even know what to think right now. My mind is racing. It feels like the walls are closing in on us.

I never expected this. I promised Merit’s father that I would look out for her. I made a promise to myself to protect her from anything that might hurt her. How can I do that now? Should she have been drinking tonight? Dancing?

Floored, I must have gone unintentionally silent because Merit’s head pops back into frame. “Crew? Can you hold me?”

It’s like she doesn’t even realize how devastating that truth bomb was—we’re talking about radioactive fallout, earthquakes, tsunamis, firestorms, shockwaves that have never reached this height of magnitude before. And everything has a hundred percent fatality rate.

I can feel my heart in my throat. “Yeah,” I croak, climbing into bed next to her so I can wrap my arms around her frame.

She splays her back against my front, and I’m not sure how long I hold her, but I eventually hear soft snores rumble from her figure. It dawns on me that moments like these are ephemeral in all the wrong ways.

I don’t know how I’m supposed to accept the fact that Merit’s been keeping a life-threatening illness from me this entire time. Not because I feel betrayed, but because I wish there was something I could do.

I wish she hadn’t told me. I wish I didn’t know. I’m so fucking afraid to let go of her—as if her memory will reach a vanishing point in the brackish waters of my mind—so I don’t.

At least not tonight.