Page 47 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

My stomach rolled, and for the first time in a week it was not from nausea. But I still shook my head. “No, Harp. I don’t want you catching what I have.”

Harper sighed. “Boss, I’m not really asking here. I’m just waiting for you to get your head around the fact that I am coming in… And hopefully today, sweetheart. I’ve got like a gallon of broth in here.”

Broth? My eyes speared to the paper grocery bags in his hands. Like broth to make soup?

My next breath was slow, my blink even slower as the facts finally sank in. Harper was here at my apartment. He had groceries, maybe medicine, and broth . And he was standing out there demanding that I let him in to take care of me.

Burning emotion licked the back of my senses in an unwelcome caress. But suddenly the ache in my chest felt lighter, almost of a separate origin than my sickness.

I looked at Harper, my voice ragged and hitching a little. “Why?”

His face went soft. All that stuff he was holding onto so diligently suddenly became unimportant as he set it at his feet and stepped my way. Grasping my shoulders, he held my eyes. “Someone told me a girl I care about was feeling pretty shitty. I was hoping she’d let me help her.”

My lip wobbled, a whimpering hitch escaping my throat. It was like second nature to melt into the big, warm hand Harper used to cup my cheek. I shuddered with unknown emotion.

His hands were so soft, so warm, I never wanted to leave them. But that was just the sick talking. Had to be.

“Hey now,” he said, his voice even softer than his hands. “None of that, alright? Just let me in. Let me help.”

I don’t know how he did it. How he made it so easy to be everything I couldn’t be with others with him. But I was finally beginning to recognize the blessing he was.

Mine.

Ink trailed the corners of my vision. The ink of Harper’s forearms as he used his gentle grip to walk me inside. The ink of his biceps as he laid his hand over my head to feel how hot I was. The thin ink on his thumb as he held a thermometer at my lips and waited for me to take it.

I opened my mouth, letting him set the cool stick on my tongue and leaving my hands free to reach up and touch the ink stretching along the length of his thumb. I caressed the slightly raised wording. Small and thin and black, I couldn’t see it all clearly.

He let his eyes travel my movements on him, watching closely until the thermometer beeped and he pulled it out.

Whatever he saw there made him frown, his earlier wariness seeming to disappear into begrudging anger.

He flicked a look up at me, and this was one of those times where he looked mean. “You’ve been like this all week?”

“I’ve gotten better, I think,” I said.

A glare came next. “That’s not saying much, sweetheart. You’re at one-hundred two and you’re shivering.”

I heard what he said, I did, but he’d let me hold onto him even as he fussed with the thermometer and I was too busy running my fingers along the warm skin of his tattooed hand to care all that much.

“What does this mean?” I asked leaning in to get a better look. “It’s too small for me to read.”

“Alta, have you seen a doctor?” he asked, ignoring my question.

I didn’t like when he ignored me. He never ignored me and it felt sour going down. So I ignored him too and brought it back to the conversation I had started. Back to his warm hands and how happy I was that they were here now. “What does it say, Harper?”

“You need to listen,” he said, getting more serious.

It tickled my chest in a way I hated. Before I would kill to have him be serious with me.

Now, I felt like it was killing me. Oblivious, he just kept on with The Tone.

“Have you been running this high of a fever all week without seeing anyone about it?”

“No.”

“Are you lying?” he pressed, unamused and making me feel chastised and lectured with three simple words.

I became acutely aware of the fact that I didn’t like the prospect of disappointing him. Which is why I looked away abruptly, sniffing my nose in the air.

“No,” I answered.

It was pointless. The real answer was obviously yes, and I was obviously lying. Not to mention, he could tell.

His eyes dropped to the thermometer once again, and he cursed. “What the hell are you thinking, Ally? You need to see someone. ”

That feeling in my chest tightened. My voice croaked as I whispered. “Stop yelling at me.”

He blinked, startled. “I’m hardly talking above a whisper. What’s wrong with you, aside from the obvious?”

I looked down, my eyes stinging traitorously. “I just wanted to know what your hand said. It’s stupid, I don’t even know why I asked. I was just excited to see you, that’s all.”

His frown stayed intact. If someone would have told me that a mere facial expression could hurt my feelings so much, I might not have believed them. I believed now. Harper’s angry expressions just made me want to cry.

Studying me for another scrutinizing second, he sighed, recognition filtering his eyes. “You’ve been all by yourself, huh? Toughing it out alone this whole time?”

I nodded, a tear escaping and a hiss of breath leaving him as he huffed a resigned sigh, “Okay. Tell you what. Make me a deal, okay?”

“A deal?”

“Mhmm,” he started. “Let’s get you settled first and see what we can do about a doctor, then you can ask me anything you want, yeah?”

“Anything?” I asked.

A knuckle slipped along my cheek to dry my one fallen tear. “Anything, Boss. If it’ll put that pretty smile back on your face, then consider it answered alright? But only after we take care of you. Can we make that deal?”

That fast, I felt better. I sniffled and leaned into his warm hand again. “Why are we always communicating in deals?”

He smiled, though it was weak and didn’t quite reach his eyes as he shrugged. “Guess it’s in our roots.”

Roots .

For a second, I was filled by the word. The prospect that the two of us could have roots meant that we were a formed entity now. But a feeling akin to a deflating balloon took over my heart soon after.

If that was the case though, weren’t our roots all screwed up? Harper and my origin story seemed more like a gimmick rather than something planted in deep soil.

“Guess so,” I agreed, feeling just as miserable as before.

The reminder that the only reason he and I were anything at all was because of a negotiated deal cut at me for the first time since we made it.

At first, it was fun and exciting, but all at once the realization that he would never come near me in other circumstances wasn’t quite so easy to swallow.

“Alright.” he said, barely noticing my mood. Giving that thermometer way too much credit, he barely managed to part ways with it to set it on the counter as he stood. “Shower time, Boss.”

I hated him.

My teeth chattered as cool water hit me like pellets of rain.

I wasn’t even naked, a warning given by the man holding me hostage in this cool shower made sure of that.

I had trusted him, even when he told me to leave my sleep shorts and long sleeve on as I stepped into the tub.

Even when he held my shoulders and gave me the most sympathetic look I’d ever seen on him.

Even as he told me outright, “Don’t hate me after this sweetheart.

It’s not gonna be fun,” I still didn’t think it would be that bad.

He had warned me, and yet I still hated him.

“Can I get out now?” I shivered.

“Two more minutes,” he said

“I’ve been in here for two hours,” I breathed.

“You’ve been in for three minutes, Boss. Tamp the dramatics and suck it up,” he said it like he was making a joke, but I was beginning to think he wasn’t. I was beginning to think I was finally seeing a grumpy Harper.

Or was this even Harper at all?

“I don’t like this side of you,” I pouted.

“I don’t like you with a one hundred and two fever and asking nobody for help. We all have our grievances,” he grumbled.

I sighed. It turned into a shiver and I felt my knees start to wobble beneath me. “Gus?”

He was looking at his watch, timing this frozen hell to the very minute, but the use of my least favorite name of his snapped his gaze up to me.

“Shit,” he hissed just as I began to tumble. A second later, I was against his chest. Soaking wet, he lifted me out of the shower and carried me over to the vanity where he sat me down.

“Towels?” he asked, hands on my shoulders as I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered.

“C-closet,” I gestured with my chin to the linen closet in the corner of the bathroom and he peeked over his shoulder to locate it.

He didn’t let me go. His hands rubbed up and down my shoulders in soothing motions as he stared into my eyes, commanding me with just a look alone. “Stay up right, you hear me? Don’t fucking fall.”

I nodded. He nodded. Then he rushed over to the linen closet like it was mission impossible, grabbing three huge towels and running them back to me.

Wrapping one around my shoulders and laying one on the floor where we leaked a pool of water, he held onto the last one and started drying my legs without a second thought.

Kneeling in front of me, he started at my feet and worked his way up my ankle from there.

It only took a second for him to curse again. “I need you naked.”

“Gus…”

“Quit calling me Gus. And quit thinking with your head in the gutter,” he grumbled. “Your clothes are dripping water everywhere. I need to take them off, alright?”

“If you say so.” I lifted my arms. They only made it far enough to go parallel to my lap, my head lulling lazily to the side. In a wistful sigh, I said, “Get me naked, Gus.”

“You are a menace,” he said.

“You guessed my middle name,” I replied lazily.