Page 35 of Whiskey Shivers

I got up beside her and set my plate in my lap and the beer I’d brought with me on the bedside table.

“God, I could use one of those,” she said, eyeing the bottle.

“Meds,” I said, chewing through a bite of broccoli.

She sighed and grumbled but cut herself a bite of steak and sighed happily.

“Get some of that in you and take your meds,” I said.

“Oxy in there?” she asked.

“Yup, and you’re going to take it,” I shot back. “Fucking fighting me isn’t going to end well so just do as I ask, please?”

She huffed an unhappy sigh and knocked back the pills. Wincing, she washed them down with the Coke.

“Melted?” I asked.

“Mm, explosion of foam – hard to get down, so yeah, partially.”

I chuckled.

“Sorry, darlin’.”

“Bleh,” she muttered and hurriedly put another bite of meat in her mouth.

“How is it?” I asked.

“Good,” she mumbled around the bite.

“Should have asked you how you like it,” I said.

“Medium rare is perfect,” she said, getting it down.

“Glad I over cooked it a bit.” I smirked and she looked at me.

“Yeah, I don’t like it when it moos when I stab it, but a little blood is just fine.”

I laughed and said, “I’m just glad you like my meat in your mouth.”

She snorted and choked. Bad timing. I’d gotten her when she’d taken a drink of her Coke.

“Oh, shit!” I got up and grabbed one of the damp towels we’d used from our showers out of the hamper and she thrust it against her face as she coughed.

“I’m so sorry!” I cried and stood by a little helpless as there wasn’t shit I could really do.

“It’s alright,” she said, her eyes streaming. “It was funny.”

“You alright? You hurt?”

“I’m good,” she declared, taking in a wheezing breath.

“I’ll try to be not as funny or something,” I said, and she started laughing again and shook her head gently.

“You’re too much,” she said.

“I can be,” I agreed.

“Thank you,” she said and laid her head on my shoulder as I returned to my seat. I raised my arm and gave her a careful one-armed hug and we went back to eating, watching whatever she had on the television, which was, predictably, some sort of fantasy show. It was about a bunch of tween girl fairies in a fairy academy and all their bullshit drama about boys and some big bad thing and their parents being some kind of assholes or whatever.

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