Page 83 of Before You
“Suck it up, buttercup,” she says, and I can only imagine the look on his face.
“Halloween is her favorite holiday,” I say, wishing I could have a little more enthusiasm, but I am so tired. If I hadn’t looked like death attending classes yesterday, I’m sure my professors would have assumed my emails written in a drug-induced haze were actually from a Halloween-sized hangover.
“Marley, maybe you should go to bed?” Bria suggests, but even the thought of moving hurts.
“I’m fine,” I say, wincing as my uterus cramps, but then because I moved my face, I’m reminded of the pressure in my nose.
“Yeah, you look fine,” Bria says sarcastically and JJ combs his fingers through my hair gently.
“Earlier, you said she looks like a corpse,” Asher chimes in.Seriously, someone needs to talk to him about the time and place to say certain things.
“I also told you where the door was, and not to let it hit you on your way out.”
JJ’s chest shakes with silent laughter underneath my cheek, and I can feel myself drift closer toward the lull of sleep as I breathe through my mouth, listening to the intro of Bria’s favorite movie I’ve seen a hundred times.
I stir when JJ shifts, slowly opening my eyes to focus on the sight of Asher sitting with his arm tucked around Bria as her face is lit by the screen of her phone. “JJ, have you seen this?” she asks, scrolling.
I hear JJ yawn as screams sound from the television. “The movie? Yeah,” he says, and I don’t want to get up to go to the bathroom, but I know I need to.
“Oh shit,” Asher says, peering over her shoulder, and I feel my insides cramp again. I can take more medicine if I get up too. I swear, being sick on your period makes it a thousand times worse than usual.
I sit up slowly, my head spinning as the congestion in my face shifts. “You okay?” JJ asks as I pull myself up.
“Yeah, just need to use the bathroom,” I say, standing up to head toward my room.
When I step out, the lights are on and the movie’s forgotten in the background as JJ paces on the phone and Bria types furiously.
“Mom, I’m going to kill her,” JJ says, tugging a hand through his dark hair, his gaze landing on me a moment later. “Gotta go. Love you too,” he says, hanging up.
“What’s going on?” I ask, cringing at how nasally my voice sounds. “Who are you going to kill?”
“My sister,” he says, sighing. “Um, you remember how she flipped off the cameras during the game while they were here?”
“Yeah,” I say, not following.
“He’s tiptoeing around the fact you guys made the papers after everyone caught a glimpse of you sitting between America’s favorite Olympian, and the next golden goose of the NFL. The press’s words, not mine, just to be clear. Honestly, I’m kind of shocked it took them this long to piece together who you are.”
“Is that it?” I ask, feeling woozy again, grabbing the doorframe for stability. JJ’s at my side in an instant, sliding an arm around my waist to help support me.
“I’m taking you to bed,” he says, a note of finality in his tone.
“If you insist,” I relent, accepting my fate. I can think of worse fates, though.
JJ pulls the covers back on my bed, and I climb in, a smile pulling at my lips when I see how many pillows are on the side JJ’s inadvertently claimed as his. He’s a pillow princess, and I’m starting to wonder if I need to worry about him stealing mine out from under me in the middle of the night.
“Do you need anything else? Heating pad, or water?” he asks, tucking the blankets around me. I shake my head and pull at the covers on his side.
“Just you if you’re still not worried about getting sick,” I say and JJ flips the lights off, the bed dipping a few moments later as he climbs in next to me.
“You can get me sick anytime, Marley,” he says, and I curl into his arms again.
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you had as much pressure in your face as I do right now,” I say, laughing miserably. “I’m sorry your Halloween was hijacked.”
“I’m not,” he answers without hesitation, and I’m honestly not sure what I did to deserve JJ, but I know I’ll do anything to keep him. “Does it really not bother you about the press?”
My brain is only working at sixty percent capacity, but I’m functioning enough to know JJ and I haven’t had a conversation regarding what a relationship will actually look like outside our bubble here at Beaumont. Maybe I’ve been avoiding it because I don’t want to scare him off, but based on the way everyone reacted in regard to his family while they were here, I’ve been hopeful he won’t care.
“Sure, it’s frustrating, but it’s not anything I’m not used to already. Here, we’re in a bubble, and no one really cares who we are or what we do, but I figured it was only a matter of time before the rest of the world learned about us,” I mumble, hoping I’m making sense to him.
