Page 47 of Sweet Chaos
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“Why do you want to talk to him?” Cruz asked, his eyes narrowing with suspicion, his phone pressed to his ear as we headed to our cars in the parking deck. He shook his head and huffed out a laugh. “They don’t need you playing fairy godmother, babe.”
Babe?
Cruz held out his phone to me. I raised my brows. “It’s Nicola. Said she needs a favor.”
I took the phone from him, wondering what the hell Nicola could want from me. “Yeah?”
“Hey Dylan. Listen, Scarlett’s sick. She has a bad cold. I’m at work but I’ve made her some beef marrow broth.”
“Beef marrow broth. The fuck is that?”
“It’s really good for you. I’ve made enough for you too. Can you just pick it up from Cinque Terre and take it to her? Please. I would but I can’t leave work. You’re the only one I could call. She can’t get Remy sick and if Shane gets sick—”
I cut off her long-winded explanation before she named every Tom, Dick, and Ollie in Scarlett’s life and gave a reason why they couldn’t help. “Yeah, I got it. See you in ten.”
I ended the call even though she might have still been talking, and handed the phone back to Cruz.
Cruz scowled. “You were supposed to pass the phone back to me, dickwad.”
“Call her back.” I climbed into my car and slammed the door shut on his next words.
Armed with enough beef marrow broth to feed a small country, I rapped my knuckles against Scarlett’s front door and waited. Nothing. I knocked again. Still no answer so I tried the door, never expecting it to open.
Fucking hell.
This might not be LA or New York City, but I didn’t know of a single place safe enough to leave your door unlocked. Anyone could have walked in and robbed her blind. Or worse.
I flicked the switch on the wall, shedding some light on the living room and locked the door behind me.
“Scarlett?” I called as I crossed the small living area to the kitchen separated by a half-wall.
I’d only been to her apartment once, the night of her birthday. It looked like her. Vintage with a dash of modern. A midnight blue sofa, 1950s style wood coffee table, and two mismatched chairs. One was green, the other mustard yellow. A few pieces of framed artwork decorated the white walls and I knew they were her designs.
I set the containers of soup on the kitchen counter and called her name again as I strode down the hallway, poking my head into the rooms until I got to hers and stopped in the doorway. Fairy lights draped over her headboard lit up the darkness and her small form was huddled under a Hawaiian flower-print duvet. Hundreds of Polaroids hung from fishing wire on the wall above her bed.
Dragging my eyes away from smiling photos of her with Shaggy Doo and her friends—snapshots of happy memories from the past decade of her life—I crouched in front of her, so we were eye level. “Hey,” I said quietly. “How are you feeling?”
Her eyelids fluttered open and she winced like the light hurt her eyes. They were glazed over, her cheeks rosy, and her lips chapped. Her wavy blonde hair was matted to the side of her head. She looked so young, like a child with a fever, but even sick, she was still so fucking pretty. The kind of pretty that was dangerous.
She made me hard, but she also made me weak. For her.
“What are you doing—” She started coughing and couldn’t finish the sentence. Her eyes closed again like they were too heavy to hold open.
I laid my hand on her forehead. She flinched at my touch, a groan escaping her lips.
“You’re burning up.”
“Your hands are so cold,” she said, her voice hoarse. My hands were warm, just like they always were. She was shivering so hard I could hear her teeth chattering. “So cold. Can’t warm up.”
I debated for a minute before I kicked off my high tops and rounded the bed to the other side, pulling down the covers. A quick glimpse revealed that she was wearing my old hoodie with flannel pajama bottoms. I climbed into bed behind her in my T-shirt and sweats and pulled up the covers to trap the heat from our bodies. It was like a fucking oven under here, but she was still shivering so I pulled her close and tried to warm her up with my body heat.
Scarlett brought out all my protective instincts, always had. When she was in her teens, the thought of anyone messing with her used to make me feel nauseous. She was tough and strong in her own way, but she had this innocence about her, like the world was still a thing of joy and wonder. I loved that about her. I loved a lot of things about her.
I remember the night she turned up at my underground fight. Not the kind of place she should have ever ventured to. Especially not alone, at night, on a bus and on foot.
To make matters worse, she’d attracted attention. A tiny blonde bombshell with wide baby blues and those goddamn lips that just beckon you to sink your teeth into them. Or kiss them raw. Or have them wrapped around your… fuck, I couldn’t think about that now. She was sick. Burning up with fever while I was sweating my balls off from the heat radiating off her body. But I stayed right where I was, her own personal space heater, trying to keep her warm.
