Page 14 of For a Goode Time Call…
After goodbyes were said, with a promise from Mom that she’d see me soon, the call ended and I tossed the phone aside.
“She’s so exhausting sometimes,” I muttered.
“She loves you like crazy,” Ink said. “You’re lucky to have her, Cassie.”
I groaned something like an affirmative. “I know. But she’s still exhausting.”
Ink gently nudged my arm away and rested his wrist on my forehead. “You need sleep. Still runnin’ a fever. Not as bad as it was, but still.”
“Have I had anything for the fever?” I asked.
“Nope. Don’t believe in it unless it’s life-threatening.”
“Don’t believe in what? Medicine?” I asked, meaning it sarcastically.
“Yeah, Western medicine. Best to just let it run its course—how my people have done things for thousands of years. These days, we’ll take something if it gets bad enough that it could kill you, but short of that, we let nature do what it does.”
“So you don’t take medicine? Ever, at all, unless you’re about to die from?”
He nodded. “Never taken so much as an aspirin in my life.” A shrug, mountainous shoulders lifting their impossible weight.
“So you never get sick?”
“I get sick like anybody else,” he answered, sounding bemused. “I just…deal with it. Work through it if I can, stay home and ride it out if I can’t.”
“You gave me a pill or something, though. I remember that.”
He nodded. “Yeah, but that was more to help you deal with the bitch of a hangover, and it was just one little Motrin, along with a shitload of liquids. At least until you started horking.”
“Don’t call it that, please. God. It’s undignified.” I squeezed my eyes shut, but those vague memories of last night—or rather, three days ago—seemed to be choosing now to make themselves available for review. “Did…did I pass out in the bathroom?”
He laughed, nodded. “Yep.”
I groaned. “Please tell me I at least got my pants up?”
He nodded again. “You did.”
“Speaking of which…” I opened my eyes and looked at him. “I really, really,reallyhave to go to the bathroom.”
He swung around and descended the ladder. “Come on down,” he said, from the bottom.
“Easier said than done,” I said, but it was under my breath.
Moving slowly, I extricated myself from the nest of blankets and turned around to face the ladder. One foot on the top rung, I gingerly lowered myself to the next rung down. And even that was too much effort. I shook all over, bones aching, a coughing fit building up in the back of my throat. Nauseated. Head pounding. Stuck on the ladder, too weak to haul myself back up, too shaky to go any further.
“Um.” Asking for help goes against the grain, rubs hard against everything I stand for as a person. But I was about to fall off the damn ladder. “Help?”
He wrapped his hands around my waist, both hands easily spanning all the way around. He lifted me off the ladder, holding me as effortlessly as if I were a child. Brought me to his chest, my back to his front, and lowered me to my feet, and held me there. I didn’t even come up to his chin—barely to his chest. His hands remained resting on my waist, just above my hips. His presence behind me occluded the world. Made me feel…
Safe.
I rested my head against his chest to catch my breath—I was winded from even that. Scary as hell for someone used to being able to dance at max intensity for hours at a time.
His home, despite his own personal enormity, was a tiny house. Two hundred and fifty square feet at the most, it was simplicity at its finest. Under the loft, on the main floor, was an old, sagging, green suede couch, the kind that only gets more comfortable as it gets older. A single light was built into the underside of the loft, providing soft light. Each wall supporting either end of the loft featured built-in bookshelves, crammed with books—mostly art books, art history, tattoo history from Polynesia and Alaska, photography, technique guides and textbooks, and a handful of dog-eared fantasy paperbacks.
To the left of the loft, if you were standing with your back to it as we were, was the kitchen. Induction range and oven, refrigerator, and a few cabinets above and below the counter. Opposite was a big window above the sink, and more cabinets with a back door between; a low coffee table in front of the couch that must serve as an eating area. I didn’t see a bathroom, though.
“Bathroom?” I asked.
