Page 95 of Secret Puck
He chuckles softly.
I take a deep breath. The girls are right. I need to make sure we’re on the same page. “Also, I have something I want to talk to you about later.”
He stiffens under me. Okay, that was probably not the smoothest. “Don’t worry, it’s nothing too crazy. A proposition if you will.”
God, now he probably thinks I want to chain him to the bed and peg him.
His phone pings on his desk, Maverick’s name flashes on the screen with a text. “All right, sure. I’ll text you later. I’ve gotta check on Maverick. He didn’t make conditioning this morning. He’s got the flu or something. He hasn’t been by all day.”
I stand to let him up. “Well, then he really must be sick.”
He takes a step toward the door and then backtracks and brushes his lips against mine before hurrying out to go check on Maverick.
34
Heath
“Mav? Buddy, where are you?”I call as I enter his apartment. He’s got a one-bedroom ground level unit. On a normal day it’s already darker than ours upstairs, but today all the lights are off, the TV too, so it’s like a cave.
The place is awesome. Nice leather furniture, a huge TV that takes up the better part of one wall, he’s even got throw pillows. Why he always wants to hang at our place is beyond me.
Charli barks and I follow the sound to the bedroom where my buddy is on his back with the comforter and blanket thrown off the bed and an arm over his eyes. Charli lies at the end of the mattress near his feet.
“You don’t look so good.” I step closer and then back. “Or smell so good.”
“I think I threw up a kidney.” His voice is raspy and pained.
“What can I do? Do you need water? Soup? I can make a call about getting you a new kidney.”
A knock at the door has me looking back through the living room to the front door. “Are you expecting someone else?”
“It’s food. Can you grab it?”
I cross through the apartment and open the door, taking a deep breath of clean, uncontaminated air. After thanking the delivery guy, I take the bag of food back to the sick room.
“Here ya go.”
“Not for me.” He heaves. “Oh, just the smell makes me want to hurl again. It’s for you, so you’ll stay with me.”
“You didn’t need to bribe me.”
“Look, I know I’m your favorite person, but eventually your stomach would have convinced you to leave me.”
I chuckle and take the bag back out to the kitchen. “There is a lot of food in here.”
“You’re a hungry bitch.”
He’s in the same position, but Charli has moved up to his hip and Maverick strokes her with the hand closest.
“What do you need?”
“I just want to lie here until the room stops moving. Tell me a story.”
I take a seat on the floor near the door and lean my back up against the wall. I like the dude, but he smells, and I don’t want whatever he has. “A story?”
“Anything to distract me.” He peeks out from under his arm and then reaches over to his nightstand and tosses me his Shakespeare textbook. “Read to me. Do the funny voices.”
“I thought you were done with Shakespeare.”
