The Dangerous Edge of Things - By Tina Whittle Page 0,76
He was almost deadweight, but his legs still worked, so with one arm around his waist and the whole of his upper body leaning against me, I carried him to bed.
“Talk to me, Trey, what happened?”
He mumbled something. It was pretty incoherent, but I got enough to understand that there had been nausea and vomiting and other debilitating stuff.
I sat beside him. “I’ll get a bucket or something. And some more towels. Be still while I call the doctor.”
He babbled a weak protest, something completely incomprehensible, but I caught the last part as I got out my phone.
“It’s too late anyway,” he said. “Too late.”
***
The doctor diagnosed him with probable food poisoning and said the same things doctors always said—watch for fever, keep him in bed, small doses of fluids when he could hold them down. She was calling in a prescription for promethazine, but it wouldn’t do much good until Trey could keep it in down. The worst would be over in six hours, she said.
I called Garrity back and asked him to drop by the pharmacy. He arrived an hour later with the prescription. I took it from his hands without touching him and wouldn’t let him in the door.
“Look, it could be food poisoning, or it could be a virus, in which case, I’m doomed. Which means that the least I can do is not doom you too.”
Garrity gave me that cop look. “So what happened to make you think you’re doomed?”
“Why are you asking me this now? You’re breathing in pathogens as we speak. Go away.”
He crossed his arms and looked at me, hard, but didn’t step over the threshold. “Did you two—”
“No, and stop looking at me like you’re the one who can read minds.” I started to shut the door. He put his foot in it.
“We’re going to talk about this,” he said.
I shoved the door closed, locked it too. And then I went to take care of Trey.
Chapter 39
Eventually he fell asleep. It wasn’t good sleep—he tossed his head and mumbled nonsense into the pillow—but if he was asleep he wasn’t vomiting, and if he wasn’t vomiting, he was getting better. I curled into a ball on the sofa and eventually fell asleep too, somewhere around four.
His phone rang at seven. I answered it in a daze. “Yeah?”
“Who the hell is this?”
I scrubbed at my eyes. “It’s Tai, Marisa. How are you this fine morning?”
“I’m calling for Trey.”
“He’s sick.”
“He didn’t call in sick.”
“He’s really sick, like too sick to call in sick.”
If she was the least bit curious at my being there, she didn’t show it. “There’s a press conference this morning—ten o’clock at Beaumont Enterprises. Tell Trey to bring back the files on the meeting last night.”
“Listen to me—Trey is throwing-up-delirious sick. He’s not coming in.”
“Then you need to bring them. Wear something suitable for the camera, not that purple thing.”
I sat up and my head throbbed. “You’re not getting this, are you? He’s sick, and I’m not leaving him. Besides, Landon fired my ass yesterday, so forget you or him or anybody else at Phoenix bossing me around anymore.”
A long pause. “You have a point. Landon will be over to pick up the materials in an hour.”
“I’ll meet him in the lobby,” I said, then hung up.
I heard Trey stirring in the bed and went to see if he was awake, but he’d just turned to his other side, wrapped himself around a different pillow. I ran my hand over his forehead. Still cool, which was a relief.
I sat on the edge of the bed. “You need to wake up, Trey. They all think it’s over, but I know better, and you do too.”
He didn’t reply. Even though the night had been a cycle of garbled dream-talk and throwing up, every time I touched him, I felt this surge of tenderness, which completely unnerved me. It reminded me too much of taking care of Mom, the helplessness and the frustration. But he needed somebody, and there I was. Somebody.
So I got up and wet the washcloth one more time.
***
I figured I had about thirty minutes before Landon arrived, so I got to work looking for the files. Trey’s briefcase was an uncharacteristic mess, as was his deck, so I rummaged through the drawers and found a stack of empty folders. And then I sat on the floor and started putting things back where they belonged. Or seemed too. I figured Trey would rearrange everything the right way once he woke up.