silly. I’m embarrassed.”
“Don’t be embarrassed,” he said. “I care about you. I want to know what’s going on. Did something happen? You’re home now, aren’t you?”
“I’m home,” she said. “I’m just missing you. And…” She hesitated, unsure of whether or not she wanted to tell him. But he had asked, and she believed him when he said he cared. And hadn’t she just been thinking about how she wanted to have him here with her? “I got sick at the airport,” she confessed.
“Airsick?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I’ve never had any kind of motion sickness before. And now I’m back at my apartment, and I’m still not feeling great.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked her. “Do you have a fever?”
“No,” she said. “At least, I don’t think so. Just some dizziness and nausea. I’m lying down now.”
He was quiet for several long moments. “I’m going to come back,” he said.
“No.” She sat up. “No, absolutely not, Curt. You can’t leave the shoot.”
“But I want to be with you,” he insisted. “If you’re sick—”
“I’m fine,” she insisted. “It’s nothing. It’s probably just something I ate.”
“I ate all the same things you did while you were here,” Curt said.
“No you didn’t,” she said. “I ordered room service every day for lunch while you were on set. You didn’t eat with me at those meals.”
“Right,” Curt said, remembering. “What did you have?”
“Seafood, most of the time.”
“Seafood’s pretty fresh in Costa Rica,” Curt said.
Annalise nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “But I could have gotten a bad piece,” she said. “Maybe I ate a bad mussel or something.”
“Maybe,” Curt said. “I don’t know. I still think I should come home.”
“You absolutely should not,” she told him. “I appreciate the thought, Curt, but you’re overreacting. My sister is here. I have friends here. If I need help, I have people who can help me.”
“I guess that’s true,” Curt said. “But still…”
“You need to be on set,” she told him. “You’re working. And if you leave, you’ll have to say where you’re going.”
“I can make something up.”
“After discreetly renting a bungalow? I don’t know. There’s only so many chances we can take before something slips. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”
“I told you to let me worry about the contract.”
“Fine,” she said. “Then you let me worry about this. If things get worse, I’ll let you know, but right now I’m betting I’ll wake up tomorrow feeling just fine.”
“I hope so,” Curt said quietly.
“Should I not have told you?” she asked, feeling a little guilty. “I didn’t want to make you worry.”
“No, I want you to tell me things,” he said. And then, fondly, “I want to worry about you, Annalise.”
Annalise melted a little.
“Promise to tell me the truth about how you’re doing when I call tomorrow?”
“So you’re going to call tomorrow?”
“Of course I am,” he said. “I’m going to call you every day until I’m able to come back home.”
“I’ll give you the full update,” she promised.
“And if things get worse, you should see a doctor,” he said.
“Oh, Curt.” She laughed. “It’s nothing that serious! I’m just a little sick to my stomach.”
“And when the doctor confirms that, you can laugh at me all you want,” he said.
“This is silly,” she said. “But if it will make you feel better… all right. If I get worse, I’ll go to the doctor.”
“Okay,” Curt said. “Thanks for humoring me.”
“I should try to get some sleep,” she said, feeling almost achingly fond of him.
“Yeah, you should,” he agreed. “Do you have to go to work in the morning?”
“Yeah,” she said.
“You can’t ask your sub to stay for one more day? Just while you recover?”
“I really can’t,” she said. “It makes a difference to the kids, having their teacher with them. It matters. It’s like the difference between staying with a neighbor or being with your parents. They’ll learn well enough from a sub, but they won’t have someone who really understands what they need.”
“You’re a good teacher,” Curt said admiringly. “If I had a kid, I’d want them to be in your class.”
“Well, that’s the nicest compliment anyone’s ever given me,” Annalise said, only half joking.
“All right,” Curt said. “You get some sleep. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Talk to you tomorrow,” Annalise said.
For a moment, the three words they still hadn’t said to one another rose to her lips. I love you.
She held them back.
It wasn’t that she wasn’t sure of her feelings. She thought she was. But it didn’t feel like the right