not an official ranking of parents somewhere?” I ask. “At the top is, I don’t know, Barack and Michelle? And at the bottom is . . . what celebrities are really bad parents?”
“You’re asking the wrong guy.”
I take another sip of my hot toddy. “You know, I’m feeling better already. I think it’s the hot toddy. Tell Mama Velez thank you.”
“Or,” Nick says, nudging my left foot, “it may be the fact that you actually slept for once.”
I make a fart noise with my mouth. “Sleep is overrated.”
“Says the girl who’s stuck in bed because she made herself sick with her unhealthy lifestyle.”
“Um, okay. Have you been talking to Milo?”
“Why, did he say the same thing?”
“In so many words.”
“Well then. Milo’s smart.”
“Nicholas, Milo is many things, but smart is not one of them.”
“Stop calling me Nicholas.”
“Never.” I slouch back into my pillow nest. “Do you want to watch more sitcoms of the ’70s, ’80s, and sometimes ’90s with me?”
“Believe it or not,” Nick says, “I have to get back to the shop. You know, the one I own?”
I squint, shaking my head. “Never heard of it.”
“But I left you some soup in the fridge. And there’s some extra hot toddy mixture in there, too; heat it up in the microwave when you’re ready for it.”
I don’t say anything; I stare at Nick.
He looks at me uneasily. “Are you . . . okay?”
I nod slowly.
“Your eyes are really big and glassy and . . . oh, God. You aren’t going to throw up, are you?” Nick jumps off the bed.
I bark out a laugh. “I’m not going to puke on you! Are you kidding?”
“I just . . . I just don’t like vomit,” Nick says, running a hand through his hair.
I gesture toward my hot toddy cup. “You’ve basically been nursing me back to health over here, but a little bit of puke is crossing the line for you?”
“Vomit is different,” Nick says. “It’s very different.”
I wave my fingers in his face. “Voooooooomit.”
“Okay, well, you’re feeling better, so I’m out of here,” Nick says.
“No, don’t leave!” I cajole him. “I was kidding! I won’t puke on you! I promise!”
“The fact that you even have to say that proves that this conversation has gone too far,” Nick says, shrugging on his jacket. It’s olive green with a lot of pockets and it looks like something the hip dad of a toddler would wear and he looks damn good in it.
I don’t know if it’s the Dayquil or the alcoholic power of the hot toddy, but the words spill out of my mouth. “That jacket looks good on you.”
Nick stops moving, his hands paused on a snap. He looks up at me, one eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”
I nod, slowly, my head feeling like it’s moving through the molasses I use for my shoofly pie. Maybe I need to go back to sleep. “You look like a hot dad,” my mouth says, before my brain can stop it.
“Is that . . . a compliment?” Nick asks, now not even focusing on his jacket at all.
“Ugh.” I flop back on my bed and put a pillow over my face. “Just go. Get your hot-dad jacket and leave my apartment.”
I’m not sure he heard me since the pillow muffled my words, but when he doesn’t respond I peer out from underneath the pillow, expecting to see him standing there, smiling at me, doing one of our classic Chloe-and-Nick bits.
But instead, he stares at me with his jaw set and his eyes narrowed.
“Don’t say stuff like that, okay, Chloe?” He crosses his arms.
I throw the pillow toward the end of the bed. “What? Why? We were kidding around. I was being my typical, hilarious self.”
He looks at me, then looks away. “You know why.”
And then he turns and leaves.
Chapter Eighteen
Without Nick around to warm my feet and make me hot toddies, I can’t fall asleep. I toss and turn, feeling feverish and sweaty, pulling the blankets up to my chin and then kicking them off. The TV is a blur of sitcoms, miscommunications, mistakes, laugh tracks.
I need to talk about this with someone, but I can’t call Annie. She’d be like, Omg, this is your romantic comedy, you found your Tom Hanks or Hugh Grant or Colin Firth or whoever and now you’re gonna ride off into the sunset! and I am so not in the mood for that.
Hey, I text Tracey. Can we hang out? I need to talk.
Tracey texts back immediately.
Is everything okay with your