He’d taken a step back, closer to the counter, when a screaming man hustled into the room.
And his eyes were aimed on Brielle.
“You bitch!” the man yelled, shoulder-checking me on the way to get into Brielle’s face.
Brielle flinched and backed away, her back hitting the counter where she’d been standing next to me watching me struggle.
Before the man could get into Brielle’s face, however, Saint had him by the arm and he was hauling him backward.
The barista behind the counter, a young man in his early twenties who’d grudgingly served Brielle despite her nastiness to him, watched in interest.
The only two other people in the room, a mother and daughter, stood up from their table.
“Whoa,” Saint said as he took hold of the man’s arm and pushed him backward so that he wasn’t crowding either Brielle or me too closely.
“Get the fuck out of my face, moron,” Brielle snapped. “Why are you even here?”
“Why am I here?” he growled. “I’m here because you set me up with someone that has goddamn Ebola! Now I’m in quarantine, or supposed to be, for the next three weeks! And if I have to be there, so the fuck do you!”
Saint let go of his arm as if he had, well, Ebola.
“Ladies, gentlemen,” a guy wearing a yellow decontamination suit said. “You’ll have to come with me.”
The man sneered at Brielle. “This is all your fucking fault. Would it have fucking killed you to go out on a date with me? You had to send me on a fake date?”
I had no clue what was going on, but I was sure that I wasn’t going to like it.
• • •
“What do you mean?” I asked, looking at the man in front of me with alarm.
“You’ve been exposed,” the man from the Center for Disease Control, Jace Levine, said.
I looked over at Saint to see him staring at Jace with alarm.
“But it’s Christmas!” the mother with the young daughter said. “We won’t be out of here until Christmas!”
Well, it was December first, actually. But still, she was right.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Jace apologized as he looked at her, then at all of us. “But this isn’t really something that I’m able to control. You have to be quarantined to prevent the spread of this virus. And here, we can watch all of you to make sure that you’re doing what you should be doing.”
In all, there were eight of us that were ‘exposed.’
Saint and me, Brielle, the mother and daughter duo, Misha and Tisha. The man that exposed us all, Martin, the barista, Tate, and the security guard that had been guarding the hospital entrance, Darrel.
“You’ll all be put into rooms,” he said. “After today, you will no longer have contact with anybody but your roommate.”
I prayed hard that I wouldn’t be stuck with Brielle. For the love of God, I’d kill her.
“Do we get to keep our electronic devices? Do we get to go home and get our things?” Brielle asked.
“You have what you have on you,” Jace said, “for now. We’ll be bringing you all provisions. Changes of clothes. Toiletries. Things of that nature.”
“What about tampons?” I asked. “I’m gonna need those today.”
Jace looked taken aback for a long moment, then nodded. “Medical supplies as needed, yes. I’ll get you those things today.”
All of this was said from behind his protective equipment.
He was sweating badly, and he looked like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
So did all of us, now that I thought about it.
“Who are we pairing up with?” Tate asked.
“You two.” He pointed at Tate and Darrel. “You two.” He pointed at Misha and Tisha. “You two.” He pointed at Saint and me. “And you two.” He pointed at Martin and Brielle.
“Oh, hell no!” Martin argued.
“You two are the most likely to be contagious.” Jace shrugged. “We have obtained a hotel for y’all to be quarantined in. Now, we are going to transport you all to your rooms,” he ordered as he gestured to the exit of the cafeteria.
They had us in a hotel. One that hadn’t opened yet, actually. We were transported by ambulance to the new location, put through rigorous decontamination then escorted to our new homes for the next three weeks.
It was brand new, and out of all the rooms it had, the ones at the very top, the executive suites, were the only ones open.
“I’m not pairing up with him for three weeks! I’ll go with her!” Brielle pointed at me.
Saint, God love him, hooked his arm around me. “Sorry, but my fiancée and I are going to be together. We’re not separating.”
I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that, despite our differences, he wasn’t going to let me go.
Thank God.
Over the last year that I’d known Saint, especially the last four months that I’d been home, I’d made it a priority to give him shit every time that I saw him. He’d made it a point to give it right back.
And, from what I’d learned, he didn’t give shit to anybody but me.
Which made me feel special in a way.
“What?” Brielle screeched. “You’re getting married?”
Four more yellow-suited people came into the room then, all coming up to us.
We’d been showered, changed, decontaminated to the best of their abilities, and now they were leading us to our jail cells for the next three weeks.
Without another word, we followed the silent man that led us to the top suite at the very end of the hallway.
He opened the door with a code, then gestured for us to go inside.
“After you,” he said.
We went inside, and without another word, the door slammed shut behind us.
We both turned to look at the closed door, then back at each other.
“Holy fuck,” he said, shaking his head.
Grab your copy now!
Nobody Knows Page 20