“Happy Valentine’s Day,” Fox said simply. I never knew three words would have such a profound effect on me.
“Habby Val’time’s Day!” Holly repeated, giggling.
“Thank you,” I said quietly, trying to hide the grin that was spreading on my face. I exited the car.
‘Girl falls for boy.’ Those words played in my head once more as I jogged to my house through the snow, which was now falling in heavier flakes.
‘But what if the girl has already fallen for the boy?’ I thought.
She falls even harder.
Chapter 31
I awoke the next morning to the annoying ringing of my cellphone, which I immediately slapped off the table next to my bed in my haste to make it stop.
Growling, I forced my eyes open and reached down to where the phone had fallen. Of course, because God had to make life interesting, I overestimated the stretch and ended up tumbling out of bed and onto the icy hardwood floor. My phone lay under me, still vibrating and making commotion.
“Hello?” I rasped, wincing at the pain in my throat.
“Way to get me sick,” the equally raspy voice muttered on the other end of the line. Fox, I presumed.
I got back under my warm covers and placed my throbbing head on the pillow.
“D’aww shit,” I whined, my voice breaking. “My bad.”
“Yeah, your bad,” he rasped. Even when he’s sick he sounds hot.
“No, hold up,” I said, something clicking in my head, “not my bad. Your bad, for deciding to share a drink with me at the movies yesterday. Blame your frugalness.”
“You didn’t complain,” he responded.
“Because you told me not to complain,” I insisted.
“No I didn’t, you could’ve told me you wanted your own dri–” his voice broke and faded, at which point I cut in.
“I’m not about to argue with this sore throat. Bottom line: you wanted to share drinks and you thought I was getting sick. Way to not think, Fox.”
“Way to overrate your immune system, Emery,” he retaliated. “‘I don’t get sick’, huh?”
“You win, Fox. It’s all my fault. Can I go back to sleep now?” I sighed, wincing at the soreness in my throat.
“No, you can’t,” he stated matter-of-factly.
“And why not?” I challenged.
“’Cause it’s one in the afternoon already.”
I checked the time on my phone and groaned when it confirmed what he’d just said.
“But it’s February vacation,” I whined.
“But the center’s still open,” he said, mimicking my whiny tone.
“Can you come pick me up?” I asked, sitting up in bed and trying to make my head stop spinning.
“Already in route,” he coughed in reply.
“Good,” I said groggily. “We can go get some soup.”
I hung up the phone and slowly made my way to the bathroom. I did the usual teeth, face, hair fix-up settling for some mascara and a ponytail before finding my uniform.
Fox was already parked outside when I got downstairs.
I smiled at the sight of my living room, noticing my father wasn’t sleeping on the couch. Must’ve had a good Valentine’s Day…
“You look like shit,” he commented between coughs as I got into the car. I looked him over, noting that he looked very pale and his eyes were kind of dull, but nonetheless emeraldy. He looked gorgeous, as always.
“Aww, thanks, pal,” I smiled, even though my voice was fluctuating in pitch, “likewise.”
He graciously accepted the insult and we stopped at the diner for some hot soup.
As we slurped the hot noodles and sipped the broth, Fox got a phone call. It was a brief one, and Fox confirmed some kind of address to the caller before thanking him or her and putting his phone away. I didn’t ask about it, even though he had a hint of a smile on his face.
We entered the center coughing and wincing, carrying more cups of soup for later.
“Oh, you poor babies,” Nina cooed, waddling over to us but keeping her distance. “You both got sick, huh?”
I could’ve sworn there was a little suggestion in her tone, but then again I was ready to knockout on the marble floor so I could have misjudged.
“I can’t have you here, then,” she said.
“But Nina, who’s gonna hel–” I started.
“It’s a Monday, honey. It’s always slow on Mondays. The last thing I need is two contagiously-diseased teenagers around my health center, while I’m pregnant,” she reasoned, trying not to sound hurtful but insistent.
“Okay Nina, I’ll take her home then,” Fox nodded, hooking my arm with his and pulling me toward the door. I felt horrible for leaving her, but she was right. I didn’t want to get her sick, too.
“Rest up, my babies!” she called.
In Fox’s car I rested my head against the seat and closed my eyes, ready to get back home to bed and sleep the day away.
Fox cleared his throat painfully.
When I opened my eyes, we were on the highway.
“Um,” I started, clearing my throat as well, “where are we going?”
“I tracked down Carlos,” he said. As if it was a normal thing to say.
Nuh. Uh. I stared at him open-mouthed, processing what he’d just said. He’d found Carlos, possibly Nina’s baby’s father… and we were going to see him.
“Don’t you think we could do this some other time? Maybe when we’re both in our right minds?” I said, feeling a fit of coughs coming on.
“When Emery? Nina will think we’re up to something and I have to finish my hours at the center anyway, you have the daycare to worry about – this is the perfect time.”
He was right. There was no way we were going to get such a great opportunity again in the near future.
“What if he’s at work or something?” I asked.
“I have his work address,” he responded easily.
“What’re you? The FBI? How’d you pull this off?” I questioned suddenly.
He smirked. “I know people, who know people.”
“Yeah, and those people know people,” I continued, “who stalk other people and kill everyone that knows about them. You just brought me into some kind of master plan that I have no desire to be in, buddy.”
“Emery, nobody’s killing anybody. The only master plan here involves convincing Carlos to talk to Nina,” he said, merging onto the fast lane and picking up speed.
“How long’s the ride?” I asked tiredly.
“Long.”
“Like 10 minutes long or an hour long?” I clarified, closing my eyes and resting the seat back.
“The latter.”
“Goodnight then, sir,” I yawned, massaging my throat and turning on my side.
***
When I was woken up, we had arrived to a large glass corporate building. I assumed this to be the place of Carlos’s new job.
“We’re not in Hartford anymore,” I mumbled, stretching out of the car.
Fox chuckled, taking hold of my elbow to steady me when things got dizzy. I coughed and thanked him quietly, following him inside the building.
“We’re borderline Massachusetts, actually,” he informed me.
“Wow.”
“Yeah. Quite the commute from his girlfriend.”
“Hey, I think they could make it work,” I insisted.
“It’d be expensive.”
“Yeah, well if they love each other it shouldn’t,” I coughed, “be a problem.”
Approaching the secretary in the large marble lobby, I shivered. We asked for Carlos Menendez and were told to take the elevators to the twenty-first floor.
“Why do these people have the AC on in the middle of winter?” I wondered looking around the glass elevator and watching it take us incredibly high. I backed away from the seemingly thin, dangerous walls. “And how did this building pass inspection?”
Fox smiled at my paranoia and ushered me out of the elev
ator as we made it to Carlos’s floor. Alive.
“Hi, could you please direct me to Carlos Menendez’s office?” I asked while trying to withhold a cough. We got more directions and were off.
“Great, thank you.”
“I just realized,” I said, looking up at Fox as we walked down the hall, “we don’t have any kind of plan on how to approach him.”
“So?”
“So – we’re going to just walk in and say hi?” I smirked, getting nervous as we took the second left into a new, equally long marble hallway.
Fox pondered what I had said and, from my guess, agreed with me. We didn’t have any idea what to do from this point on.
“We’ll wing it.”
“Right, ‘cause we’re so good at that.” I sneezed and wrapped my arms around myself. Fox also wrapped an arm around me and I got to share his body heat for a moment or two before he steered me into an open doorway.
We knocked as we entered, and a dashing Carlos in a suit and tie looked up from the dozens of documents splattered around his desk. He seemed to have forgotten he was on the phone for a second.
“Alright, thank you, sir,” he said, bouncing back from our little surprise visit. “Yes, I’ll be seeing you soon with the final report. Have a good day.”
He placed the phone down; his eyes never left us.
“Hello,” I said awkwardly, clearing my throat.
“Emery, Fox,” Carlos nodded, narrowing his eyes in confusion. “…How are you guys?”
“Um, we’re kinda sick, actually,” I chuckled, still awkwardly. Fox nudged me lightly in the ribs. “How ‘bout you? I see this is certainly a step up from the maintenance job,” I nodded with a smile. Fox nudged me a little harder this time and his face told me to stop talking.
Carlos laughed, scratching the back of his dark, curly-haired head and leaning back in his chair. “I’m doing alright, thanks. How’s uh, Nina doing?”
I was so ready to blow up. But obviously, “Nina’s pregnant! Kay, bye,” was in no way an option in answering his question. It was Nina’s secret to reveal – I was all for meddling, but there were evident limits. I let Fox answer Carlos.
“Nina’s… actually been a lot less like herself these past couple of months,” Fox shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t know what it is but, y’know, we don’t like to meddle.” I almost laughed at the irony of his statement.
Carlos nodded, staring off into the space behind us. He was definitely in love with her. I could see it in his eyes, sick and delusional or not.
“She’s probably just overworking herself; she’ll be fine,” he suddenly said, snapping out of his little reminiscent love daze. “So, what brings you two here?”
“Uhh… we missed you,” I started. Fox stayed silent so I improvised. “We just, wanted to see how you were – you kind of just… up and left, you know? Without saying goodbye.”
Carlos smiled sadly. “Right, I’m sorry about that, Emery. It was a very spur of the moment opportunity for me.”
We all sat in silence for a bit. I was frozen in my chair, sitting stiffly in the awkward quietness of the office.
Carlos cleared his throat. He gestured to the papers all over his desk. “I’m sorry guys; I’m just really busy right now with my work…”
“Um, right,” I said, ready to get up out of the chair.
Then Fox spoke up. “Alright Carlos, can I be straight up with you?”
“Please,” Carlos smirked, seemingly that we were finally going to say what was really on our minds.
“You look miserable,” Fox stated. If I had been drinking a drink I would have spit it out dramatically. My face paled, if that was even possible. Carlos took on a very serious expression.
“We,” Fox continued, gesturing between the two of us, “know that you happen to love our friend, Nina.”
Carlos opened his mouth to speak, but Fox beat him to it.
“Denial is not an option,” he stated firmly, looking Carlos dead in the eyes, “you’re definitely in love with her and you hate your job, and you hate being so far away from her. Am I right?”
Carlos simply stared, flexing his jaw. I almost gasped as I saw him nod faintly.
“She is seemingly the only person that makes you happy, correct?” Fox continued. Carlos again confirmed. I was shocked at the words that he was saying. The butterflies in my stomach were fluttering; I couldn’t tell if I was nauseous from being sick or if I was simply excited at the love story unfolding in front of me.
“Then what are you doing here, in the middle of nowhere, sitting in this cold empty room with that ugly corporate tie cutting off your air supply, filing boring paperwork, when you could be with Nina right now?”
Boom. The big question.
Carlos angled his jaw, running a hand through hair that was no longer there. His hand dropped when he realized how short he’d cut his dark locks. He seemed so out of place in the business world, despite looking handsome in the suit.
“I get that you two want to help,” he started, making eye contact with us both and leaning forward in his chair, “but I think you know me well enough to know that if things were that simple, I’d have never left Hartford in the first place.”
“What’s the problem, then?” I asked, suddenly aware that I’d spoken aloud.
“She said no,” Carlos said quietly. “She told me about the job offer, and sent me away.”
“What do you mean, she said no?” I asked, leaning forward.
“I asked her to marry me.”
I gasped. She never told me that! Oh my God, she turned this guy down? Are you kidding me?
“I’m sorry, man,” Fox said in his raspy voice.
He then continued after a brief pause, “But of all people I thought you’d be the one to notice that she pushed you away right when you coincidently got this fancy new job offer… We all know Nina pretty well, in our own ways, and we can all agree she’s very real and straight forward. She wouldn’t spend time with you, Carlos, if she didn’t want to. It’s obvious she really, really enjoyed your company because she hasn’t been the same since you left.”
Carlos didn’t have anything to say to that one. I had to keep myself from telling Carlos the whole truth.
“I think it’d be worth it to come down to the center one more time,” I suggested, “now that you both have spent some time apart you can fully evaluate the situation and make better choices.”
“Right,” Fox agreed. “You should come by the center. She’d probably come running right to you.”
I eyed Fox at that one.
“Or maybe she’d walk,” Fox corrected. “You know, Nina’s kinda stubborn sometimes…”
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