Always Have: (Bad Boy Romance)

by Claire Kingsley

  What the fuck is happening to me?

  I wait as long as I can stand before making an excuse to Selene about needing to leave. She was concerned too, but seemed unreasonably certain that Derek would get Kylie home and she’d be fine.

  I don’t give a fuck what Derek will or won’t do. I’m worried out of my mind for Ky. She deteriorated so fast. Her face lost all its color, and there were deep dark circles under her eyes.

  I race over to her apartment and find a spot across the street. I don’t see Derek’s car out front, but he could have parked around the block. I hope he didn’t make her walk too far. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had to carry her inside. I run up to the door and knock. At this point, I know it looks weird for me to come over, and Derek’s going to be pissed. But fuck it. I don’t give two shits.

  No one answers. I knock again. Maybe he took her to the hospital. Is she that sick?

  I put my ear to the door, listening. I definitely hear something. In fact, I’m sure she’s in there. I decide I don’t care if Derek knows I have a key. I put it in, but the door isn’t locked.

  The smell of vomit hits me like a truck as soon as I walk in. It’s sickly sweet and very fresh. It’s all over the floor, trailing up the short hallway. My stomach turns at the sight.

  I hear Ky heaving, then a splash of water. Shit. I run down the hall, careful not to step in the puke.

  I find her on her knees in front of the toilet, leaning forward, her hands on her thighs. Her back moves up and down as she takes big breaths.

  “Kylie,” I say. There’s more vomit on the floor. I grab a towel, I don’t even give a fuck which one, and wipe it to the side so I can kneel next to her.

  “Braxton?” she says, her voice weak.

  “Yeah, baby girl. Where’s Derek?”

  “He dropped me off,” she says.

  What in the actual fuck? “He left you like this?”

  “I threw up in his new car.”

  I’m so mad I almost can’t see straight, but Ky sounds so miserable. She groans, clutching her stomach.

  “Are you gonna throw up more?” I ask. I rub my hand across her back.

  She nods. I pull her hair back—some of it’s wet, but I ignore that—and keep it out of her way while her body convulses. I don’t think there’s anything left for her to throw up. She heaves and gags, but not much comes out. She’s pretty empty.

  She sits back on her heels, taking shuddering breaths. I keep her hair back in case she isn’t done. She closes her eyes and seems to relax a little. I try to ignore the smell, not let it touch me.

  “I think I’m done,” she says, flushing the toilet. “For now, I guess.”

  “Can you stand?” I ask.

  “Maybe.”

  I let go of her hair and take her hands, helping her to her feet. She’s got puke all over—it’s in her hair, soaking the front of her shirt, and on her skirt.

  “You need a shower,” I say, but I immediately know I’m not letting her take one alone. She looks so weak, I don’t know if she can hold herself up.

  “I’m freezing.”

  I glance around the bathroom, trying to think of how to make this work. She’s filthy. I can’t believe I’m about to do this. She’s with Derek. He should be the one taking care of her, showering her off.

  Oh well, fuck you, Derek. You left her here when she’s sick, you douche.

  I untie her halter top at the back of her neck and gently pull it over her head.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up so you can lie down.”

  She doesn’t protest as I take off her skirt, just stands there in a strapless bra and black panties, shivering. It’s not cold in the bathroom, and her cheeks are flushed red, but she acts like she’s outside in the middle of winter.

  I turn on the shower. How am I going to manage this? I can’t get her naked, can I? Can she stand up long enough to get clean? She’s already swaying on her feet.

  Fuck it. I pull off my shirt and strip down to my underwear. She hugs her arms around herself, still shivering, and I notice that her bra looks wet. The puke probably soaked through her shirt.

  I decide I’ll just keep her turned away from me, and keep my underwear on. Steam pours out from the shower stall, so I adjust the temperature. I put gentle hands on her shoulders, turn her around, and unhook her bra. She widens her arms, letting it fall to the floor. Then she sticks her thumbs in the waistband of her panties and pushes them down.

  I help her take them off. Fuck, I’ve wanted to take the panties off this woman for so long, but not like this. Never like this. She’s shaking, and her skin is burning hot to the touch.

  I guide her into the shower and get in with her in case she falls. Her legs almost buckle, and I have to put my hands around her waist to hold her up. My heart pounds. I try to keep my eyes off her bare ass.

  I look away and close my eyes while she turns to wet her hair. She doesn’t say a word. When she turns around again, I use her shampoo to wash her hair. I don’t linger, don’t massage her scalp and turn it into a back rub that becomes fucking her from behind. It’s what I want to do—desperately—but she’s trembling and weak.

  And Selene would murder me.

  I take her body wash off the ledge and open it for her. The smell hits my nose, and I’m reeling. It’s her. Kylie in a fucking bottle. It’s small and green and says lilac breeze. But it’s her. I know this scent. I’ve been smelling it for years. It never really leaves my nose, no matter how long we go without seeing each other. I hold it up to my face and breathe it in, the scent mixing with the wet shower air.

  Now my legs almost buckle.

  I put some in her hand so she can finish washing, then avert my eyes again while she rinses off. She needs my help getting out. I can tell she’s about to drop. I wrap a towel around myself, then one around her, and lead her into the bedroom.

  She crawls into bed naked, her hair still dripping. I help extricate her from the towel and quickly pull the sheets and comforter around her. I try so hard not to look at her, not to see her beautiful body. It isn’t for me.

  I go to the kitchen and get her a glass of water. I make sure she only takes a tiny sip and take it away before she drinks more. I wonder if she wants to swish with mouthwash, but I don’t want to do anything that will trigger more vomiting.

  Her eyes are closed, so I leave her long enough to toss my wet underwear in her dryer and put my other clothes back on. Jeans with no underwear is the worst, but I don’t want to walk around her apartment naked. I’m careful as I zip, because fuck.

  I clean up the vomit in the hall and the bathroom, throwing all the towels in the wash. I find a container of cleaning wipes with bleach under the sink and go around the whole place, wiping everything down—doorknobs, handles, drawer pulls, light switches. I figure I’m probably going to get whatever virus she has—the fever makes me pretty sure it isn’t food poisoning—but I don’t care. I’m bigger and stronger than she is. I’ll deal with it if I have to.

  By the time the place is clean, my underwear are dry, so I gratefully put them back on. I go in to check on Ky. Her eyes flutter open and I grab the water to give her another sip.

  “Hey,” she says. Her skin is ashen and her lips a weird color of waxy blue. The circles under her eyes are worse, and a sheen of sweat glistens on her forehead.

  “Shh,” I say. “Don’t talk. Just rest.”

  “I feel like I’m gonna die.” There’s a tinge of fear in her voice that makes my heart ache. She looks so tiny and frail, all wrapped up in blankets, her face so pale.

  “You aren’t going to die,” I say. “I promise I won’t let that happen.”

  “I puked in his car.”

  “Fuck his car.” I’m dangerously close to breaking the unspoken pact—but he dropped her off when she’s this sick? It isn’t right. Anger fills me again. I take a breath, but hold back from saying anything about it. I don’t want to make her feel worse. “Do you
want more water?”

  “No,” she says. “I’m so cold. I can’t get warm.”

  I touch her forehead. She’s scalding hot, but she’s shivering beneath the covers. “You have a fever.”

  “This sucks.” Her whimper is so sad. I sit on the edge of the bed and touch her face, letting my fingers caress her burning skin. I should stop. This is how I’ve always wanted to touch her. Soft and familiar. Intimate. She’s not mine to touch, and she’s sick. Even if she wasn’t, I know she won’t cheat on Derek. I don’t want her to. I won’t have her like that.

  I’d rather not have her at all.

  That thought hurts way too much. I’m torturing myself, moving my hand across her forehead and down her face, like I have right to touch her this way. Like she’s not my best friend.

  I realize her eyes are wet with tears, and I stop, pulling my hand away. I clear my throat. “I’ll let you rest. I’ll be on the couch. If you need anything, just call for me.”

  “Please don’t leave me.”

  Her voice is so soft, I’m not sure I hear her. But her huge eyes look up at me, pleading.

  “No,” I say, touching her face again. “I won’t leave you. Not ever.”

  “I’m so cold.”

  She’s still shivering. I know how to get her warm, but I don’t want to do it. It shouldn’t be me.

  But I’ve already done this much, and she needs someone.

  She should need Derek, but she has me.

  I slip off my jeans and shirt, and crawl into bed with her. She’s already on her side, so I get behind her and pull her body toward me, letting our skin touch. I’m very glad I dried my underwear already, because her bare ass on my cock would be an absolute disaster. As it is, I angle my groin away from her so she won’t feel my hard-on. But I touch her with every other inch of my body.

  She’s so hot, I quickly begin to sweat, but I ignore the discomfort. At first she’s shivering hard, but it doesn’t take long before my body heat seeps into her. She relaxes against me and her violent shivers become a few tremors. Then her back is moving in a slow rhythm, her arms and legs loose. I hold on to her, my hands around her belly, my face near her still-damp hair. I’m completely surrounded by her scent. It’s in her hair, on her skin, in her sheets. I’m floating in a sea of it, an ocean of lilac breeze.

  I start to get uncomfortable, and I’m way too hot, but I don’t move. I won’t move until she needs me to. I hold her for dear life, wishing desperately for her to get better, wishing even more desperately that this moment will never end. That I’ll never have to go back to the reality of our life. The reality where we are just friends and we date other people. Where I fuck girls I don’t care about and feel like shit about it later. Where she dates guys who are too stupid to see how fucking special she is.

  Our timing has always been shit, but this is worse than usual. I’m completely intoxicated by her body next to mine, but I won’t do anything about it. I can’t. She isn’t mine to have, and unless something changes, I have to find a way to live with things the way they are.

  But right now, in this moment—even though she’s passed out with a fever—she is mine.

  I wake up four days after puking in Derek’s car. I hardly remember anything since leaving the bar. Sickness stole over me so quickly, I knew I was in trouble. I’ve spent the last four days in a haze of fever. I don’t remember much.

  Except Braxton.

  Every time my eyes fluttered open, he was there, as if he was doing nothing but waiting for me to wake up. He gave me water in little sips, and later something that tasted like watered-down Gatorade. He helped me go to the bathroom, his arms around me while I shuffled down the hall, almost too weak to stand. It didn’t escape my notice that he cleaned up the puke from when I spewed all over trying to run to the toilet.

  He slept next to me, in my bed. We didn’t talk about it; he just did. I’m grateful as shit, especially because the first night, I woke up needing to hurl again. He was up in an instant, putting a glass bowl in front of me so I wouldn’t get it on the bed. Then he cleaned me up and tucked me back in bed, holding me tight against him. I shivered, so cold, until his body heat warmed me, cutting through the shakes the fever gave me. I slept soundly. I was no longer afraid.

  I realize the worst must be over when I wake up hungry. Brax isn’t in bed, but I know he’s still here. I can hear faint sounds coming from the kitchen, but it isn’t that. I just know. I can feel his presence in my apartment. His magnetism.

  My bed smells like him. It’s such a strange thing, but it smells so good that I lean my head into the pillow he’s been using and breathe it in.

  This is wrong. Really wrong. He’s been the absolute best friend in the entire world, taking care of me when I was sick. I should not be thinking these thoughts about him. Plus, I’m with Derek. I have a boyfriend, and it’s kind of serious—serious enough that doing anything with Brax would absolutely be cheating.

  And fuck, it’s Braxton. Never mind how incredible it’s been to have him here, sleeping beside me. How my body molds to his, fitting like we’re two puzzle pieces. How deeply touched I am that he would do this for me—stay with me for days, wait on me hand and foot, clean up my fucking puke.

  We’ve been friends for a long time, and we’ve always been there for each other when things are rough, but this is on another level.

  I’ve been deliriously sick for days and I don’t remember getting any phone calls or texts. That seems odd, especially because I’d think Derek would have called. My breath freezes in my chest. Did he call and talk to Brax? Shit, that isn’t good.

  My phone is on the nightstand, but it’s turned off. I power it back on and look to see if I have any voicemails or missed calls. There’s a voicemail from my dad that’s two days old, and a few texts from Selene. But there’s nothing from Derek.

  Braxton appears in the doorway, leaning against the frame. “I knew you looked better this morning,” he says.

  I blink at him, still feeling disoriented. I’m having trouble remembering what’s real and what was a fever dream.

  The shower has to be a dream. There’s no way he showered with me like that.

  “Yeah,” I say, sitting up in bed. I’m wearing a loose t-shirt with no bra, and plain cotton underwear. Maybe I should feel self-conscious about being half-naked, but I don’t. I’m pretty sure Brax dressed me, and somehow that isn’t weird. I glance down at my phone again. “Has my phone been off the whole time?”

  “Yeah, sorry,” he says. “I turned it off so it wouldn’t disturb you. You weren’t in any state to talk to people anyway.”

  “No,” I say. Did Derek really not call? “Thanks.”

  “Are you hungry yet?”

  “I think I’m starving, but it’s hard to tell,” I say. My stomach feels empty, but very raw. “I’m a little bit scared to eat anything.”

  “I’ll get you some soup,” he says. “We’ll start off slow.”

  “Brax, you don’t have to do that,” I say.

  He shrugs. “It’s fine. I’m hungry anyway.” He walks away before I can say anything else.

  I check again to see if there’s any way I’m not seeing Derek’s calls. I puked in his car, and ran off to my apartment with my hand clamped to my mouth, still vomiting. It was pretty obvious I was sick. Would he really leave me here and not call to see if I’m okay? That seems unlikely.

  Still, I wonder what’s going on, so I bring up his number and hit send.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “Hey,” I say. “Are you busy?”

  “Just prepping for the game tomorrow.” He sounds irritated.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to bother you. I just … I haven’t talked to you for a while. My phone was turned off, so I’m sorry if you tried to call.”

  “I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t try to call?” I ask.

  “No.”

  “Derek, you saw how sick I was. You didn’t wonder if I was okay?”

  “You puk
ed all over my brand new car,” he says, “and it’s not like you’ve called me to apologize.”

  My mouth drops open. I cannot believe what I’m hearing. “Are you serious? You’ve been waiting for four days for me to call you to say sorry I puked in your new fucking car?”

  “Well, shit, it was gross,” he says. “I had to spend three hundred dollars getting it detailed, and they couldn’t fit me in until yesterday. I couldn’t even get in the car, it smelled so bad.”

  “I’ve been so sick I couldn’t get out of bed,” I say, my voice rising. I don’t want Braxton to hear us fight, but I’m so mad I can’t help it. “I couldn’t make it to the bathroom without help. And you’re worried about your goddamn car?”

  “I didn’t know you were sick,” he says.

  “Because you didn’t call to find out. Besides, wasn’t it obvious?”

  “Son of a bitch, Kylie, I thought you had too much to drink. You and that fucker Braxton were pounding shots like you were at a goddamn frat party.”

  “I had two shots, asshole,” I say. “Two.”

  He’s quiet for a second. “It seemed like it must have been more.”

  “No, it wasn’t,” I say. “And I’ll pay you back for the stupid car detailing.”

  “No, no,” he says. “Fuck, I’m sorry. I honestly had no idea. I thought Braxton got you drunk, and it pissed me off. I didn’t know you were sick. Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I’m not going to tell him it was Brax who took care of me. It will only piss him off, and I don’t have the energy to fight with him right now.

  I look up and see Braxton standing in the doorway. He has a tray with a steaming bowl of soup, a glass of ice water, and a little stack of saltine crackers. There’s no way he had time to heat up soup while I’ve been on the phone. That means he made it for me before I woke up.

  Holy shit.

  “I’m glad you’re okay, babe,” Derek says.