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“Chris, it’s my second week. If we weren’t sleeping together, you’d be ready to fire me for calling in sick during my second week.”
“I’m going to let the slight belittling of our relationship by saying we are just sleeping together go for now. Marissa, you are sick.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s just a cold and the first day is always the toughest. I’ll be fine by Monday.”
“Will you still stay with me tonight anyway?”
“I don’t have any clothes for work,” she offers and I want to tell her she shouldn’t even be thinking about work but I shake my head.
“I have a shopper; I’ll pick something up for you,” I counter.
“You think of everything, huh?” she says as I watch her eyes start to close. “I’m too tired to argue right now.” She turns to her back and lets her eyes flutter closed.
I touch her forehead and while I’m not an expert, I don’t think she’s warm. “I don’t think you have a fever.”
“No, I don’t think so either,” she says. “Just a cold, like I said.” She sniffles and pulls the covers up to her neck. “I’ll think about coming over,” she whispers, her eyes still closed. “But I want to go home and get my car so I can drive to work Monday and that way I can get some clothes.”
“Your parents won’t have a bunch of questions about where you’re staying?”
“They absolutely will.” She laughs before letting out another few coughs. “But I’m twenty-one. I don’t have to ask for permission to do things. As long as I let them know I won’t be home, they’ll be fine.”
“Then I should probably meet your dad when I bring you home.” The thought makes me nervous, but I figure I’ll have to do it at some point so I might as well get it over with sooner than later.
“That’s a no.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m his little princess and believe me, the first time you meet my dad does not need to be as you’re taking me home for a sleepover.”
“Fine,” I relent, because one step at a time I guess, and she seems like she’s leaning towards staying with me tonight.
“And even if the circumstances were different, it feels really early to be bringing our families into this. You met my mother by accident.”
Several minutes later, I hear a tapping on the door and I get up to grab what I ordered, pleased that it got here so quickly. A lady wheels in the small serving cart complete with the tea, medicine, and soup as well as orange juice, dry toast, and ginger ale, and I’m somewhat impressed that they even added a few things despite their initial reluctance. I thank her before pushing it into the bedroom towards Marissa’s side of the bed and she turns her head to look at me. “That was fast.”
“It helps to be a VIP,” I tell her as I sit next to her. She sits up and I hand her the cold medicine that she takes with a sip of orange juice. I finish making her tea and when I hand it to her she’s staring at me. “What?”
“I just…I can’t believe that there’s a woman out there who doesn’t appreciate you,” she whispers quietly as I hand her the mug. She wraps her hands around it and blows gently before taking a slow sip. “I’m sure that must bother you.”
“Not as much as it used to.” I shrug. “In the beginning, yes. I couldn’t understand why we just couldn’t seem to get along. We were a year into our marriage and arguing all the time and it seemed like nothing made her happy. Once I realized who she really was it more bothered me that I’d let myself get so sucked in. Some would say I got married too fast, I guess.” She purses her lips and a frown crosses her face like she wants to say something. “What?”
“I’m just wondering if that is kind of your pattern? I mean…you haven’t known me that long and you’ve already said you want to marry me.”
“That’s different.”
She takes a slow sip of her tea while avoiding my gaze before setting it on her nightstand. “How?
“I know what I want now and what I most definitely don’t want. I didn’t then. Once you’ve had the wrong one, you know how different it feels to find the right one.”
Marissa seems much better when she wakes up. She isn’t coughing nearly as much but I can still hear it in her voice. She sleeps the majority of the way back to Philly and though I feel bad waking her, I’m not sure where we landed on her spending another night with me and I need time to convince her if necessary.
I want another night with her.
Want all of them if I’m being honest.
I know she’s still feeling off about the interaction with Blackwell and I want to show her it won’t always be like that. That although there is this elephant in the room, she won’t be forced to look at it all the time.
My hand hasn’t left her leg for the majority of the drive and when we are about twenty minutes out, I squeeze it gently, shaking her awake. She stirs and blinks her eyes at me sleepily before darting her eyes back to the road and then back to me. “How far away are we?”
