Page 65 of Man Flu

Chapter Eighteen

All the men are dying, and I just wanted to sleep in on this lovely day off …

“WHAT IN THE WORLD is going on?” Logan is on all fours and Rick is hanging over the side of the bed, rubbing Logan’s bare back. No one answers me, but then Logan starts making some awful noise that sounds like a cat with a hairball.

“Dry heaves,” Rick finally says. “Hang in there, buddy.”

Dry heaves? Logan had soup and crackers last night and kept it down, so I’m having a hard time thinking he’d be dry heaving right now.

Tiana walks in, and I turn to find out why she was so far behind me. Her arm is outstretched in front of her, her eyes are squeezed tightly shut, and her other hand is over her nose and mouth.

“What are you doing?” I ask her.

“I can’t handle the vomit.”

“No one is sick right now,” I tell her.

She peeks through one eye, scoping out the area. “Then why is he sitting like that?”

Can’t I just say the words “man flu”? Then everything will make sense.

“Tiana,” Rick says as he clears his throat.

“Rick,” she replies. “I want you to come home.” There is so much emotion in her sentence, I can hardly keep myself from choking up. Not really.

“Tiana, come on,” I grunt quietly.

“Rick, I want you to come back home with me. You don’t have a life here with Hannah anymore. I’ll make you soup, or try to, whatever you want.”

“You said you don’t cook,” Rick whines like a child.

“I never cooked before I came to the US, Rick. You know that. My mami always did the cooking.” Tiana has a story beyond being the mistress with perfect hair, a perfect ass, fake tits, and Botox-injected lips. There’s a chance I was wrong, but I will not say it out loud. She is still the reason my husband left me, but if it wasn’t her, it would have been another hussy.

Damn hussies.

“I bet,” Rick begins. “I bet Hannah could show you a thing or two.” Rick has this soft, sweet smile tugging at his mouth, and I have the urge to see if it would peel off. I’m not freaking teaching her how to cook.

“Or!” I chuckle, sardonically. “I have a better idea. Why don’t you pull up YouTube and search for cooking lessons? Cora could probably teach you how to do that.”

I almost forgot about Logan, who is still on all fours, looking like he’s preparing for his next contraction. I kneel and help him back up to the bed.

“I’m so weak,” he says. “How long have I gone without food?” His words are hardly audible through his parched throat.

I glance down at my watch. “It’s been approximately nine hours since you ate. Nine.”

“It feels like an eternity.”

“You’re really not feeling any better at all?” I ask him.

“Yeah, man, I’m starting to shake this thing, I think,” Rick says, rolling back into the center of the pull-out.

“Maybe you should take me to the hospital,” Logan groans. Crap, am I being that big of an asshole? Is something really wrong?

“That might be a good idea,” Rick says. “He’s not doing well.”

“What am I supposed to do with Cora?” I ask Rick. It’s his weekend, but up until last night, he couldn’t hold himself upright, and we all know how Tiana feels about childcare.

“I—I’ll take care of her,” Tiana says. “I’ll do her hair and makeup. You know, girl stuff.”