Page 164 of Nobody Told Me Thrift Shops Sell Stolen Dragon Heirlooms

I’d gone to work because my survival instincts had been purchased secondhand and didn’t come with instructions. I wore a mask, packed cough drops, drank half a mug of tea, and made it all the way to my desk before Moira looked over the cubicle wall and said, “Absolutely not.”

“I’m fine,” I said.

“You look grayer than Dorothy in Kansas.”

“The beginning of The Wizard of Oz is in sepia, not black and white.”

“Great. You can be pedantic from home.”

Then she had marched me to Helena Wallace, who took one look at me and said, “Go home before you infect my litigators.”

So I went home.

Max was at Avery’s for the day, thank God, which meant I could collapse into bed without feeling guilty about his walk schedule for at least four hours. I took medicine, put my phone on the pillow beside me, wrapped myself in blankets, and immediately began that terrible sick-person cycle of being too hot, too cold, too sweaty, too dry, too alive, and too aware of my own sinuses.

At some point, I fell asleep, and in my feverish state, I still heard my phone ring.

I slid one hand out from the covers and groped for it blindly.

“Hello?” I croaked, which was unfair to frogs everywhere.

“Quinn.”

My eyes opened.

Rafe?

“Hi,” I said, then coughed so hard I had to turn my face into the pillow. Gorgeous. Alluring. Exactly the sort of siren call men wrote poems about.

“You’re sick.”

“That’s not a question.”

“No.”

“I was going to tell you, but then I got distracted by being mostly liquid.”

“Can I come over?”

My entire body panicked, which was impressive because most of it had recently resigned.

“No,” I said automatically.

There was a pause.

“If you’ll let me, I can pick up Max from Avery,” he said. “I have food for you, medicine, ginger tea, and cough drops. And treats for Max.”

I stared at the dark lump of blankets over my knees. “You called Avery?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t want you to have to manage your own care while ill.”

Oh.

“You can’t just say things like that to a woman with a fever,” I muttered.