Page 165 of Wait for Him

"Shut your face, woman," I bark, carrying her from where I found her on my bathroom floor toward the guest bedroom. She weighs about as much as an argument and puts up half of one, which is how I know she's genuinely sick. The real Blaire would've bitten me by now.

Bennet's on a flight back from Europe, due in early morning and then heading straight from the tarmac to the Meridian building. Blaire's at my place tonight so I can pay off my end of a lost bet: one baseball game, the most boring sport ever inflicted on mankind. We made it four innings before she went gray and bolted for my bathroom.

This is the second time she's vomited today, and this last round she barely had the strength to get herself off the tile.

I set her down on the bed, prop a couple of pillows behind her and go grab water and a ginger ale from the kitchen. When I come back, she looks small in a way Blaire is never small, curled into herself with her eyes closed and all that usual fuck-you energy nowhere to be found.

I don't like it.

"You've been feeling like shit on and off for months, Blaire. I've got to put my bestie-foot down. As the standing authority figure in this bestihood, I'm making you a doctor's appointment for the morning, or you make it yourself, but one of those two things is happening." I press the ginger ale into her hands. "Now drink."

"Standing authority figure?" Her eyes barely open. "Who elected you?"

"Me. Landslide victory. Drink."

She barely manages to sit up, but she takes a few small sips while I watch her like it's my job. She's so fucking pale. She made me promise not to worry Bennet, and I'm honoring that mostly because there's no reaching him over the Atlantic anyway, but I'm already regretting the promise. If this were my girl, I'd want to know.

Then again, if I call him the second his plane lands and tell him I spent the night carrying his wife out of my bathroom while she puked her guts up, he'll probably have the driver diverted here and arrive with a private medical team and a priest.

She sinks back against the pillows, and when she speaks again, her voice has gone quiet.

"I hate doctors and hospitals, Jackson." She pauses. "The doctors I saw back then had to know what Colt was doing to me. All of them. And every one of them looked at the chart instead of at me. I've been in more hospital beds than I can count. So yeah, I know I don't go when I should. I know it's a problem."

Her eyes come back to mine, and there's Blaire again, exhausted as hell but still in there.

"But you're right. I'll go first thing."

I sit on the edge of the bed and take the ginger ale before it slips out of her hand.

"I'll drive you myself." I keep my voice easy. Getting pissed about every doctor who failed her isn't going to help her tonight, and she doesn't need me going full Bennet when I've just convinced her to go willingly. "And for the record, any doctor who looks at a chart instead of you tomorrow answers to me. I'm on the 40 Under 40 now. I know at least four lawyers."

She lets out a weak laugh.

There we go.

"Four whole lawyers?"

"Minimum. I'm extremely influential now."

"You're a douchebag."

"And yet I'm still the elected authority of the bestihood."

She closes her eyes, but there's a tiny smile left on her face, which was the entire point.

"Sleep, Bumble-bee. I'm leaving the door cracked, and this bin goes right here if the need strikes again. Don't you dare try walking to the bathroom. I've already carried you once tonight and my back is a finite resource."

"Thank you." It comes out small and drowsy, and she means it for more than the ginger ale.

"What are brothers for, huh?" I pull the covers up to her chin, tucking her in like the world's largest, most reluctant nanny. "If you get vomit on my bed, I'm kicking you in the tit."

"You'd have to catch me first," she mumbles into the pillow, already half gone.

"You can't currently walk, Sis."

"Exactly. Sitting duck. No sport in it." Her eyes stay closed, the words starting to dissolve at the edges. "Coward."

I flip off the lamp and stand in the doorway a few seconds longer than I need to, watching the covers rise and fall, doing the thing I do now: worrying about the people who belong to me.