I stared at the empty space across from me, dumbfounded. What the hell did I do wrong? I was just about to tell Georgie I wanted to make a real go of this, slap an exclusive label on our budding relationship. But before I could get all the words out, she got up and ran away like her ass was on fire, as if she knew what was coming and couldn’t stand to hear it.

Perhaps she wasn’t ready to have any sort of commitment discussion with me. It wasn’t exactly shocking, given her history with relationships, but still, after last night I thought this was seriously heading somewhere.

I guess I was wrong.

She left so fast that I didn’t even see exactly where she went. I thought I’d seen her running toward the restaurant bathroom, rather than the exit, but when I got up and checked, a sign said the restrooms were all closed for maintenance after some sort of pipe burst.

Sighing, I settled up the bill with a waiter, then left the restaurant with Georgie’s thin cardigan thrown over my shoulder. She’d left it on her chair, which she knocked over in her haste to get away from me.

When I arrived back at the resort, which was a short three minute walk from the restaurant, I took the elevator straight to the second floor. I wasn’t going to play these guessing games anymore. Georgie could damn well tell me what her problem was straight to my face. If she didn’t want to date me, then fine, I’d have to get over it. Eventually. But until I heard the words come out of her mouth, I wasn’t going to give up on us.

I rapped on her door. “Georgie?”

No answer.

“Georgie? Everything okay?”

No answer again.

“We have each other’s spare keycards, remember?” I called out. “I know you’re here, so if you don’t tell me what’s wrong, I’m coming in. I have your cardigan, anyway.”

She finally responded. “No! Don’t come in!”

“Why not? Can you at least tell me what I did wrong?”

I heard her cough nervously. “Nothing. It’s fine. I’m just… tired.”

I sighed. “Listen, I get what you’re going through, all right? You find it hard to trust men. Believe me, we’ve well and truly established that. But I’m not Matthew, okay? I’m not going to hurt you. If you need more time to think about us, then I can manage that. Whatever it tak—”

The door opened a crack, and Georgie cut me off. “It’s fine. Really. I know you aren’t my ex. Please just go, Nate.”

Sweat was beaded on her forehead, and her hair was damp. I frowned. “What’s going on in there?”

“Nothing.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Then why are you sweating so much?”

“I….” I could tell by her vacant expression that she was racking her brains for an excuse. “I was… um… I was having sex. I totally forgot I had another date tonight.”

I couldn’t help but snicker at that. I knew she wasn’t sleeping with another guy, but if she was willing to claim something so drastic to get rid of me, then obviously something serious was happening. “What’s the lucky guy’s name?” I asked, my lips twitching with amusement.

Her eyes widened. I could practically see the hamster fall off the wheel in her mind. “…Harold,” she finally croaked out.

“Of course it is.” I caught a whiff of something acrid. “What’s that smell? Did Harold die during your little romp?”

Georgie sighed and threw the door all the way open. “Fine. Obviously, you aren’t giving up, so here it is. I have a horrible stomach flu, okay?”

“Wait… you’re sick? That’s why you ran off?”

She nodded miserably and wiped her chin. Then she looked down at her feet. “I think it was the seafood,” she mumbled. “I wasn’t quite ready to let you watch me crap and barf my brains out for an entire night. We’re not really at that stage yet, are we?”

“Shit, Georgie, you could’ve told me that.”

She shook her head wildly. “No! We only just started dating. I can’t let you see me like….” Her voice trailed off for a second. “Oh, shit. It’s happening again.”

She dashed off to her bathroom. The sound of chunks hitting the toilet bowl echoed in my ears only seconds later.

“Nate, please leave!” she called out after hurling her guts up two more times. “I can’t let you see this. It’s… both ends…” She gasped, and the bathroom door slammed shut. The lock clicked a second later.

I stepped over to the door and knocked. “Georgie, I don’t give a shit if we only just started dating. I’m gonna take care of you, okay? That’s what I’m here for.”

“It smells so bad in here. I’m so embarrassed. Please just go,” she groaned.

I snorted. “I don’t give a fuck about the smell. We all get sick sometimes. Now let me in. I’m not leaving.”

The toilet flushed, and I heard the telltale sound of an air freshener canister being sprayed for a full ten seconds. Georgie opened the door a crack a moment later. “Sorry I said I was having sex with someone else,” she said in a small voice. “I wouldn’t really do that.”

I chuckled. “Just let me in, doll.”

She let go of the door and sank down to the tiled floor, resting her chin on the porcelain edge of the toilet bowl. Her throat pulsed, and within a minute she was vomiting again. I sat down next to her and rubbed her back with one hand, holding her hair up with the other. “You’ll be fine, I promise,” I said in a soothing tone. “I know how bad it feels. You just have to let it all out.”

She made a gurgling sound, then leaned forward and deposited more chunks in the bowl. “I’m sorry,” she choked out.

“Nothing to be sorry for.” I spied a purple scrunchie on the bathroom sink. I grabbed it and gently pulled her silky hair into a ponytail. She shivered under my touch.

“Thank you,” she whispered. She curled into a ball on the bathmat, and I kept rubbing her back. “It feels like knives in my guts.”

“Yeah, it’s shitty. Where’s your phone?”

“My phone?”

“I need to call your mom to help take care of you.”

“Why? There are terrorist networks more nurturing than her.” She sat up again and crawled off the bathmat, back to the toilet. “Oh, god, I’m gonna barf again.”

I rubbed her back. “I don’t want to leave you, but I need some stuff to help you feel better. Electrolyte tablets, bottled water, mouthwash, pineapple juice.”

“There’s water in the mini bar and mouthwash in the cupboard,” she said, shakily motioning to her right. “Why pineapple juice?”

“For some reason, it’s the only thing I can stomach when I’m sick. Dunno how it works, but it makes me feel better. My mom used to give it to me when I got sick as a kid, mixed with the electrolyte stuff.”

She nodded shakily. “That actually sounds okay. My phone is on the bed. But don’t be surprised if my mother massively overreacts.”

I squeezed her shoulder, then went to get her phone. Fifteen minutes later, Margaret appeared at the door, arms laden with bags. “Thank you for calling me, Nate,” she said as I let her into the suite. “Where’s my poor girl?”

“In there, feeling very sorry for herself.” I nodded toward the bathroom.

She briskly stepped over to it. “Georgina Miller, you should have called me immediately!” she said, narrowing her eyes as she entered. “It’s lucky you have Nate now. If he hadn’t been here, you could’ve died.”

Georgie looked up from the toilet bowl long enough to shake her head at me. Then she looked at her mother. “It’s just food poisoning, Mom.”

Margaret sniffed as she put the bags down and began to mix up a concoction of electrolyte powder and juice. “Well, I’m your mother. You know I worry. Vomiting and diarrhea can kill, you know.” Georgie’s face turned even redder, and Margaret rolled her eyes. “Oh, don’t be so delicate. Trust me, when you’re a mother, you’ll be talking about poop all the time.”

She handed the glass to Georgie and soothingly stroked her hair as she drank. Then she spent the next half hour clucking around us like a mother hen in the first display of maternal affection I’d seen so far, ensuring Georgie wasn’t about to drop dead of the plague. On three separate occasions, she even checked her pulse, as if she might’ve been replaced with a zombie version of herself.

I smiled as I watched her smooth Georgie’s hair. Despite all her shortcomings, Margaret wasn’t an entirely awful human being. She obviously cared about her kids.

She stopped fretting over Georgie for a moment and looked over at me. “Thank you again for being here, Nate.”

“It’s no problem. Happy to help.”

She hesitated, then reached over and patted my arm. “We got off to a pretty awkward start, didn’t we?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled. “Well, I’d say you’re practically part of the family now that you’ve seen this and not run a mile.” She nodded down at Georgie, who was curled up on her bed between us, looking like death warmed up.

A week ago, I would’ve smiled and nodded politely, feeling a stab of guilt for pretending to be with her daughter. But now, I was really with her. No pretending. No guilt. And hey, I really could be part of the family one day.

For the first time in my life, I actually wanted that, and for the first time, I felt like I could actually do it. My mind went into overdrive at the thought. I hoped Georgie felt even remotely the same way. She didn’t know it yet, because it was far too early to spring shit like this on her, but I was falling more for her every single day. Every single minute. I didn’t want this to end.

Ever.