Chapter Nineteen

Noah

I swear there is a swing in my step, or it’s the fact that my balls are always empty now. I mean, this whole having a girlfriend is the best thing I think I’ve done. She hasn’t even tried to sneak out and it’s been a whole three days. Score one for me.

“Noah,” Hannah says from the door way. She walks in, swaying her hips. The normal Noah would try to see if she has panty lines in the white skirt she is wearing. This Noah is hoping she hurries up.

“Hannah.” I lean back. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Just giving you a heads-up. Leonard will be arriving on Monday, so Norma is going to have to go back and work with him. He is meeting with the new lawyer. So as of Monday, you are either on your own or I have to send you a temp.”

I throw my head back, moaning. “Fine. I will see what I can do from my end.”

“That’s it?” Hannah asks, eyeing me. “No make sure she looks good bending over? No make sure to get her Facebook picture? No she must be under twenty-five?”

I laugh and throw my hands up, and then place them on my chest. “I would never.”

“Yeah, right,” she says, walking out, and I still forget to check and see if she is wearing a thong or not.

I pick up my phone, calling Kaleigh, who responds right away, her voice scratchy.

“Hello.”

“Jesus, what is wrong?” I ask her, sitting up straight, worried.

“I have no idea. I have a fever and my body hurts.” She sniffles. “And I’m freezing. I’m going to see the doctor in thirty minutes. I can’t even swallow.”

“Where are you?” I ask, already on my way out of the office, getting in my car.

“I’m at home. I’m waiting for Lauren to come home so the kids aren’t alone.”

“I’ll be there in ten and then I’ll bring you to the doctor.”

“No!” she shouts then coughs. “It’s contagious.”

“We made out this morning, thoroughly. Plus, I’m immune. I never get sick,” I reassure her and continue talking to her till I pull up and ring the bell.

“You’re so annoying,” she says, hanging up and answering the door. She’s wearing baggy sweats that swallow her and a pink fuzzy robe while she coughs into her hand. “You shouldn’t be here.”

I have to be honest. I don’t know how to touch her, so I go in then back up when she starts hacking. Rachel and Gabe are waiting for her on the stairs with masks on. “Hey, guys.” I raise my hand in greeting.

They both wave back but don’t have any time to say anything because Lauren’s bus comes barreling into the driveway.

She gets out, rushing to the front door, taking in Kaleigh. Her hand goes directly on her mouth. “Hey, Noah,” she says to me then back at Kaleigh. “I called Mom and Dad and they are expecting you tonight. Mom is making up the spare room.”

Kaleigh nods, grabbing her bag and walking out toward her car.

“What are you doing?” I ask her when she gets to her car, opening the door. “You can’t drive,” I say, ushering her to my car. “Um, I need your doctor’s address,” I say, opening the door for her. “And, um, is it normal you have no shoes on? Should I go in and get a pair for you?”

Kaleigh just groans as she opens her bag and gets some flip-flops. “There.” She groans as she fastens her seat belt and puts the seat down, closing her eyes. I close the door and make my way to my side. Opening the door, Kaleigh opens her eyes and hands me her phone with the doctor’s address already loaded in the maps. I put it on my lap as I follow the instructions to her doctor’s office. Once I turn the car off I rub her leg, waking her up. “Let’s go get you some meds.”

She nods her head, getting out of the car and walking almost hunched over into the doctor’s office. She hands the nurse all her papers, coming to sit down next to me. I pick up a magazine, flipping through the pages, when the nurse comes out and calls Kaleigh’s name. I watch her get up while I continue flipping through the magazine as she stops near the door. “Aren’t you coming?” she asks me, her face so pale.

I put the magazine down and get up and follow her in.

She sits on the doctor’s table while I sit in the chair.

The nurse asks her questions while I look around till she asks something that makes my ears perk up. “Date of your last period?” she asks and Kaleigh’s eyes fly to mine right away.

“Last week,” she responds, looking at the nurse again.

“And you’re still on birth control right?”

I roll my lips in to not laugh while she squirms on the table.

“Yup,” she says before the nurse gets up and tells us the doctor will soon be in.

“So, you’re on birth control?” I ask, tapping my index fingers together. “This is great news.” I wink at her.

“Yes, just what I want to hear when I’m sick as a dog and dying is how good it’s going to feel without a condom,” she says, groaning while she shivers.

The doctor comes in and smiles as he sees Kaleigh. I hate him already. What is he, twelve? His slicked back hair, perfect clothes, fake veneer teeth. I sit up right when he starts talking.

“Kaleigh, it’s been a while. How have you been?” he asks her, reading her chart.

“She’s sick, so,” I say, stating the obvious.

He smiles at me. “I’ll take good care of her.”

He takes the thermometer out and asks her to open wide and I swear I want to throat punch this fucking tool. “You are running a fever,” he says, tossing the top of the thermometer cover into the garbage. He goes to feel under her neck while she whimpers out. I’m about to get up and take her somewhere else.

“Oh, that doesn’t feel good.” He grabs a wooden stick, asking her to stick her tongue out. “Ouch, that must hurt. Looks like you have strep throat,” he says, walking to the desk, writing something on his prescription pad. “Here you go. You should be feeling better in about two days. If not, you have to come back.” He smiles and puts his hand on her knee.

What kind of doctor is this clown?

I get up, clearing my throat while Kaleigh whispers at him, “Thank you so much, Todd.”

He leans in and kisses her cheek. “Take care.” And walks out.

“What the fuck is that all about? He just kissed you. Isn’t there like an oath or something that says thou shall not come on to my patients sexually?” I huff out while Kaleigh jumps down, coming up to me and tapping my chest.

“Relax there, Tarzan. Let’s just say that between the two of us, you are the one with the right equipment for him.” She winks at me, turning to walk out. We pass his office on the way out and Kaleigh leans in and says, “Please say hi to Troy for me and tell him that I owe him one.”

“Will do.” He smiles at us as we walk out.

Fifteen minutes later, we have a whole bag of medicine and we are pulling up to her parents’ house. “Should I come in?” I ask her and all she does is shrug her shoulders and grunt. “Are your parents expecting you?” I ask after I get out of the car and jog over to her as she is unlocking the front door.

We walk in and all you hear is “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” And her father jumps out from behind the couch, showing us he is in nothing but his loincloth and white safari hat.

My eyes open huge while Kaleigh shrieks next to me. “Dad.” She throws the bag of meds down and he shields his pecker with his hands, his eyes as wide as saucers, just as her mother comes around the corner into the living room.

“Oh, Tarzan, I hope you have your rope for me to swing on.”

I take in her outfit and throw my head back and let out the biggest laugh of my life. This woman is wearing a leopard bikini top and a leopard print wrap around her waist. Her hands go up and she shrieks out at the top of her lungs. “Oh my God.”

“Hey,” I say, raising my hand. “Dede, you look great.”

She shoos me with her hand. “Oh, stop it, Noah.” She then looks at Kaleigh. “Oh, dear, you look horrible,” she says, coming to her.

“Mom, please tell me you’re wearing something under that loin scarf,” she says, taking in her mother’s outfit. Meanwhile her father has put the couch throw blanket around his waist, his hat still sitting on his head.

“No, dear, it didn’t come with panties,” she says softly. “Are you sick?”

“Yes, Mother, I’m sick. I called you and left you a voice mail,” she says, raising her hands.

“I don’t even know where my phone is,” she says as she turns around and shows us that she is in fact not wearing anything because you can see the bottom of her ass peeking out from the scarf.

Kaleigh puts her hands to her face. “I can’t do this. You need to take me to a hotel.” She pushes me out while I nod to her father and blink at her mother.

An hour later, I have her tucked into my bed. She fought me the whole way home. She took her meds and spoke to her mom on the phone right until she knocked out. I smile as I put the water bottle that she asked me to go get her next to the bed. Making my way downstairs, I grab my phone to call Austin. He answers right away, his frustration coming through the minute he picks up with a snarl.

“Jesus, you would think once you dip your dick in the honey you’d be less fucking high-strung,” I say, walking to the fridge. “Oh my God, unless you didn’t finish? Did you get dick shy?”

“Why are we friends?” he hisses out.

“Because I’ve seen your dick and I have a picture of your testicles. Besides, no one would put up with your mood swings. Jesus, you’re worse than my mother and she is way into menopause.”

“Fuck off, what do you want?”

“Kaleigh is sick, so I need to order her soup, but she is vegan, who doesn’t eat meat.”

“So order her vegetable soup. And what do you mean she’s sick? Where is she?”

“She has strep throat. She is upstairs in my bed.”

“Wait a minute. You actually have a girl in your bed and you’re not sticking your dick in honey?”

“Well, she’s my girlfriend. I don’t have the boyfriend manual on hand, but I’m pretty sure there is something in there with take care of your girl.” I open a beer. “How’s your girlfriend? Last I saw, she was running into a house.”

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he hisses. “She showed up to work on Monday and we decided that we should not work and sleep together.”

“We?” I ask him. “Or you and that stupid rule?”

“It’s not a stupid rule!” he yells. “I can’t sleep with my assistant.”

“Oh, this all makes sense,” I say, sitting down on the stool. “You’re not just cranky, you’re dick cranky. Your dick can’t get into the honey, so now your bumblebee is going nuts.” I laugh out at him. “Dude, just break the rule. Who knows, you might actually like smiling.”

“Have you hit your head? Maybe you have a brain tumor. This might explain all the shit you’re spewing.”

I breathe out. “I gotta go and make sure Kaleigh is okay.”

I laugh out, knowing it’s killing him right now, but he just disconnects. I get up, going to the drawer with the take-out menus. After going on Google and finding an actual vegan restaurant, I order a shit-ton of soup along with some cookies and by the time I’m done I have spent two hundred dollars and it didn’t include one fucking steak. I pour some soup in a bowl and walk upstairs with it. All her clothes are on the floor in a heap and my cock thinks it’s time to come out and play.

“Simmer down there, boy.” I see Kaleigh’s head come out from under the covers.

“I might be dying,” she says, her voice all scratchy. “And your sheets need to be changed. I sweat a pool.”

I look down at my cock to see if maybe he will be grossed out by a girl sweating in my bed, and not because of sex, but because she is sick. Nope, he says there alert. Ready for combat. “I brought you soup,” I say to her as she sits up and shivers.

“I need a shower, and can you show me where the sheets are so I can change them?” she says, getting out of bed and walking to the bathroom with her hands in front of her while she shakes.

“Go shower. I’ll take care of this,” I tell her while she goes into the bathroom and I hear the shower turn on. I put the bowl down and peel the sheets off. She wasn’t kidding. They are soaked. I toss them in the basket as I get a whole new set out. After doing the bed with the fresh sheets, I walk to my closet and take out my terry cloth robe. I walk out as soon as Kaleigh walks out of the bathroom with her hair wrapped in a towel and one around her body. “Hey, gorgeous,” I say, placing the robe over her shoulders.

“You made the bed?” she asks, her eyes closing halfway. She puts her arms into the robe and takes the towel off her head. “I just took two Tylenol to help with the fever.”

I bring her to me and hug her, just fucking because, which is a crazy fucking notion.

“Come eat some soup and you can go back to bed. You need to stay hydrated,” I tell her, leading her to the bed.

She gets underneath the fresh covers. She sits up with her back to the headboard and the four pillows piled behind her.

“I ordered every single soup they had, four servings each. So you have twenty soups.” I sit next to her and hand her the bowl of soup.

She grabs the spoon and slurps it. “Is this homemade chicken soup?” she asks, her eyes going wide. “I’m vegan.”

“I know. I ordered it from the vegan restaurant. It even looks like chicken soup,” I say, watching her continue eating.

“You ordered vegan soup for me? You changed the sweaty sheets for me?” She puts the empty soup bowl down. “If I wasn’t sick, you’d so be getting a blow job right now,” she says as she sneezes all over me.

My head shoots back to avoid getting sprayed, but it lands all over my hand.

“Sorry,” she says, trying to wipe it, but I walk to the bathroom where I try not to be grossed out that all her germs are over me.

When I make it back into the room she is lying down on her side in a fetal position, her wet hair spread out on the pillow.

“I’m just going to take a little nap,” she says, her eyes already closed as she speaks.

I get in bed next to her, turning on the television on low and watching her sleep. I don’t know how long I watch it for. I turn it off and get under the covers, my body finding her, and we fall asleep as I hold her.

The next morning she wakes up still with a fever. After she takes her meds and some more Tylenol, she crashes out on the couch while I watch CNN. Her feet are in my lap, my arm lying on her leg. I had already taken off work, knowing I couldn’t leave her alone, when her phone next to her buzzes once. It’s a text from Lauren, so I open it up.

Hope you’re feeling better and that Mom isn’t making you want to commit suicide.

Should I wake her or should I just tell Lauren that she is with me? I go with plan B.

It’s Noah. She’s with me. I’ll take good care of her.

She answers right away.

I thought she was staying with my parents?

She was until she walked in on them playing Tarzan and Jane. Your mom looks hot in a loincloth, BTW.

Ewwww! You’re a sick man. Off to the arena with Austin. Tell her to text me later.

He finally got over that ‘don’t shit where you eat’ bullshit?

No. Know anyone hiring?

You can come work for me. I definitely won’t want to have sex with you. I shoot out without even thinking about it. This can either be really good since I need a decent PA, but Austin will be shitting a nut when he finds out she will be working with me. I laugh thinking about it.

Funny guy. Okay, well, if you have a real suggestion, let me know.

I’m serious. I need a PA to keep my shit in order, and I heard you’re the best. Think about it. Let me know. That way, Austin’s balls won’t get swollen again. BTW, I will never ask you to get me coffee or food.

She doesn’t answer me back, so I put the phone down and continue watching mindless television while I hold on to my girl. I smile. My girl. Fuck yeah.