Mika

 

 

I wake up to complete darkness and a return of the nausea, this time as a result of an empty stomach. The headache I had is not gone, but it’s a manageable ache that only has me swaying a little when I throw my legs over the side of the bed and drop my head into my hands.

I’m undressed again, and the bed feels familiar even in the darkness, so I surmise Hawk must have brought me home with him again. I would laugh and ask the universe why it hates me so much but I just feel pitifully grateful that I’m not at home alone feeling like shit.

Although, I mean, I am not happy with being in my panties in this man’s guest room and having my boobs swinging in the breeze. It’s so ironic! Here I have spent months crushing on Hawk while alternately despising him, and the first and second time he sees me topless I’m too sick to do anything about it.

Sighing because there isn’t anything else to do, I gingerly rise to my feet and only wobble once before I make it to the door. The sheet is clutched to my chest because I can’t face wearing the dress again. I feel dirty and clammy and that underlying grittiness of sickness that I remember so well.

The house is dark when I step out into the small hallway, and I try to tiptoe as silently as possible towards the kitchen and something to eat.

“You’re awake.”

I scream my head off and almost fall on my ass when I twist around and the sheet gets tangled around my legs. Hawk reacts fast and grabs me, but the sheet’s almost at my navel, and I end up with a whole lot of boob plastered to a naked chest while my stomach hits his boxers.

Aw, hell, this just isn’t fair, I think, blushing crimson when he goes stiff and thrusts me away, his face averted.

“Sheet. Up.”

Geez. What exactly is wrong with my favorite boob, I snarl, huffing as I pull the sheet up and pull away.

“Sorry. It’s your fault anyway. You scared the life out of me.”

“I didn’t do anything.”

“Sure. You just creep around in the dark,” I accuse with a snarl, tightening the sheet around my chest and turning to stomp away. Delicately because I feel terrible.

Hawk sweeps me up three steps into my tantrum and carries me back to bed, depositing me on the mattress with a hiss to stop fighting him.

“Stay still, Mika!”

“I’m hungry.”

“Fine. I’ll go get you a sandwich.”

My stomach roils at the thought of shoving anything solid down, and I pale, gagging a little.

“Soup, broth, anything liquid,” I gasp, hating this feeling of helplessness and the way his eyes soften.

I don’t want him all tender and gentle, because it makes me feel weak, and yet it’s nice to have someone snarling at me instead of pretending. And his nice is acceptable, if a little disconcerting.

“I’ll microwave one of those easy-to-make packets. That okay?”

“Perfect.”

He leaves me as I am, still wrapped in the sheet, and I take the time that he’s gone to spread the thing on the bed and get back under, pulling the duvet up because it’s a little chilly again and the air is making me shiver.

He comes back a few minutes later with instant chicken broth, some crackers, and the Holy Grail of sickbed drinks, ginger ale.

“I know you probably won’t eat much, but try to get a cracker or two down. I need to give you that medicine, and you can’t have it on an empty stomach.”

The first sip doesn’t go down easy. My stomach is starved and not great at the same time, but I persevere from experience and drink it all while nibbling two crackers.

I feel somewhat better once it’s down and even manage half the can of ginger ale before I give up, not wanting it all coming back up if I overdo it.

Hawk’s quiet and watchful and hands me three pills as soon as I push the tray away. The pills are huge, but like I said, I’m an old hand, and after swallowing them down, I lie back tiredly, drained from nothing more than the simple act of eating.

“I feel like shit, and I need a shower.”

“You look it, and you won’t shower until tomorrow morning,” he mutters, sitting on the side of the bed to peer at me. “I sent Leila a text off your phone telling her you were with friends and not to worry.”

The mention of my sister is an unwelcome reminder, but I am grateful that he did it because it saves me from having to explain this to her somewhere down the road.

“Thanks. I should have thought of that.”

Hawk just shrugs and keeps watching me to the point where I squirm and pull a face at him.

“What?”

“You want to maybe talk about today?”

No. I want to stay here and stew in my own misery and then pretend I don’t have to face the firing squad next week. But he’s being so nice, and I don’t think being rude to the man who saved me from my family would be very fair after everything he’s done.

“What’s there to talk about? I have to get those stupid tests whether I want to or not, and I’m being felled by a stupid virus. That’s just life,” I say, shrugging it off because I have to believe it’s fine for right now.

I’m feeling a little better after getting something into my system, and with the return of some energy, I want to just forget and live a little. Honestly, is a shower and some television too much to ask?

“Meek, you can’t just pretend things are okay.”

“Yeah, I can. See, I do all the time, and it works. I don’t have to walk around feeling like a big baby all the time, Hawk. I can be normal and happy without worrying, and I want to do that.”

“But what if—”

“Then I’ll deal with it if it comes. For now, I feel less than stellar, but I’m okay. Thank you for doing this for me. I know you could have called Leila and Lyon to come get me, so I really appreciate it. I also want to say thank you for being so rock-solid today. Going into this stuff isn’t exactly a joy, so I appreciate that you didn’t freak out on me or start telling me how everything’s just fine.”

And I mean that. The first time I got my results back from the doctor and he told us I had to go to an oncologist, Mom started screaming hysterically and had to be sedated. There I was, my whole body numb from shock, and my mother was being treated for it.

Then the oncologist’s results were given a few weeks later, and my dad started sobbing as if I was dead already while mom, who’d been mentally preparing for bad news, kept telling me how I could kick its ass.

Traumatic at seventeen. So hard to understand what I was feeling and thinking, and then it was just go, go, go from there. It was more testing and treatment plans and my parents always trying to look on the bright side.

The only person I could talk to was Leila, but soon, too soon, I was sick, and she couldn’t deal with it the way she had been. There was no more joking and laughing or making fun of Mom and Dad for all their crazy behavior. She was one of them, and I was alone again, trapped in a place where I was constantly trying to make everyone feel better.

For now, I want to not think the worst, because I can’t deal with what will happen to those I love if I have to tell them that I’m sick again. It may seem selfish not to want them around, but it’s how I feel.

“It wouldn’t be fine though, would it? I won’t lie to you and say something that I don’t feel, Mika, and honest to God, the thought of you being sick again scares me,” he says somberly, looking me dead in the eye.

But that’s Hawk, right? The man just doesn’t know how to run from things, and I think I love that about him. He faces them head-on and doesn’t bullshit.

“So, now that we’ve been all heavy and gross with each other and I’ve eaten and taken the pills, wanna watch TV with me?” I ask hopefully, needing the distraction and his company just in case I start feeling like a lonely loser.

His mouth twitches, and I still.

“Don’t! Gosh, Hawk, don’t smile. You might start an earthquake,” I yell dramatically, wincing when my head gives a protest.

He does grin then, and goodness, the man is spectacular when he smiles, I think, holding my breath and just staring.

“What?” he grumbles, stretching out beside me and reaching for the remote.

I’m a little speechless, and I can only gape at him when he turns to frown.

“What?”

“You, uh, you should smile more, Hawk Wylder. It’s a beautiful sight,” I whisper, sincere and more than surprised when he winks at me and his mouth twists ironically.

“I know, babe. Just don’t want to be swamped by adoring females everywhere I go.”

The arrogant man.

“Oh, please, could you get any more egotistical?” I mutter, grabbing the remote when he changes to a sports channel.

I skim the channels and see Melissa McCarthy throwing a watermelon at some idiot, her running style making even Hawk laugh out loud. We watch it all the way through, laughing so hard I have to pause to get through the laughing fit before I can continue.

“Oh my God,” I yell, snorting like a pig when she shoves a knife into Sandra’s leg, my mirth so strong I choke on my own spit this time.

Hawk just grunts, his body shaking because no one, not even this man, can refuse to laugh when a fat chick and an uptight FBI agent partner up to be law enforcement bad girls.

I enjoy it immensely, especially the way he roars when the bloopers come on and the guy playing the albino comes on screen.

“Holy shit, I think that’s one of my favorites,” he chuckles, wiping his eyes as the credits roll.

“Yeah. And Spy. I love that one too. In fact, I think I like all of her movies. She just has something that never fails to make me laugh,” I say, yawning because, as much as I enjoyed the movie, it’s been a struggle to keep my eyes open for this long.

Hawk sees it and jumps up, his ass in those boxers making me wish I could stay awake. Oh mama, what a girl couldn’t do to an ass that nice, I think, blinking sleepily and humming my thanks when he pulls the duvet up and tucks me in.

“See ya in the morning, Meeks.”

“Night.”

 

 

Hawk

 

I stay awake staring at the ceiling for a long time, the memory of Mika’s laughter making me smile even as I close my eyes in pain. I’ve never done that before, just chilled with a woman that isn’t blood kin or involved with one of my brothers, and I liked it.

I really liked the way she’d slap my shoulder when something really funny happened and the way she snuggled her head into my shoulder and giggled.

I don’t think she even realized that the sheet slipped twice and flashed me one of her amazing breasts, but I sure did, and holy God in heaven, the woman has a perfect set of breasts.

They’re round and firm with nipples the shade of, well, they’re pink, a soft pink that makes me think I could turn them red by sucking them for hours.

I was turned on in seconds but so comfortable with just being there with her and enjoying the movie that I didn’t focus on it like I would have with another woman.

That in and of itself gave me pause because I don’t do companionship with chicks. I have sex, flirt, have some more sex, and then hit the road. I’ve had one relationship before, and I can’t even call it that because Jolie was one of those manicured Barbie dolls I met while trying to get close to the Gambini boys a few years ago.

She was into the danger of being with a guy like me, and I used her to get into places I wouldn’t have gotten into otherwise. We worked for a while, the sex and lack of emotion making things easy for the both of us.

She eventually moved on when a general in the Gambini outfit took a shine to her, and they’re now married and populating the earth with more little criminals in the making.

But yeah, even with Jo I didn’t do this kind of thing. We talked about business and who was killing who or paying off some crooked politician. We had sex. And then we’d go our separate ways until the next time.

I never had dinner with her alone or talked to her about how she was feeling, and I never once turned on the TV in lieu of sex.

With Mika though…it wasn’t hard. It was nice. Comfortable. Peaceful, and that right there tells me that I should get her home fast. Before I do something like kiss her because, fuck, do I wanna kiss that woman and touch that body I’ve seen twice now.

I don’t even know how I undressed her this afternoon without touching her. Not after I saw her nipples peek with the cool air and looked down to see her sex through a pair of gossamer thin panties.

I love a tease, and hell, did it tease when I caught a glimpse of her folds and started wondering what shade they are.

I resisted though. I mean, nothing makes a guy lose a boner like a woman feeling like death, so I covered her back up and spent the day checking on her and playing games on the PlayStation, my mind wandering to her every few minutes.

It finally got so late I started worrying about what would happen if she didn’t call Leila, so I found her phone and got lucky with one-two-three-four as the code.

That reminds me. I really have to tell her to change that shit to something more reasonable.

But I got in and sent the text, all the while burning to read the ten unread texts on her phone. It got to the point, after an hour of constantly glancing at it and dying twice in the game, before I just gave up and read the damn messages.

I’m still pissed about what I read, and I will kill Joe Riley as soon as I can figure out a way to make it look like an accident.

His messages alternated between calling her the worst names, begging her for another chance, and then back to the name-calling again. Which makes me worry about this situation because, as far as I can remember, she wasn’t even with this punk for any real stretch of time.

But then again, Mika isn’t really the girl who does long-term relationships lately. I heard Leila telling Mom once that it worries her that Mika doesn’t seem to want anything long term, that she finds reasons not to stick with a guy after only a few weeks with him.

Look, I have no room to judge Mika for anything, especially not if she doesn’t want to settle down with a guy she doesn’t love. I feel the same way.

Settling, after everything that has happened, isn’t something I would do. In fact, I’d rather die that old grumpy man Lynx accused me of being than spend my life with a woman I don’t really love.

I did hear something else from Leila though, something that makes me feel terrible for Mika. She was in a relationship, in college, and from the way Leila spoke, I think she really did love the guy, the first guy she was actually committed to.

And then one day she just wasn’t with him anymore. That doesn’t sound like Mika. The woman is loyal and kind and very loving. She’s one of the most calm and held together women I have known—with a mouth like a trucker, I think, laughing softly—so whatever had her running from a relationship, with nothing to say on the subject, isn’t something good.

I’ve seen the woman stare her date down without saying a word, heard her cuss a man out for being a pig she’d rather die than see again.

But that was the first time I heard she’d just walked away.