Only You by K.T. Quinn

46

Molly

The Day I Got It, Too

“Molly?” Donovan asked. He stood up and pressed his hands against the glass door. “What is it? Molly? Talk to me.”

“No, no, no,” I moaned, shaking my head like I could dispel the news with sheer will alone. “I knew I couldn’t taste the salt in the pasta, but I thought it was nothing. I didn’t think it was because of this…”

“Molly,” Donovan said forcefully. “Talk.”

I held up my phone with quivering fingers. “My test came back. I’m positive.”

His mouth hung open. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“You’re not translating it wrong or anything?”

“It’s in Italian and English. There’s a list of precautions for me to take, just like in the email you got. I have it, Donovan. I have the virus.”

Saying it out loud made it more real. My bowels turned to liquid and my knees trembled. I felt lightheaded.

Suddenly the balcony door slid open, and Donovan’s strong arms were surrounding me and holding me close. I exhaled into his broad chest as he hugged me fiercely.

“We can be together now,” he whispered. “That’s one silver lining.”

“Once you shower,” I said.

His chest rumbled with laughter. “That bad, huh?”

I looked up into his eyes and gave him a pitiful smile.

“I can manage that. Why don’t you go eat your dinner? You need your strength.”

We opened the dividing doors between our rooms and I slowly ate my pasta while the shower ran. Now that I knew I was infected, I couldn’t stop analyzing my body’s feelings. My throat wasn’t sore at all. My eyes were achy, I guess. I was tired, but I assumed that was because I didn’t get much sleep at the police station.

I ate half the bowl of pasta before I decided I needed to do something, anything, to take my mind off things.

Donovan’s room was messy with clothes and dishes from the meals I had been sending him. I picked up his clothes, tossed them on the bed, then stripped the sheets. I carried that bundle downstairs to the laundry room and started a load, then brought back fresh sheets for the bed. After that, I began cleaning up the dishes.

While I tidied up, I thought about everything I had learned about the virus. Some people who contracted it only had mild symptoms. Others reacted really badly. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it, aside from age. Donovan and I had that on our side, at least.

But what if my symptoms weren’t mild? Who would take care of Donovan if I was bedridden?

While putting fresh sheets on the bed, Donovan stepped out of the bathroom wearing only a towel. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I need to do something to feel in control.” I smiled at him. “It’s hard not to jump your bones right now, you know.”

He smiled weakly. “I don’t have much energy, but I’ll see what I can manage.”

“That would be an embarrassing message on your tombstone. Here lies Donovan Russo. Rather than fighting off a deadly virus, he wasted his last energy having sex.”

“I wouldn’t say it would be a waste. There are worse ways to go, Feisty.”

I went back downstairs to move the laundry to the dryer. This was an emergency, and I needed to prepare. What would my mom do if she were here? What would she tell me if I could call her on the phone, like I so desperately wished I could do?

I went into the kitchen and cooked the rest of the raw pasta I had made. Then I packed it into six plastic to-go containers and brought them back upstairs to store in Donovan’s mini-fridge along with a few other supplies.

“We used to get blizzards back home, thanks to lake-effect snow rolling south,” I explained when he asked what I was doing. “Mom would make a dozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just in case we lost power. That’s what I’m doing: making food in case we get too sick to leave the room. I brought oranges, too. We have seven left. Those are for me, but I could be convinced to share if you ask nicely.”

“Molly…”

“Oh! I forgot to tell you: I made a Russo Pie earlier today! It was supposed to be a surprise after dinner, but I kind of forgot about it when I got my test results. It’s downstairs if you want some. I think I nailed the recipe, but I want your opinion.”

“That’s great, but Molly…”

“I need to bring a bunch of Gatorades up here too. There are only eight bottles left downstairs, and we might as well keep them close.”

“Molly.” Donovan grabbed me by the arms. “You need to slow down.”

“I need to do something,” I insisted. “Because if I’m not being productive, then I’m just… I’m just…”

He pulled me into another hug. “It’s okay to feel things,” he said softly. “You don’t have to put on a strong face for me.”

I realized that’s what I had been doing. Running around in caregiver mode, putting on a strong face to keep Donovan from worrying. And to keep myself from accepting what was happening.

Once I let my guard down, the reality of the situation sank in. I was far from home. I was infected. I might get sick.

I might die.

I fell apart in his arms and wept. He held me close, stroking my hair and telling me it would be okay. His skin was warm from his fever, which made me cry even harder.

What if it isn’t going to be okay?

We crawled into bed and fell asleep together. After a few days sleeping alone, I realized just how much I needed to be in his arms. It felt right.

I woke up the next morning with a sore throat, and a dry cough. I was also tired, like I hadn’t slept well—even though I knew I had.

Donovan was still fast asleep. I felt his forehead to make sure his fever wasn’t alarming, and then went downstairs to get the Gatorade that I hadn’t retrieved last night. Hydrating was important. Most of the medical recommendations emphasized that. There wasn’t a lot I could do about the virus, but drinking plenty of fluids was something.

I came back upstairs and put the Gatorade away. Donovan was still asleep in bed, sprawled out on his belly with the sheets tangled around his waist. Sunlight from the window reflected off his olive skin. Even while sick, it was impossible to ignore just how sexy this man was.

His phone vibrated on the kitchen counter. I glanced at it out of habit, and saw the beginning of an email notification.

STANDBY LIST REMINDER: Your flight from FCO to BOS is awaiting confirmation…

“That’s not what my emails have said,” I muttered. I picked up the phone and swiped it open. There was no passcode, and it opened straight to the relevant email.

I was only half-awake before, but as I scanned the email I quickly woke up. My eyes flew back and forth as the details sank in.

“Donovan,” I said. “You got a flight back?”

He rolled over and rubbed his eye with a fist. “Huh?”

I sat on the edge of the bed. “You got an email from the standby list. You have a flight back to Boston!”

“I…” He sat up in bed and blinked away the sleep from his eyes. “What? That’s, uh, awesome.”

“It says you were selected from the waiting list two weeks ago.”

“Oh.” I saw the panic in his eyes as he tried to think of an excuse. He looked like he’d been caught.

“You could have gone home,” I said, “but you chose not to?”

He let out a long sigh. “I got the email a while ago, yeah. And I was excited because I assumed you would be selected too. We’re in the same city, so if there’s a return flight for us to take, it only makes sense that both of us could go. But for some reason you weren’t selected. They’re processing applications slowly back home, for whatever reason. And I couldn’t… I couldn’t leave you here, Molly.”

“That’s sweet,” I said, “but I can’t believe you didn’t take the flight! You can’t just stay in Rome because of me.”

“Sure I can,” he said simply. “I don’t have a job waiting for me back home. It’ll be a while before a chef position opens up. There’s no point to me going home and doing nothing for months.” He squeezed my thigh. “I want to be wherever you are, Feisty. Even if we’re stuck in a hotel together. This feels more like home than my empty apartment, and it’s because you’re here.”

We hugged, and tears welled in my eyes. I was feeling vulnerable and scared because of my positive test, and everything he had told me was exactly what I needed to hear. It mirrored how I felt about him. If I had gotten a return flight, I wasn’t sure I would have left him.

“Hey. You don’t feel hot anymore.” I rested my cheek against his shoulder. “You feel normal.”

“My fever must have broken,” he said. “I feel okay, I guess. Still tired, but okay.”

“If you had left two weeks ago,” I pointed out, “you wouldn’t have gotten infected.”

“I don’t care. I would suffer the worst virus in the world for you, Molly.”

“Easy to say once you’re feeling better.”

He laughed and squeezed me tighter, and for a few moments I stopped worrying about everything. As long as I had Donovan, I felt safe.