Page 40 of Under Your Spell

‘I’m going to go and pick up the stuff Doctor Swain ordered,’ he says with a sigh. ‘I’ll be right back, okay? Don’t move.’

‘Not really an option,’ I agree.

He gets out the car, and I must drift off because it seems like it’s only seconds before he’s back clutching four bursting carrier bags.

‘Did you buy everything they had in there?’ I ask blearily.

He gives me a look that says he doesn’t need to hear it from me right now, and pulls a bottle of water and a packet of tablets from one of the bags. ‘Take these,’ he says, putting two pills in my hand.

‘What are they?’ I ask suspiciously, because I’m not about to go popping any old thing a rock star asks me to.

A muscle by Theo’s eye twitches and I get the impression he’s trying very hard not to shout at me. ‘Some anti-viral medicine the doctor prescribed. Just take them.’

I do, as well as the extra-strength painkillers he offers me next.

Theo exhales heavily and pulls his seatbelt across his chest. ‘Right. Let’s get you back to bed.’

‘Thank you for looking after me,’ I say after we’ve been driving for a few minutes.

He just shrugs.

‘But why are you being so nice to me?’ I ask, the words muffled from where I’ve burrowed back under my blanket.

I peek over at him. He looks offended. ‘What do you mean? I am nice.’

‘Not to me,’ I say forlornly. ‘Not anymore.’

Theo frowns. ‘I’m not not nice to you,’ he says carefully.

‘I suppose,’ I agree. ‘But you’ve been ignoring me. I don’t like it. You think I’m bad at my job.’

He grips the steering wheel harder, keeps his eyes ahead. He doesn’t say anything for a long time and I can feel the pills he gave me starting to kick in. The sharp edges of the pain seem to dull and I feel woozy, heavy-eyed, everything seems softer now – me, the car, Theo, we’re all blurring gently together.

‘I’m sorry.’ Theo’s voice is soft too. I look over at him and he offers me a small, wry smile. His lips curve, his dimple flashes. ‘I was just trying… it doesn’t matter. I was an idiot. I’m really sorry, Clemmie.’

I want to lick your dimple, I think, only it’s possible I don’t just think it because Theo makes a strange choking sound.

‘You’ll feel better when we’re home,’ he says firmly.

And even though it doesn’t really mean anything at all, the way he says ‘we’ and ‘home’ has me smiling like an idiot as I fall back to sleep.

Chapter Sixteen

I am not a great patient and Theo is not a great nurse. In his defence, the man hasn’t had to take care of himself, let alone another person, for two decades. At first he hovers, anxiously, waking me up every ten minutes to ask how I feel and to take my temperature.

After the twelfth time, I summon the energy to throw my pillow at him and tell him in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t leave me alone to sleep, the zombie apocalypse will be the least of his worries. I use a lot of swear words. His eyes get bigger and bigger and at one point I think he’s going to laugh, but the glare I send his way has him swallowing the impulse.

‘Fine,’ he huffs, leaving the room with a muttered, ‘you know where I am if you need something.’ I can already hear him speed-dialling David but I don’t care and I crash out into an oblivion that lasts through to the next morning.

I’m woken by a lot of ominous banging noises from downstairs and the smoke alarm briefly blares. I later learn this is because Theo tried to make soup. He tells me this crossly, as if it was my idea, and I notice that three of his fingers have plasters on them.

‘You should have just heated some up from a tin,’ I say.

‘It was from a tin,’ he sulks.

Giving up on the soup plan, he brings me plate after plate of slightly burnt toast and forgets what medicine he’s given me and when. I groan and complain and tell him there’s this thing called a pen and he can write that stuff down. He tries to make me drink some of the green slime juice and there’s more swearing from both of us. Like I said, I’m not at my best.

Once I start feeling a bit better, I apologize. ‘I’m a horrible ill person,’ I wince. ‘Ask any member of my family and they’ll tell you. You should have run for your life the second my temperature started rising.’