“Look, I need today, tomorrow—”
“We’re taking it off.” He blinked. “Why don’t you want to go to the doctor?” He squinted. “I swear, if you’re scared of needles—”
I moaned and started to shake my head before stopping myself when the pain there triggered my nausea. “I’m not scared of needles, who do you think I am? You?” I whispered.
Coach Lee was talking quietly on the phone, but neither one of us was paying her any attention.
“All right. You’re going to the doctor.”
I closed my eyes and told him the truth because he’d get it out of me eventually and I wasn’t in the mood for him to nag. “I don’t have insurance. I can’t afford a visit right now. Seriously, I’ll be fine. Just give me a day. It’ll pass. My immune system is usually great.”
Ivan’s lips moved. He blinked. He glanced up and then looked back down before shaking his head, his voice rising from a mutter. “You stubborn ass….”
“Fuck off,” I whispered.
Ivan hissed, “You fuck off. I’ll pay for your doctor’s visit and medication. Don’t be an idiot.”
I closed my mouth and swallowed the ache in my throat and the painful stab in my chest at his choice of words. “I’m not an idiot. Call me whatever you want other than an idiot.”
He either chose to ignore me or just didn’t care. “You’re an idiot, and we’re going to the doctor. Don’t let your pride get in the way of you getting better.”
That’s how bad I felt that I didn’t even argue with him. He had a point, unfortunately. I just closed my eyes and said, “Fine. But I’ll pay you back.” I swallowed. “It might take me a year.”
Ivan muttered something under his breath that didn’t sound very nice, but his palm stroked my hair some more, brushing through the strands like the last thing he wanted to do was hurt me. For once. It was nice.
“They can see her at noon,” Coach Lee finally said. “We need to reduce her fever in the meantime. Did you give her a painkiller already?”
“Yes,” the man whose thigh I had my head on replied.
They whispered some other words to each other, words too low for me to care about while I was debating if I could offer to pay Ivan to keep running his fingers through my hair, when I felt a tap to my cheek. “Hmm?”
“Time to get up,” Ivan whispered. “You need a shower.”
Get up? “No, thank you.”
There was a pause and then, “I’m not asking. Get up.”
“I don’t want to get up,” I whined.
“Okay,” he agreed too easily. “I’ll carry you in.”
“No thanks.”
His hand stroked over my head, then picked at the corner of the towel over my forehead and peeled it off, brushing his fingers over the skin there with those hands I knew so well that had never been so gentle before. His voice was low as he said, “I know you don’t want to, and I know you feel bad, but you need to get up, little hedgehog. You need to cool down.”
I groaned and ignored his h-word.
Ivan sighed, but his hand still petted my hair. “Come on. Get up for me.”
“No.”
There was a snicker and another stroke. “I wouldn’t have thought you were a baby when you got sick,” he said, sounding amused I thought but wasn’t sure because I was too busy trying to zone out how shitty I felt.
“Uh-huh,” I agreed, because my mom had always said the same thing. What a crybaby. I didn’t get sick often. It wasn’t like I tried to milk attention… even if she would have given it to me. But she was always more worried about my sister than me having a little cold or cough, and I’d never cared.
“Are you going to get up?” he asked, palming my forehead with a hiss I wasn’t so sick to not know it meant my skin was hot.
“No,” I said again, rolling onto my side so that my cheek was pressed to his thigh and my nose was at his hip. His crotch was right there, but his dick could have been out and I wouldn’t have cared.
“You’re not going to get up on your own?”
“No.”
There was a pause and a definite sound of amusement when he finally grated out, “If you insist.”
I insisted. I really insisted, especially as another shiver racked through my entire body, my spine aching in that way it only did after a bad season and real illness. I wasn’t getting up.
But Ivan had other plans.
Plans that involved him sliding out from under me while I groaned in protest at the loss of the most uncomfortable pillow I’d ever laid my head on, but beggars can’t be choosers so I’d take that hard thigh any day. Those plans were then followed up by two arms sliding into the same spots they’d been in minutes before: supporting my shoulder blades and the underside of my knees. Then, he lifted me and started walking, each step solid and balanced.
And I didn’t argue. Not even a little bit.
It might shame me later that I didn’t even try and help him with my weight to ease the load; instead I just lay there like a kid being carried to bed after a long car ride, with my head resting against his shoulder while I shivered some more. I could have walked, of course I could have. But I didn’t fucking want to. Not when he was so willing to help me out.
And just feeling his warm, hard body against me made me feel a little better.
In no time at all, he opened a door I hadn’t noticed before, leading us into a bathroom. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a shower stall with a sink and toilet. Ivan squatted and slowly let me get to my feet, where a head rush made me dizzy.
“You need a cold shower,” he said, stabilizing me with the arm around my shoulders.
“Ugh,” I mumbled, closing my eyes. He was right. I knew from the rare times I’d seen other people with high fevers how dangerous it could be. I didn’t need to lose any more brain cells. Another shiver tore through my body, and that had Ivan letting go of me and stepping around to turn the handle on the shower.
“Come on,” he urged.
I tried lifting my arms but let them drop when they didn’t move much more than an inch away from my body. Fuck. I was more exhausted than I could ever remember being before.
With a swallow, I opened my eyes again and thought, Fuck it. I’ll go in fully clothed. I had a change in my bag. Lee or Ivan could grab it for me. Doing my best impersonation of every single member of my family on Christmas, I stumbled forward, squinting my eyes because the bright overhead light was goddamn blinding.
But two steps before just walking right into the stall with my socks still on, Ivan’s arm went up, parallel to the floor, and blocked me from going any further. “What are you doing?” he asked.
I peeked at him. “Going in?”
“You’re fully clothed.”
“No energy to take my clothes off,” I said, sounding hoarse.
I didn’t miss the way he rolled his eyes. “I’ll help you.”
“Okay,” I whispered, not thinking twice about it. Why would I? He’d had his hands all over my body daily, had already seen me basically naked, seen me half-dressed, and in skintight clothes. We were past being self-conscious.
He hesitated for a moment… and then smiled a little. He took a step to the side to stand in front of me, that funny, small smile on his face, and he reached for the bottom of my tank. And before either one of us could overthink it, he pulled it up over my head.
Unlike some other girls I knew with little to no chests in figure skating, I always wore a sports bra. I liked the support. They didn’t need to be moving around the place when I was upside down, even if there was hardly anything that moved.
And if Ivan was surprised that I wasn’t braless under my clothes, it didn’t show on his face.