It was the poke to my forehead that woke me up. The “wakey, wakey,” that came after it that got me to open my eyes and squint up at the finger hovering over my face. But it was the dryness coming from my throat and the dull pain from my head that had me shoving down the sheet I had pulled up to my neck. I had no clue where my comforter had gone.
Sitting with his butt halfway on the bed, with his hand above my face, was a clean, fresh-looking Ivan in a blue T-shirt that made his eyes look as if he had on colored contacts.
“What do you want?” I moaned, shuffling up the bed until my shoulder blades rested on the headboard.
He ignored my borderline rude words and smiled. “Get dressed. You need a shower and you need to get out of this room for a while.”
I watched him the entire time I yawned, wincing at the soreness coming from my throat, and then reached over for the nearly empty glass of water that had been sitting on my nightstand since Ivan had left it there last night. Sipping what was left of the room-temperature water, I blinked at him and asked, “And that’s why you had to wake me up? To tell me to shower?”
“And get you out of the house.”
But I didn’t want to leave the house. Much less my bed. And especially not to shower.
His fingertip came at my face so fast I didn’t get a chance to move out of the way before he poked me on the forehead. “Get moving. Lacey isn’t exactly patient.”
“Who’s Lacey?”
“You’ll meet her in a minute. Hurry up. I’ll get you another glass of water in the meantime.” Ivan stood up and made a face. “Brush your teeth too.”
For a second, I thought about blowing out a long breath of air just for his comment, but didn’t have the energy… and he’d been nice to me for the most part. He’d at least gone totally out of his way since the day before.
I could keep my sick breath to myself this once, even though he was being an ass.
But the question remained… who the hell was Lacey and why did I have to meet her? Especially when I was sick. Just as I was about to open my mouth and argue with him, my head gave a throb to remind me my body was making up with this one virus, all the months and possibly years that had passed since the last time I’d been ill.
My whole body said, “fuck you,” as I flipped the sheet to the side and swung my legs over the edge. I wasn’t new to aches and pains, but there was a certain kind of hell that being sick put your body through. Everything from my eyeballs down to my toes ached and seemed to creak just from those movements, and I only barely held back a groan as I slowly stood up.
Ivan let out a “huh,” maybe seeing my face or sensing the stiffness in my movement, but he didn’t say anything else.
Just that was exhausting. “I don’t feel like doing anything.”
“I’m not going to make you do anything,” Ivan returned. “I already said that you need to rest.”
I eyeballed the jeans he had on. “Then… where are we going?”
His facial features didn’t give anything away. “Nowhere bad.”
I blinked.
“Do you trust—” He made a face. “Never mind. Just get dressed.”
It said how tired and crappy I felt that I didn’t argue or ask any more questions. I dragged my feet toward my dresser and pulled out underwear and a bra, becoming even more tired after that. Casting a side-look at Ivan, I found him still sitting on my bed… watching me. I sighed, and he raised his eyebrows again.
“I’ll be back in ten,” I basically whined, shuffling toward my door.
“Holler if you need me.” There was a pause and then, “I’ve already seen you almost naked twice. It’s no big deal.”
I would have choked if I had the energy, but I didn’t. I would have given him the finger too, but that didn’t happen either. All I managed to do was grab my bathrobe from the hook behind the door. I headed, huffing and puffing, to bathroom across the hall that I used to share with Ruby back when she had lived here. It took me longer than normal to shower, and it was only because my legs felt so damn prickly that I forced myself to shave. I didn’t have the energy to put lotion on or anything. I just barely managed to pull on my underwear and my most comfortable bra.
I slipped on my robe and was just about to tie the sash on it when my arms gave up. I just held it together at my waist as I dragged myself back to my room, asking myself one more time: Who the hell was Lacey? And, where the hell were we going?
I had barely made it two steps into the room… barely seen Ivan sitting on the edge of my bed directly besides my nightstand… barely caught on to the fact that the top drawer of it was open… barely caught on to the fact he was holding white sheets of paper that he shouldn’t have seen and shouldn’t have known existed, when Ivan’s head snapped up and I saw, I saw, his face was a color it shouldn’t have been.
And then he lost it.
“What the hell is this?” he asked, shaking the papers in his hand, angrily, so angry, so fast, I really felt bad.
Only for a second. But it still happened.
The breath I hadn’t realized I’d blown out of my lungs, came back in me before I managed to hiss out, “What the hell are you doing looking through my things?”
It was a sign of how angry he was that he didn’t immediately have a comeback for me.
It was my fault. I knew he was nosey. I knew he was nosey because I was nosey. But damn it! Those papers had been in there safely for years.
Ivan ignored my question, crushing the sheets in his hand so tightly, they formed partial balls. “Who… who…?” he stuttered, another sign of how furious he was. Ivan never stuttered. Never faltered. And even his neck was going red.
He gave the papers another shake. “Who did this?”
I swallowed.
“Who sent this shit to you?”
“Ivan—”
He shook his head, the hand holding the papers dropping until his fist bumped against his thigh, his head cocked to the side in anger. In so much anger, I could almost taste it. “Don’t ‘Ivan’ me. Where did these come from?”
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
I didn’t even think I could try and play stupid and act like the notes I’d had hidden in my drawer were a joke—because my mom wouldn’t look through my things, we were past that stage in my life. I knew Ivan too well. I knew he wouldn’t drop this crap until I explained every detail.
And I couldn’t say that I blamed him.
If I’d found pictures of naked men with his face taped to the bodies, with hearts glued to them, with arrows pointed at his genitals, connected to words like YUM and YES, I might laugh for a minute… and then worry like hell.
God, god, god, goddammit.
“Jasmine.” He started to get revved up all over again, the red on his face and neck climbing to the tips of his ears. Good lord, I’d never seen him so pissed. I didn’t even think he was capable of being so mad unless he was on the ice and something had gone wrong during a competition.
I held back my sigh, seriously regretting that I’d taken my hiding places for granted and hadn’t shoved them into my underwear drawer… or somewhere else that was harder to find. I’d throw them away, but I wasn’t an idiot, if anything ever happened, I needed proof.
Waving my hands, palms down, I tried to tell him in my softest voice, which probably wasn’t as soft as it needed to be, “Calm down.”
Yeah, that was the worst thing to do. He shook the fucking papers again. “Don’t tell me to calm down!”
Oh fuck me.
“You have a fucking stalker, Jasmine!” he yelled again, making me thankful that my mom and Ben were gone.
I winced, trying to think of what to say and coming up with, “He hasn’t threatened me….”
Ivan tipped his head back and made a noise I wasn’t really sure what it was called. A growl? “What the fuck?”
I finally snapped. “Don’t fucking yell at me!”