Evanee heard Lathan open the door downstairs, heard him talking, but his words were a low murmur of indistinguishable sound.
“Where’re your gloves?” The guy—must’ve been Gill—didn’t quite shout the words, but his tone of disbelief carried up the stairs. “What the fuck does it matter how loud I talk? The louder the better, right?”
Lathan said something, his voice hushed and quiet.
“She? You’ve got a woman up there? In your bed?” Astonishment laced with consternation dominated Gill’s voice.
Time to go downstairs before Gill got the exact wrong idea, which wouldn’t be hard—until a few moments ago, she had been contentedly snuggling with Lathan. He was the bright side to the whole Junior situation. A situation she was gonna have to deal with.
Her stomach suddenly felt wrong. Sweat exploded from her pores, dripped down her face, soaked her clothes. Her skin flamed and itched like she’d rolled in a poison ivy patch. Her insides grew hotter than asphalt on a one-hundred-degree day.
It couldn’t be the stomach flu. Not now. A groan of impending calamity escaped her mouth.
“What’s wrong?” Lathan stood in the doorway.
“I’m going to be sick.” Somehow, she got out of bed, got into the bathroom, and got draped over the porcelain bowl. Thank God and all his fat little angels, the toilet was hygienically clean.
Her stomach contracted. Her throat opened. She wretched a cruel sound halfway between a cough and a sob, but nothing came out. Stomach contracted. Throat opened. Again and again, her innards tried to turn themselves inside out.
A cold cloth pressed against her neck.
She wanted to thank Lathan for that small kindness, but something inside her was wrong. Really wrong. Not just I’ve-got-the-flu wrong, but I’m-going-to-die wrong. Part of her felt light, untethered from her body, like she was a helium balloon floating into the sky. The other part felt her muscles, her organs tensing, fighting, rallying to save her. Save her from what?
“I need to go to the hos—” Her stomach clenched, choking off the rest of her words. The force of it lifted her body off the ground. Fire scorched up her throat. A scream erupted as black, curdled foulness spewed from her mouth in a giant wash.
She fell forward, unable to hold herself upright. Her eyebrow cracked against the porcelain bowl. Stars winked in front of her eyes.
Lathan snagged her arms, yanked her away from the bowl, and held her back against his chest.
His hands warmed her bare skin. Heat spread up her arms to her shoulders, across her chest to her heart, then pumped outward to her extremities. His hands were twin IVs of feel-good plugged directly into her veins. The pain in her stomach, the throb in her head diminished and then vanished completely. She felt surprisingly all right compared to how she’d felt only seconds ago. Weird.
Lathan shifted her around so she faced his chest and gathered her closer to him. His touch was so gentle, so caring, so intimate it almost brought tears to her eyes. She nuzzled her cheek against his shirt, concentrated on the fabric scratching against her face. Anything to distract herself enough to keep actual tears from forming.
“Gill. Take us to the hospital.” The command in his voice harbored no room for question.
She turned her head to see Gill standing only a few feet away from them. He stared at the toilet, his expression as impassive as plastic. He looked exactly like a full-size, real-life version of the Ken doll Rob had bought her as a butter-up-the-kid present before he’d married Mom. Gill had wavy blond hair and surfer boy looks—or maybe the actual Ken doll had been a Malibu Ken and that’s why Gill reminded her of a surfer.
It wasn’t fair, wasn’t his fault he reminded her of that Ken doll, but she instantly disliked him.
“No hospital. I’m fine now.”
Lathan drew back from her enough to see her face. “What did you say?”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital. I’m okay. Really. I’ll end up racking up a five-thousand-dollar bill just to be told I ate something bad.” She needed cash to get out of Sundew before she ran into Junior again. If she saved every penny, she might have enough money to start over somewhere new in two or three months.
Lathan stared at her, his eyes intense, penetrating, like he saw beyond her skin and muscle and bone to the person buried beneath a lifetime full of shit.
“You want to borrow a toothbrush?”
Heat blazed across her face. She slapped her hand over her mouth and nodded. Dear Holy Mother of Mercy, please don’t let him have smelled my breath.
He unwrapped his arms from around her. She suddenly felt exposed, naked, like he’d taken her clothes with him. She didn’t look at Ken Doll while Lathan got her a toothbrush, but she felt his gaze roaming over her, judging her clothes, her body, her motives.
Call her childish—she couldn’t help herself—but she looked at Ken Doll, crossed her eyes, and stuck out her tongue.
He tilted his head, a look of confusion on his face. “I think she should go to the hospital. That”—Ken Doll pointed at the toilet—“isn’t normal.” His voice was as deep as a seventies radio announcer’s. And just as sexist—speaking about her as if she weren’t standing four feet away from him.
“No. I’m fine.” She snapped the words a little too quickly, a little too loudly to pretend she’d been trying to be polite. Which she hadn’t. She should be nicer. The guy really hadn’t done anything other than remind her of the past.
Ken Doll looked beyond her to Lathan. “I’m pretty sure she’s withdrawing from something. Heroin maybe.”
“Heroin?” She was only two decibels away from shouting the word.
“Cocaine?” Ken Doll asked her directly.
“Cocaine?” One decibel.
“Pain pills. Ritalin. Doesn’t matter. You should still go to the hospital.” Ken Doll snagged her arm, just like Junior had earlier. “Then after our interview, you can choose to enter detox. Or you can always choose jail time instead.”