He moved my hand off of him. “I can take care of myself, Amelia.”
Ignoring his comment, I simply said, “I’ll call Salvatore. Get some sleep.”
After another bout of vomiting, Justin turned in for the night. Even though I’d left some extra waters with him, I worried that maybe he wasn’t drinking anything. So, I decided to check in on him one more time before I went to sleep.
He was awake and sitting up on the bed and looked really pale.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit.”
“We should take your temperature again.”
This time when I pulled the thermometer out of his mouth, my heart nearly stopped. “Oh my God. It says one-hundred four point five. Justin, that’s dangerous. We need to get you to the emergency room.”
“I’m not going to the hospital.”
“This is not up for debate.”
Grabbing my phone, I immediately started searching the Internet for information on adult fevers. “It says here that a fever over one-hundred and five can be deadly. You could get brain damage.”
“That’s a little extreme. Don’t you think?”
“I don’t care if it’s extreme. You need to get seen.”
“I’m not going.”
“Then I’ll stay here all night until you agree to go.”
“Emergency rooms skeeve me out.”
“Would you rather be dead?”
“Hmm. It’s a toss-up between that and being stuck in this room with you yelling in my ear.”
“That’s real nice.”
“Why are you involving yourself in this, Amelia?”
“I don’t care how you feel about me, alright? I care about you. I always have, and I always will, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
After a long pause, he closed his eyes, and let out a deep breath. “Alright. I’ll fucking go.”
“Thank you.”
Justin was shivering during the dark ride to Newport Hospital. Before we left the house, I’d texted Jade and promised to keep her updated throughout the night.
When we arrived, we lucked out that the emergency room was pretty quiet. They took Justin right into one of the small curtained-off treatment areas in the back. No one—including Justin—protested my going back there with him.
They hooked him up to an IV and gave him Motrin. Over the course of an hour, they also ran a battery of blood tests.
A new doctor who had just come on shift entered the room.
“How are you feeling Mr. Banks?”
“Like crap.” Justin squinted his eyes to get a closer look at the doctor’s hospital I.D. “Is your name seriously Dr. Danger?”
The doctor rolled his eyes. “It’s actually pronounced like hanger. Dan-ger.”
“Do they know what’s going on with him, Doc?”
He held out his hand. “Call me Will. Please.”
I took it. “Amelia…”
He smiled, sort of giving me a flirtatious vibe. “Well, we think it’s a combination of things going on here. An unidentifiable bacterial infection that caused a high fever and vomiting in addition to dehydration. We’ve ruled out more serious issues.” He looked at Justin. “You’re very lucky your girlfriend brought you in. Fevers of that level can be quite dangerous in adults.”
Justin glanced over at me briefly before he turned to Dr. Danger again. “How long am I gonna be sick?”
“It’s probably going to last a few days, but we’d like to keep you overnight for observation because of the severity of your fever and to get some more fluids and vitamins into you.”
“I have to sleep here?”
“Yes. We’ll move you into a more comfortable room.”
Justin frowned. “Can I object?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m sure your girlfriend will keep you company.”
“Oh. I’m not his girlfriend,” I corrected. “His girlfriend is in New York.”
“Sister?”
“No. We’re just…” I hesitated. What were we? “We were friends years ago. Now we live together in a house we both inherited.”
Dr. Danger looked utterly confused then asked, “You’re not dating each other then?”
“No,” Justin was quick to answer.
“No,” I repeated.
“Do you live locally, Amelia?”
“Yes. I live about ten minutes down the road.”
“I’ve actually just moved here from Pennsylvania. Perhaps, you’d like to show me around the island sometime?”
He’d really caught me off guard. Dr. Danger—Will—was definitely attractive in a clean-cut semi-older way. With his dark hair and large brown eyes, he was handsome enough. I couldn’t say my body had anywhere near the reaction to him that it did for Justin. But maybe it would be good to accept his offer.
“Sure. That would be nice.”
“Great.” He fished inside the pocket of his white jacket for his phone. “Give me your number? I’ll program it here.”
Justin looked miffed as I recited my digits.
“The nurse will be back in to check on him soon. I’ll call you.” He winked.
“Okay.” I smiled, offering a small wave.
After Will left the room, Justin looked over at me from the bed and huffed, “What a fucking loser.”
“Loser? Why? Because only a loser would be attracted to me?”
“What kind of a doctor picks up a patient’s friend like that on the job?”
“Oh, now we’re friends?”