Okay, so maybe he was a selfish asshole. It’s quite possible the river of tears was for the extreme pain she was in. He knew what it felt like because he had had mono sophomore year, and it sucked.
He brushed a damp curl off her forehead and tried to tuck it behind her ear. But Brynn’s hair had a mind of its own and had no intention of obeying. Kind of like the girl herself.
Jamie bit back a smile.
“Mono?” Brynn croaked.
Holly was still in the hall, standing up now and, at the utterance of the word “mono,” she ran to her own room and slammed the door.
“Let me know when you’re on some antibiotics or something, and then I’ll come out!” she called from the other side.
He chuckled. Typical Holly.
“Where are your parents?” he asked, and Brynn flopped back down on the bed.
“Out,” she whined. “My dad has some work dinner thingy in the city, so they’re staying the night in a hotel.”
He looked at the pout on her lips, letting his mind wander for a few seconds. What would it be like to kiss those lips? What if he was the guy Brynn was willing to risk her health—and others’—to see?
She whimpered, and he drifted back to reality.
“Holly!” Jamie kept his eyes on Brynn while he called for her sister.
“What?”
His eyes grew wide. Holly sounded much closer than she should have, considering she was barricaded next door.
“The vent,” Brynn said, and Jamie couldn’t help but laugh.
“You guys still do that?” he asked, heading toward the wall Brynn’s room shared with Holly’s. He dropped to a squat and directed his request toward the metal slats of the vent in the floor.
“Holly?” he called, using his indoor voice this time.
“James?” she responded, and he had flashbacks to when he and Brynn were in middle school, sitting in her room doing homework while Holly and her friends giggled and squealed next door, some of them professing their love to him—through the vent, of course. Brynn had always laughed and rolled her eyes.
“Don’t they know you’re practically our brother?” she’d once said. Jamie hated that she still saw him like that now.
“Call your parents and ask if I can take Brynn to urgent care,” he told Holly.
“Okay, James.” He could hear her smile.
“And Holly?”
“Yes, James?”
“Stop calling me James.”
He smiled, too. Then he heard Holly speaking to her mom.
“Are you sure it’s mono?” she asked him.
“Pretty sure,” Jamie said. “I had all the same symptoms.”
He glanced back at Brynn, who had turned to her side to watch the back and forth between Jamie and Holly. He wondered if she had any clue what she did to him, if she knew how much he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and hold her until she felt better. And maybe after that, hold her a little more.
He lay down next to her and tilted her glasses up so he could swipe a thumb across her tear-streaked cheek.
“You’re burning up, B.” He let the frames fall softly back against the bridge of her nose.
“I know,” she whispered. “I took my temperature. But I thought if I didn’t admit how bad I felt that I could ignore it.”
He pressed a kiss to her forehead, her skin like fire against his lips. But he didn’t care, not if he could give her the smallest bit of comfort.
“You know I’d give my left arm to make you feel better, right?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “It’s not that big of a sacrifice, considering you’re a righty. If you really cared—” She cut her own joke short to attempt a swallow, and it only made her cry more.
“For you, Sleepy Jean, I’d give them both.”
Fuck. He was a goner. How he made it through this year without blurting out his feelings was a mystery, because when she looked at him like that, like he was the only one who could fix the mess that was her night, the words repeated over and over again in his head: I’m in love with you, B. But she’d made no secret of how she felt about Spencer Matthews since the school year started, which meant Jamie was well practiced in the fine art of holding it all in.
“Mom wants to know how high her fever is.”
Brynn tried to clear her throat, then moaned in pain before she said, “One hundred and two.”
Jamie repeated the response to Holly, then sighed as he looked at his miserable friend.
“Does she want them to come home?” Holly asked, and Brynn shook her head, her eyes still on Jamie.
“Are you sure?” she asked. “Because this is it. Our last high school party. I don’t want you to miss it, too.”
Shit. If she only knew how many other parties he would have skipped if it meant a night alone with her instead… But all he said was, “I’m sure.”
Brynn tilted her head back in the direction of the vent.
“My night and, let’s face it, my goal for the year are out the window,” Brynn said. “Tell them Jamie will take me to the doctor, and then I’ll go to sleep. They don’t need to ruin their night.”