“Don’t say stuff like that, okay, Chloe?” He crosses his arms.

I throw the pillow toward the end of the bed. “What? Why? We were kidding around. I was being my typical, hilarious self.”

He looks at me, then looks away. “You know why.”

And then he turns and leaves.

Chapter Eighteen

Without Nick around to warm my feet and make me hot toddies, I can’t fall asleep. I toss and turn, feeling feverish and sweaty, pulling the blankets up to my chin and then kicking them off. The TV is a blur of sitcoms, miscommunications, mistakes, laugh tracks.

I need to talk about this with someone, but I can’t call Annie. She’d be like, Omg, this is your romantic comedy, you found your Tom Hanks or Hugh Grant or Colin Firth or whoever and now you’re gonna ride off into the sunset! and I am so not in the mood for that.

Hey, I text Tracey. Can we hang out? I need to talk.

Tracey texts back immediately.

Is everything okay with your dad? He seems fine today. He complained about the meat loaf, but honestly the meat loaf here sucks so he was in the right.

Not Dad. Nick stuff.

Tracey responds with various suggestive emojis.

How do you even know there are so many dick-shaped emojis? I text back.

Lesbians have access to the same emoji keyboard as everyone else, bitch, she responds.

Okay. Well. I’m not sure I should visit Dad today because I’m sick.

Please don’t, she responds. Remember that time that Edith Clancy brought the norovirus in and everyone got infected and we had to quarantine the place for three weeks? I don’t want a repeat. How about I come over tonight after work.

Yes please, I text, and in a few hours, Tracey shows up with three bottles of Gatorade.

“Gatorade?” I ask. “What, am I LeBron James?”

“You’re welcome,” she says, putting them in the fridge. “Gatorade is good for you when you’re sick. You know, electrolytes. Also, what is this delicious-looking soup?”

“Nick made it,” I groan. “Therein lies the problem.”

Tracey heats up the rest of my hot toddy for me and makes herself a cup of tea, then sits down at the table (“I’m not joining you in your den of infection,” she says).

“Okay, spill,” she says. “Not the hot toddy, I mean. All the dirty, dirty deets.”

“Lower your expectations,” I say, and then I unload the whole story to her. How Nick and I shared a physical-contactless night in a hotel in Indianapolis (well, aside from how I woke up snuggled against him). How Nick brought me soup and hot toddies and watched wonderful horrible television with me. How I told him he looked like a hot dad and he left.

“Ohhhh,” Tracey says, taking a slow sip of her tea. “I see what’s going on here.”

“What?” I ask, sitting up straight in bed. “What do you think is happening?”