“Yeah, yeah …” He made it to the bathroom before he began to rock on his feet. He knelt down at the toilet and threw up for a second time. When he was done, he went into the shower, hunched over like an old man. I retrieved the waste can, dumped the vomit in the toilet bowl, and flushed everything down. I rinsed the basket in the sink. When it was clean, I went back to the couch and picked up his comforter and the pillows. I started to strip them but decided that everything needed to be dry-cleaned. I opened the door and took the linens to the laundry chute outside. Jorge said, “Everything okay, Doc?”

“Just doing some housekeeping.”

“Evan is coming on in about twenty minutes.”

“That’s fine. Have a good one, Jorge.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

The water was still running when I came back. I retrieved two water bottles and a bottle of Advil. Five minutes later, Chris staggered out and I handed him an extra-large bath towel.

He dried off his body and put on a fresh pair of sweats. “Go to sleep. I’m okay now.”

I gave him the water bottles and the medicine. “I threw your bedding in the chute. It all needs to be cleaned.”

He opened both water bottles and gulped them down. Then he popped four tablets into his mouth. “Thank you.” He looked at me. “Can I sleep in the bed?”

“It’s your place. You can sleep anywhere you want.”

“You know what I mean.”

I shrugged. “The bed is big enough to accommodate both of us.”

I slithered under the covers. Usually when he came in, I moved over from the edge, because we spooned as we slept, until I wriggled from his grip so we could both have a little room. Tonight, I remained stock-still, not giving up an inch. He got the message. The man was anything but dumb.

He went to the other side, got under the sheets, and curled up. He started trembling, shaking the bed in intervals. I felt as if I were lying next to a drunken passenger on an overnight flight with intermittent turbulence. I didn’t know if he could talk, but mercifully, he chose not to.

Eventually, the motion of his DTs rocked me to sleep.

CHAPTER 22

I WAS UP BY ten, feeling wasted and hungover. Chris was sprawled out on the bed, snoring but no longer shaking. The room smelled rank, and all the noises from last night were still ringing between my ears, enough to give me a massive headache. I took a quick shower and grabbed the bottle of Advil. Once out of the bedroom, I gulped water, then I started the coffeemaker and went to the half bath in Chris’s office area. My ass was still sore but no longer leaking blood.