From Lukov with Love

“WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?” Ivan snapped about five seconds after coming out of a sit spin—the same sit spin I’d stumbled out of a second before, landing right on my ass. The same one I’d kept losing my balance on the last six times we’d done it. The same spin I could usually do over and over and over again, one variation after another, a flying sit spin, a death drop, with a twist…. It was usually no big deal.

Unless your entire body was burning up, every muscle between your knees and chin ached, and your head felt like it was about to explode.

On top of that, my throat was acting like I’d chewed on sandpaper, and just standing up in general was taking everything out of me.

I felt like shit.

Total, complete shit. I had all morning. I was pretty sure I’d woken up in the middle of the night—which I never did—because my head hurt and my throat had burned like I’d swallowed a glass of lava for shits and giggles.

But I hadn’t told Ivan or Lee about it.

With only one full day left before we started working on choreography, we didn’t have time for me to be sick. Since the morning of the day Ivan and I had watched Ruby’s kids, one thing after another had started acting up. My throat had started tingling, then tingling a little more. Another day my head began to feel weird. Then I started to get tired. Then everything started to ache, until bam. The fever came. And everything else decided to go full-fledged sick.

Ugh.

Flopping onto my back, the groan that came out of me was thanks to how bad my head was pounding. I couldn’t remember the last time my balance had been so bad. Never?

“Are you hung over?” Ivan asked from wherever the hell he was.

I started to shake my head and immediately regretted it when the urge to throw up kicked me right in the gut. “No.”

“You stayed up last night, didn’t you?” he accused, the quiet swish of his blades on the ice telling me he was getting closer. “You can’t be coming to practice exhausted.”

Rolling over and then coming to my knees, all I had the energy to do was wiggle the fingers on one hand. “I didn’t stay up, jackass.”

He huffed, the black of his boots coming into view. “You’re full of—” I saw his hand reaching for my upper arms too late. So late there was no way, no fucking way based on how shitty I felt, that I could have moved before he touched me. His hands grabbed me right above the elbows and just as quickly let them go.

I’d been so hot, I had taken off the pullover I had on over my tank top over an hour ago, leaving my arms exposed. If I could have stripped that off too, I would have.

Ivan’s hands went to my forearms, gripped them for a second, and let them go too.

“Jasmine, what the fuck?” he hissed, his palms going to my cheeks as I just waited there on my hands and knees because I had no energy left. If I could have laid down on the ice in a fetal position, I would have. He cupped my face for a moment, then moved his other hand upward to cover my forehead, cursing so creatively under his breath in Russian, I would’ve been impressed any other day. “You’re burning up.”

I groaned at the coolness of his hands on me and whispered, “No shit?”

He ignored my smart-ass comment and palmed the back of my neck, earning him a moan straight out of my mouth. Jesus, it felt good. Maybe I could lay on the ice for a minute.

“She’s got a fever?” I faintly heard Coach Lee ask as I started lowering myself slowly down, hands to elbows, then elbows going wide until I was sprawled spread eagle on the ice, my cheek on it, arms and palms flat on it too.

It was cold as hell, but it felt amazing.

I could hear Ivan talking to Lee, their words becoming fainter and fainter by the second.

“Give me a minute,” I said as loudly as I could, feeling the coldness on my lips and seriously feeling tempted to lick it.

I didn’t. I wasn’t sick enough to forget how dirty some people’s blades were.

I heard something that sounded like “stubborn” above.

Turning my face to the other side, I let the cold kiss my cheek and sighed. A nap sounded so good. Right here. Right now.

“Never mind, five minutes please,” I whispered numbly, trying to reach back toward my neck with one of my hands but too tired to even do that.

“Okay, all right, roll over, Jasmine,” a feminine voice I was pretty sure belonged to Coach Lee said from somewhere over my head.

“No.”

Three minutes. If I could just close my eyes for three minutes….

There was a sigh and then something that had to be fingers at one of my shoulders, pulling and yanking on me. I didn’t fight it. I didn’t move. But somehow, they rolled me over, and I just let them, flopping over almost painfully until I was on my back with the bright lights at the ceiling forcing me to close my eyes because they made my head worse. I had to grit my teeth to keep from moaning.

“Two minutes, please,” I whispered, licking my lips.

“Two minutes my ass,” Ivan replied a moment before something started forcing my shoulder upward, tunneling its way across and under my shoulder blades at the same time something else went beneath the backs of my knees, doing the same.

“Just a minute. Come on. I’ll get up, promise,” I got out as I felt myself being lifted. It wasn’t like I could see. I still had my eyes closed and probably would until the lights weren’t blinding me.

“I know there’s a thermometer in the staff room,” it sounded like Coach Lee said. “I’ll get it.”

“Meet you in my room,” I heard Ivan respond, drawing me off the ice and into his chest.

Oh God. He was carrying me.

“Put me down. I’m fine,” I croaked, feeling anything but fucking fine as a shiver raced across my arms and spine, making me shake.

“No,” was the one and only thing that came out of his mouth.

“I am. I can get through practice….” I trailed off, squeezing my eyes closed as my headache got worse and the urge to throw up did too. “Fuck, Ivan. Put me down. I’m going to throw up.”

“You’re not going to throw up,” he said, carrying me and skating at the same time from the movements of my side against his chest.

“I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“I don’t want to throw up on you,” I gasped, this fucking close to gagging as acid flowed around in my stomach.

“I don’t care if you do, but I’m not putting you down. Suck it up or swallow it, Meatball,” he said with all the comfort and care of my mom. Which was none.

My head throbbed. “I’m going—”

“You’re not. Hold it in,” this man—my partner—demanded, rocking me against him as he started walking and not skating.

“I’ll feel better if I throw up,” I whispered, the sound of my own voice irritating me. My throat irritating me even more. But I couldn’t be sick. We didn’t have time. “Let me, then we can get back to practice. I can take a Tylenol—”

“We’re not practicing anymore today,” he let me know in that annoying snobby voice. “Or tomorrow.”

That had me groaning as I tried to lift my head, which was against his shoulder, and realized I couldn’t even do that. I was gone. Jesus Christ. “We have to.”

“No, we don’t.”

I swallowed and licked my dry lips, but it didn’t do anything. “We can’t take time off.”

“Yes, we can.”

“Ivan.”

“Jasmine.”

“Ivan,” I basically moaned, not in the mood for this shit. My shit or his.

“We’re not practicing anymore, so stop bringing it up.”

We only had a day left. Choreography was supposed to start tomorrow. I started trying to roll up, engaging ab muscles that had decided to take a vacation, and… couldn’t. Oh my God, I couldn’t do shit.

Ivan sighed. “I’ll put you down in a minute. Quit squirming,” he ordered, still carrying me, still walking effortlessly, his breathing steady and even as he held me up in his arms.

I was going to blame being dizzy and exhausted on why I did what he said. And why I let my head rest against that curve between his shoulder and neck. I didn’t need to wrap my arms around his neck. There was no chance in hell he would drop me. This was nothing for him.

“Is your mom at work?” Ivan asked me quietly a moment later.

“No, she—she went on vacation with Ben to Hawaii,” I replied, weakly, just faintly taking in how quickly I’d gone downhill. Another shiver slid through my whole body, and I shook even harder than I had any time before. Damn it. “I’m sorry, Ivan.”

“For what?” he asked, tipping his head down to look at me from the way I felt his breath on my cheek.

I pressed my forehead against his cool neck and let out my own breath, dismissing the lines between his brows as aggravation, just noticing my shivering was going nonstop. “For getting sick. It’s my fault. I never get sick.” Another hard case of the shakes went straight from my shoulders down my spine.

“It’s fine.”

“It’s not. We can’t take the time off. Maybe I can take something, nap, and we can train again this evening,” I offered, each word coming out longer and more drawn out than the last. “I’ll stay as long as you want.”

From the way his neck moved, he had to be shaking his head. “No.”

“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’m really sorry.”

He didn’t say a word. Didn’t tell me it was fine. Didn’t tell me to shut up again. And I was too wiped to argue with him more.

But it was in no time, that he was walking us into his room at the Lukov Complex and then gently—so, so gently—depositing me on the couch so I could lay across it. I shook again, hot and cold at the same time, my back hurting even more than it had a few seconds ago. Putting my hands up to cover my face, I held back a moan.

This was what dying felt like. It had to be.

“You’re not dying, dumbass,” Ivan said a second before something was laid over my body and two seconds before something cold and wet was draped over my forehead.

Did he just…

Yes, he had covered me with a blanket and put a wet towel on my forehead.

“Thanks,” I had the clarity to say as I lay there, knowing I should wrap my head around what he’d done but feeling too much like shit to do so. Later, later, I could appreciate how nice he was being. But right then, it felt like my head was going to explode.

Ivan didn’t reply, but I did hear some other noises going on in the background, and at some point later, maybe seconds, maybe minutes, there was movement by my feet. A few seconds after that, one of my skates came off and then the next. I didn’t ask him to be careful with them. I didn’t say anything.

Then he said, “Sit up, Meatball.”

Obviously, he didn’t feel bad enough for me to not call me that.

I did, or at least I tried to sit up, but my body wasn’t functioning. It needed things: rest. Sleep. A good vomit. Some Tylenol. A cold bath and then a hot one. All of those things in no particular order.

He made some sound that came out like a huff, then his hand went to the back of my neck, lifting it and my head higher.

And then he slipped onto the couch.

And laid my head back down… on his thigh.

“Drink this,” he ordered as something smooth and hard touched my bottom lip.

I opened my eye to see him a holding a glass to my mouth. I reached toward it, weak, so damn weak, taking it from him because it was one thing to lay my head on his lap, but it was another thing to let him hold up a glass of water for me. I took a sip and then another one, my throat closing up around each drink in protest from how sore it felt.

“Swallow this too,” he said afterward, holding up two white tablets in his hand.

I glanced at his beautiful, stupid face.

And he rolled his eyes. “It’s not arsenic.”

I still looked at him.

“I’m not going to poison you until after worlds, all right?” he added, not sounding anywhere near as much of a smart-ass as he usually did.

Closing both my eyes at once in a way I hoped he took as “okay,” I opened my mouth and let him drop the tablets on my tongue, chasing them down with three painful gulps. Dropping my head back onto Ivan’s thigh, I closed my eyes. “Thanks,” I mumbled.

There was an “uh-huh” that I definitely heard in reply. What had to be fingers touched my hair, moving around my head. Gentle, gentle… until they started tugging.

“Oww,” I hissed, opening an eye to find him hunched over me, staring down with a frustrated expression, as he yanked on my hair again.

“What is this?” he hissed, pulling some more.

I flinched when he did it again. “A scrunchie?”

He pulled, but not tugging as many hairs out with that attempt. Just like a hundred. “It’s so tight.”

“No shit,” I croaked, not sure if he even heard me.

He made a face and gave my hair one last tug before pulling the band—and another two hundred strands of hair—out, holding them up victoriously. “How do you not get headaches using this?” he asked, looking at the black elastic like it was some crazy shit he had never seen before.

How had he not seen a scrunchie before with the other women he’d been partnered up with over the years? Ugh. I’d worry about it later. “Sometimes I do,” I whispered up to him. “I don’t exactly have a choice.”

He frowned at my explanation and then dropped his hand, making the band disappear for a moment before it was back and he was empty-handed. Closing my eyes once more, I felt his fingers go back to my hair and start stroking it away from my face and what had to be over his lap. It felt good, his thigh under my head, his fingers in my hair, and I couldn’t help the sigh I let out as he did it.

I might have dozed off, but the next thing I knew, something was poking at my lips, and I opened my eyes to find my head still on Ivan and a big hand holding a thermometer right in my face. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, so I opened my mouth and let him put the blue stick in, closing my lips afterward.

“She needs to go to the doctor,” Ivan claimed, looking over at where Coach Lee was sitting… which was on top of the coffee table, with a worried expression on her face. I hadn’t heard her come in.

Then I processed the word Ivan had used: doctor.

“I agree,” our coach replied, already digging into her pocket to take out her phone. “I’ll call Dr. Deng and then the Simmons to reschedule.”

Ivan glanced down and gave me a stern look. “Don’t say you’re sorry.” Then, before I could get out a word, he told the other woman, “Tell her it’s urgent. I’ll take her as soon as she has an opening. And tell the Simmons to keep their schedules open. I’ll make sure they’re taken care of for their time.”

She nodded, already pulling her phone to peck at the screen.

Meanwhile, I shook my head, waiting for the thermometer to beep so I could talk. Coach Lee was on hold when the device finally did. The display read 103.7. Great.

“No doctor,” I said, to both of them when Ivan took the thermometer out of my hand to get a look at the reading.

Those blue eyes flicked toward me for all of two seconds before going back to the thermometer.

“Ivan, no doctor.”

“You’re going to the doctor,” he let me know, his face tensing as he took in the number on the screen before saying to Lee, “Tell them her fever is almost 104.”

I licked my lips uselessly and looked up at him, the whole hot-cold thing making me want to kick off the blanket on top of me but also drag it up higher to my neck. “No doctor.” I swallowed, closed my eyes for a moment, and said, “Please.”

Ivan’s hand stroked my loose hair, and he gazed down at me. “Do you want to feel better or not?”

I tried to give him an ugly look but couldn’t get my face to work. “No, I love feeling like shit and missing training and screwing everything up.”

Both those thick eyebrows went up like “no shit.”

“Forget about it. You’re going to the doctor. If you need medicine, you need it the sooner the better.” He pursed his lips for a moment and then added, “So we can get back to the choreography. When you’re ready.”

This fucker. He knew exactly how to get me. Jesus.

“Look, I need today, tomorrow—”

“We’re taking it off.” He blinked. “Why don’t you want to go to the doctor?” He squinted. “I swear, if you’re scared of needles—”

I moaned and started to shake my head before stopping myself when the pain there triggered my nausea. “I’m not scared of needles, who do you think I am? You?” I whispered.

Coach Lee was talking quietly on the phone, but neither one of us was paying her any attention.

“All right. You’re going to the doctor.”

I closed my eyes and told him the truth because he’d get it out of me eventually and I wasn’t in the mood for him to nag. “I don’t have insurance. I can’t afford a visit right now. Seriously, I’ll be fine. Just give me a day. It’ll pass. My immune system is usually great.”

Ivan’s lips moved. He blinked. He glanced up and then looked back down before shaking his head, his voice rising from a mutter. “You stubborn ass….”

“Fuck off,” I whispered.

Ivan hissed, “You fuck off. I’ll pay for your doctor’s visit and medication. Don’t be an idiot.”

I closed my mouth and swallowed the ache in my throat and the painful stab in my chest at his choice of words. “I’m not an idiot. Call me whatever you want other than an idiot.”

He either chose to ignore me or just didn’t care. “You’re an idiot, and we’re going to the doctor. Don’t let your pride get in the way of you getting better.”

That’s how bad I felt that I didn’t even argue with him. He had a point, unfortunately. I just closed my eyes and said, “Fine. But I’ll pay you back.” I swallowed. “It might take me a year.”

Ivan muttered something under his breath that didn’t sound very nice, but his palm stroked my hair some more, brushing through the strands like the last thing he wanted to do was hurt me. For once. It was nice.

“They can see her at noon,” Coach Lee finally said. “We need to reduce her fever in the meantime. Did you give her a painkiller already?”

“Yes,” the man whose thigh I had my head on replied.

They whispered some other words to each other, words too low for me to care about while I was debating if I could offer to pay Ivan to keep running his fingers through my hair, when I felt a tap to my cheek. “Hmm?”

“Time to get up,” Ivan whispered. “You need a shower.”

Get up? “No, thank you.”

There was a pause and then, “I’m not asking. Get up.”

“I don’t want to get up,” I whined.

“Okay,” he agreed too easily. “I’ll carry you in.”

“No thanks.”

His hand stroked over my head, then picked at the corner of the towel over my forehead and peeled it off, brushing his fingers over the skin there with those hands I knew so well that had never been so gentle before. His voice was low as he said, “I know you don’t want to, and I know you feel bad, but you need to get up, little hedgehog. You need to cool down.”

I groaned and ignored his h-word.

Ivan sighed, but his hand still petted my hair. “Come on. Get up for me.”

“No.”

There was a snicker and another stroke. “I wouldn’t have thought you were a baby when you got sick,” he said, sounding amused I thought but wasn’t sure because I was too busy trying to zone out how shitty I felt.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed, because my mom had always said the same thing. What a crybaby. I didn’t get sick often. It wasn’t like I tried to milk attention… even if she would have given it to me. But she was always more worried about my sister than me having a little cold or cough, and I’d never cared.

“Are you going to get up?” he asked, palming my forehead with a hiss I wasn’t so sick to not know it meant my skin was hot.

“No,” I said again, rolling onto my side so that my cheek was pressed to his thigh and my nose was at his hip. His crotch was right there, but his dick could have been out and I wouldn’t have cared.

“You’re not going to get up on your own?”

“No.”

There was a pause and a definite sound of amusement when he finally grated out, “If you insist.”

I insisted. I really insisted, especially as another shiver racked through my entire body, my spine aching in that way it only did after a bad season and real illness. I wasn’t getting up.

But Ivan had other plans.

Plans that involved him sliding out from under me while I groaned in protest at the loss of the most uncomfortable pillow I’d ever laid my head on, but beggars can’t be choosers so I’d take that hard thigh any day. Those plans were then followed up by two arms sliding into the same spots they’d been in minutes before: supporting my shoulder blades and the underside of my knees. Then, he lifted me and started walking, each step solid and balanced.

And I didn’t argue. Not even a little bit.

It might shame me later that I didn’t even try and help him with my weight to ease the load; instead I just lay there like a kid being carried to bed after a long car ride, with my head resting against his shoulder while I shivered some more. I could have walked, of course I could have. But I didn’t fucking want to. Not when he was so willing to help me out.

And just feeling his warm, hard body against me made me feel a little better.

In no time at all, he opened a door I hadn’t noticed before, leading us into a bathroom. It wasn’t anything fancy, just a shower stall with a sink and toilet. Ivan squatted and slowly let me get to my feet, where a head rush made me dizzy.

“You need a cold shower,” he said, stabilizing me with the arm around my shoulders.

“Ugh,” I mumbled, closing my eyes. He was right. I knew from the rare times I’d seen other people with high fevers how dangerous it could be. I didn’t need to lose any more brain cells. Another shiver tore through my body, and that had Ivan letting go of me and stepping around to turn the handle on the shower.

“Come on,” he urged.

I tried lifting my arms but let them drop when they didn’t move much more than an inch away from my body. Fuck. I was more exhausted than I could ever remember being before.

With a swallow, I opened my eyes again and thought, Fuck it. I’ll go in fully clothed. I had a change of clothes in my bag. Lee or Ivan could grab it for me. Doing my best impersonation of every single member of my family on Christmas, I stumbled forward, squinting my eyes because the bright overhead light was goddamn blinding.

But two steps before just walking right into the stall with my socks still on, Ivan’s arm went up, parallel to the floor, and blocked me from going any further. “What are you doing?” he asked.

I peeked at him. “Going in?”

“You’re fully clothed.”

“No energy to take my clothes off,” I said, sounding hoarse.

I didn’t miss the way he rolled his eyes. “I’ll help you.”

“Okay,” I whispered, not thinking twice about it. Why would I? He’d had his hands all over my body daily, had already seen me basically naked, seen me half-dressed, and in skintight clothes. We were past being self-conscious.

He hesitated for a moment… and then smiled a little. He took a step to the side to stand in front of me, that funny, small smile on his face, and he reached for the bottom of my tank. And before either one of us could overthink it, he pulled it up over my head.

Unlike some other girls I knew with little to no chests in figure skating, I always wore a sports bra. I liked the support. They didn’t need to be moving around the place when I was upside down, even if there was hardly anything that moved.

And if Ivan was surprised that I wasn’t braless under my clothes, it didn’t show on his face.

Then again, if he was, I barely had my eyes open so I might have missed it.

But his hands continued their path down until he got to the top of my tights, and taking a knee, he stripped those down my legs. Just as I was about to try and toe my socks off, still down there, he picked up one of my legs with one hand, and with the other, pulled off the thin socks and bandages I’d put on that morning, dragging the flat of his thumb over the arch before lowering my foot and picking the other one up. He did the same to it, his eyes lingering on my toes if I was seeing correctly, and if I’d had the energy, I would have scrunched up my sparkle pink nail polished toes. The fact that he glanced up at me and smiled, kind of threw me off, but I didn’t let my thoughts linger there. My stomach gave a roll, and I just barely managed not to throw up the breakfast I’d forced down that morning.

Ivan snickered as he gave my heel a squeeze and dropped my foot. “In you go, champ.”

I was dead asleep when something—or someone—hit my forehead. Hard.

Then that something—or someone—hit me three more times, one right after the other. It was the fact that there was a rhythm to it that had me snapping my eyes open.

Someone was knocking on my forehead.

And that someone was Ivan.

Ivan who was leaning over me, his fist held just a couple inches away from my face. He was smirking. At me.

“Wake up, Outbreak monkey. It’s time for your next Tylenol.”

I blinked. Then I looked at the ceiling behind him, trying to remember what the hell was happening. It was then, as I was wondering that, that my head reminded me it was still hurting. Still hurting. I shivered, a reminder that I’d had a fever. More than likely still had one if the tremor that went through my body meant anything.

I was sick. The doctor had said it was a virus. Ivan had driven me there, then afterward, taken me to the pharmacy, where I’d sat in the car, shaking from hot to cold, to buy a bottle of Tylenol because I couldn’t remember how much I had. Then, he’d taken me home. Home to an empty house because my mom and Ben were gone, enjoying the beach and doing fun shit I would love to do.

Instead, I was in my room, under the covers, having my forehead used as a bongo drum by someone who was clearly enjoying it.

“What time is it?” I asked, trying to scoot up toward the headboard while I blinked, just barely noticing how raspy and hoarse my voice sounded. It was even worse than it had been before.

“Time for you to take your Tylenol,” he replied, shaking the fist he’d been using to knock on me.

I groaned and tried to roll to my side so I could go back to sleep, but he grabbed my shoulder and moved me back to lay the way I’d been.

“Two more and then you can go back to sleep,” he tried to compromise with me.

“No.”

Those glacier eyes stayed locked on me, his facial expression still a happier one than I ever would have bet on. His voice though, didn’t sound so playful. “Take the pills, Jasmine.”

I closed my eyes and moaned at how much my back and shoulders ached. “No.”

I could see the sigh he let out in his shoulders. “Take the damn pills. Your fever still hasn’t broken,” he ordered, still holding on to my shoulder because he knew damn well the second I got a chance, I’d try to roll over again. Ugh. Was I that predictable?

“My throat hurts,” I whispered, using that against him.

He sighed again, shaking his fist once more. “I’m not buying you children’s Tylenol. Take the pills.”

I closed one eye and left the other one open as I whispered, “I don’t want to.”

I’d swear on my life, Ivan flashed a smile so quick, it was there and then it was gone. Back to normal. Back to trying to boss me around for my own good. “You need them,” he reminded me.

I just stared at him with my one eye.

“No?”

“No,” I said, just barely loud enough for him to hear.

His jaw twitched, and his gaze narrowed. “Your mom warned me you’re a pain in the ass when you’re sick.”

She would say exactly that, that didn’t surprise me. I was a whiney little bitch when I was sick. It was true. So I didn’t waste my words and throat on agreeing.

What I did wonder was… when the hell had he talked to my mom?

And just as soon as I wondered that, I decided I didn’t give a shit.

Then it hit me. “I forgot to call—”

“Your mom called your boss for you,” he cut me off. “Now take them.”

“No.”

“You want to play this game, we can play this game,” he replied easily, making me suddenly wonder if I was screwing up. He kept going. “You’re going to take them.”

I swallowed and winced at the ache that answered that action.

The blink he gave me put me on edge instantly. Then his words confirmed that tiny worry he’d given me. His voice was low as he said, “You’re going to take them, or I’m going to make you take them.”

Ugh.

“Bitch,” I whispered.

He beamed at me, literally beamed, fully aware that we both knew his threat wasn’t in vain. Not at all. Not even a little bit. “You ready then?”

I opened my mouth, shooting him the nastiest look I was capable of while basically looking like a baby bird, and watched as he moved his hand over my face and dropped the pills into my mouth a moment before handing over a glass of water. Three small sips later, I swallowed the medicine and handed the glass back over. He took it and set it on the nightstand, before turning to me from where he’d been sitting on the edge of my bed the whole time.

“You feeling any better?” he asked.

“Little,” I whispered, because I was. Just a little. My headache wasn’t as bad, and even though I knew I had a fever, I was pretty sure it had to have gone down some. At least that’s what I hoped. I had to get better as soon as possible. That I hadn’t forgotten.

Ivan gave me a microscopic smile, his fingers coming back to touch my forehead with the backs of them, gentle, gentle, gentle. “Your fever has gone down. It was down to 102 when I checked it an hour ago.”

He’d checked it an hour ago? God, I was out of it.

Ivan flipped his hand over and touched my cheek with the tips of those cold fingers. “You want another wet towel for your head?”

“No,” I answered before adding, “thank you.”

That got me another little smile. “You want anything?”

“To feel better.”

“You’ll be better tomorrow,” he said.

“I have to.”

He rolled those bright blue eyes. “No, but you will,” he claimed, scooting his hip further into the bed. “There’s some soup for you downstairs.”

I couldn’t stop the frown from coming onto my face. “You made it?”

“Don’t look at me like I’m trying to poison you. If I wanted to, I would have done it already.” He grazed my forehead with the tip of his finger. “Your brother’s husband brought it over.”

Now that time, I did smile, thinking of sweet, wonderful James. “He makes the best soup.”

“It smelled good. He wanted to see you, but you were sleeping.”

I pulled the top of the comforter up, my muscles protesting that movement alone, but somehow I got it to go up the two inches to reach my chin. “He’s the best.”

That made him blink. “You think somebody’s the best?”

“He is,” I said. “My mom is too. So is my sister, Ruby. My sister Tali when she isn’t having girl problems.” I thought about it and swallowed again. “Lee’s pretty cool. My brothers are too, I guess. Aaron’s great. He can be on the list too.”

Ivan made a noise, then scooted even further into the bed. I watched him and slid to the side to give him more room, wondering what the hell he was doing. His hand landed on the spot over the covers where my elbow was tucked inside, and he asked, almost hesitating, which wasn’t at all like him, “And your dad?”

That’s how crappy I felt that I couldn’t even get mad at the mention of my dad’s name. Or disappointed, which said something too. But I told him the truth. “Not to me.”

I’d barely gotten the words out when his eyes sliced in my direction.

But he didn’t ask why I thought that, and I was genuinely relieved. He was the last person I wanted to talk about. If not the last, then in the top three. Top four for sure.

“Anyone else on the list?” he asked after an awkward second while I’d been thinking about my dad.

“No.”

I didn’t miss the casual look he slipped me before mentioning, “I’ve won two gold medals.”

“You don’t say,” I muttered sarcastically, watching him continue to shift on my mattress until his right side faced me.

“Yeah,” he answered just as sarcastically. “Not one. Two. A few world championships too.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I croaked, my throat demanding water, as he then began to scoot backward until his spine met up with the headboard, just like mine had.

Ivan kicked his legs into the air, toeing off one fancy black leather boot after another, letting each thump to ground. “Some people think I’m the best.”

“Who?” I snorted weakly as I watched him settle his legs onto the bed, crossing one ankle over the other, showing me the purple and pink striped socks he had on.

He angled his upper body just enough so he could watch me with both eyes, chin to his T-shirt-covered chest. “Lots of people.”

I gasped, immediately regretting it because it made my throat ache. “I mean… I guess you’re pretty cool too.”

Those ebony eyebrows went up. “You guess?”

“I guess. Your skating is pretty good. And you’ve been really nice to me today. Yesterday. I don’t even know what day it is,” I mumbled. “You can be on the list too, if you’re going to make it awkward.”

“Don’t sound so excited.”

I laughed, wincing as I did it, and eyed the long body beside mine, the fingers knit on his chest that had at some point been running through my hair while I’d been at my worst. And without thinking about it, I scooted closer to him, wanting the touching again, wanting affection, lining up our hips and making my legs rest against the sides of his even under the covers. I swallowed, knowing somewhere inside of me he wouldn’t tease me about wanting to be closer to him, and tipped my head to the side, resting it on his shoulder. We had been closer than this every hour of the day for the last two months. It didn’t mean anything, I told myself. It didn’t mean a single thing. And that’s what I was going to go with, regardless of the knowledge that I had never, ever done something like this with bitch-ass Paul.

“You are the best,” I told him, sounding about as weak as I felt, “at pairs skating.”

Something landed softly on my head as he snickered, and I figured he was resting his head or cheek on top of mine. “Thanks for making sure to clarify that.”

I laughed some more, the sting totally worth it. “You’ve been a good friend to me so far, but I really only have your sister to compare you to.”

“Hmm,” he sighed, shifting in his spot beside me, before slipping his arm over my shoulder unexpectedly. It wasn’t like I was going to complain. It was warm and heavy, and I liked the way it made me feel: cocooned. Safe. I liked it a lot. “That’s true.”

“She used to let me borrow her clothes before she grew eight inches and left me behind. But she can’t pick me up like you do.”

His laugh was soft as he agreed. “You’ve got a point, Meatball. I’m easier to look at though.”

I couldn’t help the snort that I instantly regretted. “You’re so annoying.”

“You keep saying that.”

I smiled against his shoulder and heard a huff of air that told me he was more than likely doing the same exact thing. “You don’t have to stay, you know.”

“I know. Your mom said your sister or brothers could come check on your grumpy ass until she gets back,” he let me know.

I made a face. “She calls Tali throwing saltine crackers and Gatorade into my room taking care of me. I’d rather be by myself.”

“No Gatorade and no saltine crackers. That’s the last thing you need,” he said. “Sugar and pointless carbs won’t do anything.”

Leave it to Ivan to judge every ounce of nutrition that went into my mouth.

“Now I definitely can’t leave you, if that’s what will happen if I do,” he whispered.

I snickered.

“I don’t mind staying a little while longer, but I need to go home later, at least for an hour.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I registered that he had to leave to go do something. Just like he had when he’d babysat Jessie and Benny with me, and just like when he’d eaten dinner at my mom’s. But I didn’t focus or question what and why he had to leave. I was too tired.

“You can go now if you want.”

“No, it’s only five, Meatball,” he replied. “I’ve got hours. It’s fine.”

“I’m sure you have better things to do.”

The arm over my shoulder went down, and Ivan’s hand went to my shoulder, cupping it before going up and down my upper arm, one stroke up, one stroke down. “Be quiet and go back to sleep, all right?”

Sleep? It sounded wonderful. Just fucking awesome.

Without arguing, I closed my eyes, and asked with an exhale after I got a whiff of the light cologne he wore every day without fail, “Do you do this for all your partners? Or just the ones you’re stuck with for a year?”

Beneath my cheek, his body tensed and stayed tense even as he answered. “Stop running your mouth and go back to sleep, would you?”

I moved my palm just enough so that it lay directly over the flat, solid slabs called his abs. I’d seen them a hundred times in glimpses here and there when he’d take off his sweater, or reach up to stretch or scratch his stomach… but I hadn’t touched them. Not once in more than brushes. But they were just as hard as they looked.

“You really don’t have to stay,” I repeated myself again as exhaustion weighed heavy on my eyes, trying to give him an opening.

He sighed, and I sensed him shaking his head. “Nobody else is going to take as good care of you as I will.” He had a point, didn’t he? The faster I got better, the better it would be for him. For both of us.

If that was disappointment in my belly, I ignored it. It didn’t matter. He was here now, doing what nobody else would want to do.

“Before you fall asleep again, where’s your remote?” he asked.

Reaching behind me blindly, I grabbed the remote off the other nightstand and then dropped it on his stomach.

And I passed the fuck out.

Something warm touched my mouth later, and I’d swear I heard, “Drink it, baby,” whispered to me.

And I drank it all. Whatever the hell it was.

I woke up at one point, sensing my head on something hard, and peeked my eyes open enough to find that I had my head on a lap, my arm thrown over kneecaps. The television was on softly, and the comforter I’d crawled under had been kicked down to the bottom of the bed.

I was sweating. Hot. But somehow I managed to fall back asleep.

“Jasmine,” a familiar voice whispered into my ear, stroking my hair and then arm. “I need to go home.”

I felt like shit. All I could do was mutter, “Okay.”

Ivan’s familiar hand stroked my hair, my arm, my wrist, lingering there. “Your cell is right next to you. Your mom said someone would come check on you. Call me if you need anything though, all right?”

“Uh-huh,” was all I managed to get out before his fingers, or his hand, left my wrist.

“I’ll be here in the morning,” he said, something warm and damp touching my forehead so lightly and quickly, I thought I might have imagined it.

“Thanks,” I whispered in my one moment of clarity, my throat parched.

“I left you water on both nightstands. Drink up.”

Something else touched my forehead, and I sighed an, “Okay, Vanya.” Then, I rolled over and went back to sleep.