He shuffled out of the kitchen, wide shoulders slumped and body tense with discomfort. He stopped behind the couch and looked at the way the couch had been set up, giving me a tiny, crooked smile. "Can I put my head on your lap?" he asked so sweetly that I couldn't find it in me to make a smartass comment.

"If you want," I told him, taking the pillow off the couch to set on my lap.

In a speed that was much faster than it should have been, he shuffled around the couch and plopped down, facing up with his head on the pillow that rested on my thighs. "Thanks, Kat," he cooed, looking straight up at me. "Will you rub my head for me?"

I couldn't help but snicker. "Are you serious?"

He nodded, looking sheepish. "My mom would always do that for me."

I rolled my eyes like I was annoyed but it was pretty cute. I started running my left hand through the wet locks of hair, slowly, and brushed my fingertips against his scalp. "Your parents live in Miami?" I asked.

He nodded in response before his eyes screwed shut. "Are you from here?" I asked another question. He shook his head.

"We lived in Chicago until I was about fourteen, then my dad got a job transfer," he explained, quietly. "Are you from here?"

I knew he was probably not exactly crazy about wanting to talk, so I did most of the talking myself like the night before. I explained how my family lived in Gainesville. We talked quietly for minutes, asking each other questions about our families. I learned that he was an only child just like I was. He also had an imaginary friend named Mickey until he was nine. I didn't bother asking where he got the name Mickey from, even though I really wanted to laugh. Soon enough, he'd fallen asleep with a relaxed look on his face. Exhausted and so warm with body heat, I felt myself nodding off and fighting the urge to close my eyes.

A quiet chuckle pulled me out of my dream state; my neck hurt from how I'd been positioned and my legs were asleep. I opened my eyes and looked down to see two green orbs looking at me in amusement.

"What?"

He chuckled again. "You snore."

"You're a liar." I snorted.

"I don't lie, you snore like a tiny, baby chainsaw. It's cute," He told me with a straight face.

"Shut up."

He cracked a tired smile. "You should look into voice-over work, if someone ever makes a movie with a little chainsaw you could cover it, hands down."

I snorted again. "I'm going to hock up a phlegm into your Theraflu."

"I could use the protein," the smartass said with a wink.

Chapter 21

"You," Zoey emphasized by pointing at me with her fork. "Spent three days at Tristan's house taking care of him because he had the flu?"

I pointed my fork tines in her direction. "Yes."

It'd been four days since Tristan had come down with the flu. After three days, he finally began to feel better despite still being weak. I had to explain that he'd probably be fatigued for a while since he'd hardly eaten anything besides soup, toast, and crackers at my insistence. He was really sweet and thanked me every couple of hours when I stayed with him. We watched TV and talked in the few hours when he was feeling about a six out of ten on the sick scale.

Not wanting to overstay my welcome, I told him I had plans and wouldn't be coming over. I did have plans; Zoey and I had a set date every Thursday morning for hot yoga class. Then we'd eat lunch afterward — and by lunch I meant we stuffed our faces with the most fattening thing we could find — because that damned yoga class made us almost pass out each time. I'd tried convincing her to just stick to a regular yoga class in the past, but she would start going on long rants about how the heat cleaned out our systems, and a million other benefits you could get out of being in a one hundred and fifteen degree room for over an hour.