Chapter 10: Fever

June

Dom is at the kitchen table when I come down. It's barely six. The sun is just starting to come in sideways over the sink.

I didn't know he stayed over.

He has a cup of coffee in front of him that he isn't drinking. His hair is still wet from the shower, and his cheekbones are flushed red. When he looks up at me, his eyes are too bright.

"Morning," he says. His voice is rough.

"You sound terrible."

"Thanks."

I pour myself coffee and sit down across from him. When I was little, I'd start talking at Dom the second I saw him in the morning. Dogs I'd seen. Songs stuck in my head. Anything. This morning I hold my mug and don't say a word.

Dom notices. He always notices.

"Nico says Rook's truck was parked in the fire lane at St. Brigid's yesterday," he says. "For about half an hour."

I keep my eyes on my coffee. "Was it?"

"June."

"Snowline business."

"He signed you."

It isn't a question. Of course he already knows. In this town, Dom always knows everything about two hours before it happens.

"Yes," I say.

Dom turns his mug slowly on the table. "What'd it cost?"

It's what Nadia asked. The exact same words. My throat goes tight.

Don't tell Dom, Rook said. Let him see it.

"Nothing," I say. "He just wanted Nadia's drive."

Dom looks at me for a long time. I make myself look back. I'm a better liar than I used to be. Five years on my own taught me that much. But this is Dom, and I'm not sure I'm good enough.

Then he coughs. It's a deep, ugly cough that bends him forward over the table. He keeps his fist against his mouth until it passes.

I'm on my feet before I think about it. I come around the table and put the back of my hand against his forehead, the way Aunt Pat always does.

He's burning up.

"Dom. You've got a fever."

"It's a cold."

"It's not a cold. You're on fire."

I turn my hand over and lay my palm flat against his cheek to be sure. His skin is hot and rough with stubble. He's turned in his chair to face me, and now I'm standing right between his knees. I didn't mean to stand here. It's just where I ended up.

Dom goes very still.

Then his hand comes up and closes around my wrist. He keeps my hand right where it is, pressed against his face.

His eyes are closed. His hand is hot around my wrist. Under my palm, I can feel his pulse, fast from the fever.

Neither of us moves.

I know I should step back. Every part of me that's been told no for five years is telling me to take my hand away right now.

I don't.

"June," Dom says. He says it very quietly, with his eyes still closed.

That's all. Just my name, like a question he doesn't know how to finish.

Upstairs, a floorboard creaks. Then the third stair from the top creaks, the loud one.

Dom lets go of my wrist.

I step back so fast I bump into the table. My coffee sloshes over the side of the mug. I grab a dish towel and start wiping it up, hard, like it's the most important thing in the world.

Aunt Pat comes into the kitchen in her bathrobe and slippers. She stops in the doorway.

She looks at me, wiping up coffee that's already gone. She looks at Dom, sitting very straight in his chair with his hands flat on the table. For a second she doesn't say anything. Something crosses her face and goes away.

"Well," Aunt Pat says. "You two are up early."

"Dom's sick," I say. "He's got a fever."

Aunt Pat comes over and puts the back of her hand on his forehead, exactly where mine was. She clicks her tongue.

"Dominic. You're burning up. Back to bed with you."

"Can't." Dom stands and pushes his chair in. He doesn't look at me. "Got a sit-down at the clubhouse at nine."

"Then cancel it."

"Can't, Ma."

He takes his keys and his leather jacket off the hook by the back door. On his way out, he stops behind my chair. For one second, I think he's going to put his hand on my head the way he always does.

He doesn't. He walks out. A minute later, I hear his Softail start in the driveway and roll away down the hill.

I stand at the counter with the wet dish towel in my hands. My right palm still feels hot. I close my fingers over it, like I can keep it that way.

My phone buzzes on the counter.

It's the number from yesterday. I still haven't saved it.

Nine days. You own real boots, or do I need to buy you some?

I stare at the screen. Then I turn the phone face down on the counter, hard enough that the case clicks.

Aunt Pat is watching me. I can feel it on the side of my face.

"You going to the hospital later?" she asks.

"After lunch."

"Mm-hm."

She doesn't say anything else. She goes to the pantry and starts taking things down. A bag of apples. Cinnamon sticks. A jar of honey. A knob of fresh ginger.

I know what that means. Aunt Pat is making her sick tea.

I've hated ginger my whole life, and Aunt Pat has known it since I was five. That's why her sick tea always has so many apples and so much honey in it. So I'll actually drink it.

I haven't smelled it in five years. As the apples cook down and the cinnamon hits the hot pot, I realize how much I've missed it.

I sit at the table and peel apples while Aunt Pat cuts the ginger. For a while, neither of us talks. The radio on the windowsill plays an old Patsy Cline song very low.

"Pop and I have been talking," Aunt Pat says. She doesn't look up from the cutting board. "About Dom."

My knife slows down. "About what?"

"He's thirty, honey. He's running a whole chapter. It's time he settled down. Found himself a good old lady from a good club family." She scrapes the ginger into the pot with the side of her knife. "We've got a few in mind."

I keep peeling. The apple skin comes off in one long curl. I concentrate on not breaking it.

"That makes sense," I say.

"I thought you'd think so." Aunt Pat finally looks over at me. Her eyes are kind. They're also very careful. "You always did want what was best for him."

The curl of apple peel breaks and falls into the bowl.

"Yeah," I say. "I always did."

---

By noon, the whole kitchen smells like apples and honey, with the sharp edge of ginger underneath. Aunt Pat pours the tea into a big steel thermos and screws the lid on tight.

"He came down with that fever overnight, and he still won't wear a jacket on that bike." She holds the thermos out to me. "You're going out anyway. Take this by his place on your way."

I take it. It's hot through the steel.

"He'll be at the firehouse by now?"

"Should be." Aunt Pat picks up the dish towel I left on the counter and folds it, slowly, into a perfect square. She doesn't look up from it.

"Honey," she says. "When you get there, knock first."