And Ronnie of all people poked his head through the crack. His left eyebrow was sky-high. “Sounds like you’re awake?”
“Yeah.” Greg exhaled slowly. He dragged his hands over his face and looked at the clock again. “Finally.”
“You needed it.”
“You’re not the only one who thinks so.” Unable to keep the bitterness from his voice, he shifted forward, testing himself and his balance before setting his feet down on the carpet. His head swam, but he had to get up. He
should
have gotten up four hours ago. A pathetic little whinge broke free of his lungs.
“Whoa,” Ronnie said. “Easy.” He’d gotten across the room awfully fast, had set something down on the floor, and then his hand was on Greg’s shoulder, steadying him.
Greg shook his head. “Gotta—”
“Gotta plant your ass there and take it easy for a minute? Why, yes. Yes, you do.”
“No, you don’t understand.”
“
You
don’t understand, but if you’d listen for three seconds, maybe you would. Here.” Ronnie reached over, going for whatever he’d set down on his way in, and— Greg furrowed up his brow. Since when did they even own a tray?
Wherever the tray had come from, Ronnie grabbed a cup of coffee off of it and passed it to Greg, and Greg’s eyes widened. God,
coffee
. Greg couldn’t even suppress the little moan as he wrapped his hands around the mug and brought it to his lips, taking a careful sip of it. He took another, bigger one when the liquid didn’t burn his tongue.
Pulling it away from his mouth, he sighed and braced his elbows on his knees against the lingering shakiness in his limbs. The coffee was a tawny caramel color, just the right amount of cream, no sugar, thank you very much. Anything still left of his migraine started to dissolve on his tongue.
“There’s food, too.”
Just like that, Greg’s stomach made itself known. He’d been too sick to eat last night, and now that he’d been reminded food existed, he was ravenous. Stretching to set his mug down on his bedside table, Greg held out his hand for the plate of eggs and toast and fruit Ronnie was holding out to him. It smelled like the best thing ever. Still wary, though, he tested himself on the toast first. Only once he’d gotten it down without any threat of consequences did he tuck in to the rest of it, trying to eat slowly but fairly shoveling it in.
Making a little chuckling sound, Ronnie stepped away to fall into Greg’s desk chair. “Marsh said you’d probably be starving.”
“Don’t even get me started on Marsh,” Greg managed between bites. “He turned off my alarm. Speaking of which—” Balancing his plate on his knees, he made a move for his phone, but Ronnie swooped in and stole it first.
“After,” Ronnie admonished, pointing at Greg’s plate.
Greg gave him a look, though it probably lacked gravitas what with his fork hanging out of his mouth. He chewed and swallowed, then insisted, “I’m late for work.”
“Taken care of.”
That made Greg stop cold. “Excuse me?”
“Taken care of. You’ve officially called in sick. Your boss said to tell you to feel better.”
Greg’s brows felt like they met his hairline. “You talked to my boss?”
“Not personally, but I was asked to relay the message. Not only that, but you’ve been told to take as much time as you need, since you’ve been so accommodating these past couple months.” Ronnie’s level gaze dripped accusations. And sure, Greg had been filling in for other people a little more than he needed to, strictly speaking, but someone had to do it.
“They needed me,” he offered weakly.
Ronnie was having none of it. “Anyway, you don’t need to worry about work today.”
It took a minute for that to sink in. And then about thirty seconds to move on to what else was fucked so far this morning. “I was going to get my lessons put together before work.”
“Which, considering Jason is covering your class, is just as well.”
“Jason? Why would he—”
“Because he heard you needed the help.”
“I don’t need…” Greg trailed off, unable to finish that sentence. He did need the help. He’d been desperate for a way to keep everything he was juggling aloft, but he hadn’t asked for it.
He worked hard. He pushed himself. It was what he did. People stepping in to offer…no one did that. If you didn’t take care of it yourself, nothing ever got done—how many times had he learned that?
Suspicion was a point of ignition in his brain. Slowly, setting aside his demolished plate, he turned to Ronnie. “And what else do I not have to do today?”
Ronnie’s grin went shark-like. He sensed Greg had cottoned on, now. “Well, I’m taking your shift at the registration desk—and don’t even try to argue. I owe you one for that help you gave me with my low-pressure experiment last week. I owe you a lot more than one.”
“We all do favors for each other,” Greg argued, though he wasn’t sure why. The dizziness now wasn’t about a migraine hangover or low blood sugar. It was the sheer novelty of being able to breathe without feeling like he was about to be crushed.
“And you do more favors for all of us than anyone else. Don’t you get that? Every time, man, you always come through. You never say no. It’s why I come to you so often—and don’t think I didn’t get a reaming out about that—”
Wait, what? “Who reamed you out?”
Softening his smile, Ronnie shook his head. “Who do you think?”
Greg threw up his hands. “Everything that’s happened since I woke up this morning has been a mystery to me.”
Ronnie’s pause was longer this time, more considering. “You’re a smart guy. What do you
think
is happening here?”
“I don’t know,” Greg insisted, getting frustrated now. “You’re staging an intervention—”
“I’m not doing anything. Not me. Greg, seriously?”
“Look—”
“I’m just the one conveying the message, because your boyfriend had to go to practice and didn’t want to wake you up.”
Everything suddenly went very quiet in Greg’s head, all his thought processes stuttering on a word that should have stopped meaning anything back in high school, if he’d, you know, been dating in high school. If he’d ever managed to keep anyone’s interest for any substantial period of time. Then all the objections and the equivocations crowded back in. “Marsh? He’s not— We’ve never said.”
Ronnie leveled him with a look that could peel paint. “From what I heard last night, you two haven’t said
anything
you need to. But let me tell you this. That boy took care of you last night, and when he was done, he came out fighting and he took every single person who’s been taking advantage of you or asking too much of you to task. I’m not too proud to admit that included me.”
And that didn’t make any sense. Greg had been trying not to bore Marsh with too much of the minutiae of his schedule. He hadn’t been able to hide that he was a giant ball of stress, no, but he’d never asked for any of this.
Maybe he could have. All along, maybe Marsh had been waiting for him to.
“How—” he started.
But Ronnie was still enumerating all the things Marsh had done. “He came storming to my room with a printout of your calendar for the next week—and we are going to have words about how the hell you let things get that bad, by the way—and told me in no uncertain terms that I needed to find people to help cover for you. He got the number for your help desk people from me, and—”
Once again, though, Greg was stuck. His stomach was doing somersaults. “My calendar?”
“Focus.” Ronnie snapped his fingers in front of Greg’s face. “He did this. All of this.”
Greg batted Ronnie’s hand out of his space. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose, because this was a lot to process and a lot to think about, and none of it made sense.
Continuing, Ronnie said, “He made sure that for the next few days all you have to do is give your presentation, entertain your parents and get Chu off your back. Oh, and not make yourself sick again.”
“But…” There was one thing Greg couldn’t seem to work through, and it was a stupid question to ask. He swiped his hand over his face and turned his neck to look at Ronnie. The question came out anyway. “Why?”
Ronnie shook his head, shooting him a wry smile before shoving up to stand. “If you don’t know, you’re gonna have to ask him.” He pointed at Greg’s plate. “You done with that?”
“What? Oh. No. I’ll deal with it.”
“Okay.” He grabbed the empty tray and headed to the door. “When do you have to pick up your folks?”
“Um…” Shit, right, that was today. “Not until five.”
“Cool. I’m heading to campus in another hour so I can cover
someone’s
shift. You want a lift?”
Right, he’d need a ride. His car was still parked in front of the science building, and he had to… He stopped the thought, blinking at the direction it had been drifting. He didn’t have to do anything except feel better and dig himself out of this hole. He felt
light
. When was the last time that had happened?
“Yeah,” Greg said. “That’d be great.”
“Cool. Find me when you’re ready.”
“Will do.”
Ronnie left, and Greg stared into empty space. Absentmindedly, he scooped some eggs up with his fork and reached for his coffee cup. Sitting and eating breakfast. It was a novel concept, considering how things had been going of late. It was a luxury.
His heart squeezed hard. He wasn’t entirely sure what he’d done to deserve it.
Chapter Fifteen
Greg crawled along, weaving his way through the cars lined up in front of arrivals, eyes peeled the whole way for— Oh. He grinned and waved, throwing his blinker on as he nudged his way into the rightmost lane.
Clearly too impatient to wait for any of that nonsense, his mom stepped off the curb, tugging his dad along. Greg checked over his shoulder, and the car behind him was loading someone, too, so whatever. He wasn’t in immediate danger of losing a mirror or a bumper. Switching off the turn signal, he tapped the button for his hazards and popped the trunk.
He was barely out before his mom was wrapping him up in a crushing hug. God, that felt good. He breathed her in, lemon and powder and home and squeezed her even tighter. “Hey, Ma,” he managed to get out.
“It’s so good to see you.”
And that shouldn’t have gotten to him so much, shouldn’t have made his throat feel rough. “Yeah, it is.” He closed his eyes and filled his lungs, only letting her go when a horn sounded in the distance. They were triple-parked. There wasn’t time to revert into a five-year-old who just needed his mom.
She caught him before he could pull away entirely, though, making a little
tsk
ing noise as she looked him over. “You’ve been working too hard again, haven’t you?”
“Am I ever not?” He laughed it off. If he looked bad now, it was a damn good thing she hadn’t seen him yesterday.
“Leave the boy alone, Elaine,” Greg’s dad insisted. His mom made a little noise of protest but stepped aside, letting him pull Greg in for a quick one-armed hug. “Hey, there.”
“Hey, Dad.” It wasn’t the same bone-crushing embrace his mother had given him, but it was secure and accepting and familiar, and that was just fine.
Another car honked behind them, and Greg dropped his arms, shooing his parents into the car. His mom shoved his dad toward the front over his protests, and Greg chuckled to himself as the two of them bickered about it. Dad always hated letting her take the back seat, but in a tiny car like this it didn’t really work any other way. “Might as well give up,” he said, buckling himself in. “Lord knows she’s not going to.”
“Chivalry is well and truly dead,” his dad lamented as he finally acquiesced. “And your mother killed it.”
“Oh, hush.”
Greg flicked off the blinkers and put the car into drive, nosing his way forward and around someone else who’d given up and started loading passengers in the left lane. He stole a glance at his dad, who was eyeing the dash appraisingly.
“Think we’ll have time for me to take a peek under the hood before we go?”
Greg shrugged. “Would love it if you could, but I’m doubting it.”
“What’s the mileage up to now?”
Too high. Greg rattled off the numbers and answered a few other random questions about what the heck that rattle was and when it had started. His dad hummed, and Greg caught his mom’s eye in the rearview mirror. “Burgers okay tonight?” He had a place in mind—simple and affordable and just down the street from their motel.
“Sounds great,” his mother answered. “But we’re going somewhere nice tomorrow.”
Greg shook his head. “You don’t have to.”
“Nonsense. It isn’t every day we get to see you.”
True, but they’d only managed this visit because Southwest had been having a sale, and his mom watched for those like a hawk. Money was as tight as ever, and the two of them were getting up there. He didn’t even like to think about what their retirement account must look like. His mom was still insisting, though, and he opened his mouth to argue again.
“You said it yourself, son,” his dad cut in, smirking. “She’s not going to give up.”
The man wasn’t wrong. Conceding for now, Greg sighed and asked, “So how was the flight?”