Page 58 of Iron

“Sleep, baby,” I murmur, stroking his head. “I’ve got you. I love you. I’m not going anywhere.”

I text Caleb and ask him to stock the kitchen with electrolyte drinks, soup, crackers, medications: everything I’ll need. He replies with a long diatribe of instructions and caveats and warnings, and I just smile. And pull TJ onto my chest so he can drool on me.

Five days of TJ fighting off this virus. I keep water and electrolyte drinks going into him as steady as he can manage, small sips instead of anything that'll come right back up. Everything that the Telehealth advisor and Caleb have told me to do.

I hold him up in the shower, gently soaping him down, rinsing the fever off his tired body as he wraps his arms around my neck and leans into me.

“I'm so clean right now, inside and out,” he huffs. “Too bad we can't...”

“Shhh,” I chuckle. “We will soon enough.”

The fever finally breaks, but the cough that follows is worse in its own way, deep and persistent, the kind that leaves him wiped out after every fit. I send Caleb out for cough medicine and a humidifier. He taps on the door the way he has for food and supplies all week, backing off before I even open it, like he's decided the safest thing he can do right now is stay out of the way.

“Call me if it gets worse,” Caleb says.

“I will.”

I watch highlights of the Tour while TJ sleeps beside me. I have beaten the guy who wins a few times. I kiss TJ’s forehead. No regrets. What I have right here is more than worth it.

I bring him soup, and he makes a face at it before he even takes a bite.

“Tastes like nothing,” he complains. “And it smells weird.”

“The virus does that to your senses,” I tell him. “It'll pass. Eat it for me.”

He noses into my neck, miserable. “Even you smell wrong right now.”

I rub his back until he finally picks the spoon back up. He eats the soup.

By day ten, he's reaching for his own glass, feeding himself without me hovering over every bite. His breathing's easier, some color back in his face. I pull him against me anyway, still thinner than he was three weeks ago, still tired in a way that lingers. By day fifteen, he’s walking around slowly, clearly tired of being cooped up. We’ve checked in with Telehealth again, and he’s clear to travel.

After three full weeks, he says, “Let's get out of Kansas City?” looking up at me like I can fix anything he asks for. “Out of this hotel room, at least.”

That I can do. “Colorado or Florida?”

“Can we go to my place?” His voice goes small. “It's not much, but…”

I kiss his forehead. “We can do that.”

The jet is nothing special, as far as jets go. Eight seats, cream leather, the quiet hum that means someone spent a lot of money making sure you don’t notice you’re forty thousand feet in the air. I’ve flown on it probably two hundred times. I could sleep through takeoff if I wanted to.

Caleb has been on board for exactly four minutes and has already touched everything.

“Is this… hang on, is this real leather?” He’s crouched by a seat, running his palm over the armrest like he’s checking a golf green for grain. “Like, cow leather. Not the fake stuff.”

“I genuinely don’t know,” I say. “I’ve never asked.”

“You’ve never asked.” Caleb straightens up, looks at me like I’ve confessed to never checking the oil in my car. “You own a jet and you don’t know what the seats are made of.”

“I don’t own the jet. I chartered the jet.”

“Even worse. You’re paying for leather you can’t even confirm is leather.”

TJ’s already collapsed into the seat across from me, wrapped in the blanket the flight attendant handed him the moment we boarded. Still pale and worn out in the way of someone a week out from being sick as hell. But he’s smiling. The first real one I’ve seen out of him in days as he watches Caleb orbit the cabin like a kid at a science museum.

“There’s a bathroom,” Caleb says from somewhere near the back. “With a door. That closes. All the way.”

“Most bathrooms have doors, Caleb,” TJ says.