Walk of Shame (Love Unexpectedly 4)

Today is Wednesday, though, two days after we made out on the sidewalk and then broke the Manhattan gossip circuit, and he’s still not at the front desk.

I was willing to give him one day to lick his wounds and come to grips with what was going on with us, but two?

Not a chance.

I’ve been waiting here in adorably matching workout clothes for twenty minutes, and there’s no sign of his red shoes or his boring travel mug.

“You know, Charles, I just realized I forgot something,” I say.

He gives me a slightly puzzled smile, probably wondering why it took me twenty minutes of making small talk to realize that.

I give him a little finger waggle and head back to the elevators. Charles has already hit the eighty-sixth floor for me, but I hope he’s not watching the elevators too closely, because I take out my key fob and swipe it so that I can access the seventy-ninth floor.

A few moments later, I’m stepping onto a floor that looks exactly like mine. I scan the discreet numbers until I find the one I’m looking for: 79B.

Home of Andrew Mulroney, Esquire.

I knock.

No answer.

I knock louder.

Nothing.

I give in to the immature urge to put my thumb on the doorbell and press it over and over and over and—

The door swings open, and I barely have a chance to register what I’m seeing before I hear an exhausted groan. The second he sees me, the door starts to swing shut again.

“Wait—” I press my palm to the door, a little surprised by how easily I’m able to push it back open considering the man works out like a Viking and definitely doesn’t want to see me.

I push the door wider, and let out a little sound of dismay as I absorb the reality of what I’m looking at.

The man looks terrible.

“Oh, Andrew,” I murmur, stepping into his apartment uninvited and dropping my bag on the floo

r.

His hand is gripping the door, and he rests his forehead tiredly against it, eyes closing. “Is there any chance that you’ll go away now?”

“Absolutely none,” I say, prying his fingers away from the door and feeling his forehead with the other. “How long have you looked like this?”

“Like what?”

“Regurgitated death.”

He lets out a noise that’s half laugh, half groan. “Go away. I can’t spar with you today.”

It’s too late. I’ve already shut the door and am preparing a plan of action.

He really does look awful. His hair’s a curling mess, he obviously hasn’t shaved in a couple of days, his eyes are red-rimmed and glassy, and I’m not even sure what he’s wearing. Sweatpants, but he seems to have paired them with a godawful, vaguely holiday-looking sweater.

“I was cold,” he said, apparently reading my thoughts even through his illness. “Or at least I was. Now I’m hot.”

“Well, that’s because you’ve got a fever,” I say, gently placing my hand on his back and guiding him toward his bedroom. I figure I’ll have plenty of time to snoop later, so I just take in the basics, confirming that his apartment’s basically exactly like mine, except reversed, bedroom on the right instead of the left, et cetera.

The second we enter his bedroom, I know it’s where the poor guy’s spent the better part of the past two days. His apartment’s otherwise as tidy and anal as I’d expect, but his bedroom smells like a stuffy sick ward.