“The threat of Ebola should do the trick in keeping her away,” I teased. “But if it doesn’t, I’m sure Jace with the CDC will have no problem telling her to go away.”

She rolled her eyes. “You don’t know Nikki Pena Perez, though.”

I gestured to her phone as my phone pinged, signaling a message.

Malachi: you’re a closet cat freak.

Malachi: you have a fuckin’ cat tree in your living room.

Malachi: your cats are all freakishly big, too. What the fuck?

Saint: They’re a litter of brothers. Maine coon, I think. They are fairly large. But they’re outside and inside cats and their fur coats are coming in for winter. They appear bigger than they actually are.

Malachi didn’t respond, so I turned my ear back to Carolina where she was now having a conversation with what sounded like her mother.

“Listen, Mom,” she ordered. Obviously, I was correct on the mother part. “There’s nothing either you or I can do. But, just sayin’, I’m going to start ordering all of my presents online and having them shipped to your house. I’m going to need your help wrapping them.”

I tried to tune her out, but I listened to her and Die Hard as she argued with her mother about what she was going to do over the next month to which Carolina would correct her to three weeks.

“Listen,” Carolina tried, but she never got her mother off the phone.

I was fifteen minutes into the movie that was playing on the screen when there was a knock on the door.

I walked over to it and waited, not sure what I was supposed to do.

“Yes?” I called out.

“Mr. Nicholson,” I heard a man call. Jace maybe, but I wasn’t sure. The equipment they wore distorted their voices.

Vaguely I heard Carolina, desperate and happy to have a reason to get her mother off the phone, say a hasty goodbye.

Then I felt her move closer to my back.

“Yes?” I repeated. “Do you want me to open the door?”

“No,” Jace said. “Back away. I’m going to open the door, then put these boxes inside your room and shut the door again. The smaller box has some electronic stuff in it. The bigger boxes have clothing, drinks, and snacks. We had a male and female go out and buy y’all some clothes. If you wish to have your own clothes, please allow us to have access to your apartments and we’ll get them for you. Or you can call or text someone to bring the things here, and we’ll bring them up to you. Bottom box has toiletries for, erm, essentials that Ms. Perez mentioned earlier.”

I looked over my shoulder at Carolina who, once she saw me looking at her, rolled her eyes.

“It’s a normal human bodily function,” she replied defensively.

I shrugged.

“You happen to have access to chocolate?” I asked. “Or something sweet? We might need that. You know how things are.”

Jace paused. “We’ll have food delivered to you. There’s a room service menu in the bedside drawers, I believe. Or, if you prefer something else, we can get that for you, too.”

With that, he told me to step back, and I did.

Moments later the door opened, two men carrying boxes came in, and I all of a sudden had a stack of boxes at the entrance.

Seconds later the door closed, leaving us by ourselves once again.

“That’s fun,” she chirped. “It’s like Christmas. Let’s see what’s in there.”

She started to go through the boxes then instead of calling the rest of her family—something that I noticed that she was putting off.CHAPTER 3Everyone’s a dumb whore.-Caro’s secret thoughtsCAROLINAOpening boxes.

That was what had me excited in that moment.

My mother had me freaked out for sure.

The moment my mother said ‘Ebola hemorrhagic fever’ I’d understood the severity of it.

Hemorrhagic. Hemorrhaging.

Blood.

Lots and lots of blood. I now knew why I didn’t want to pay attention to the CDC guy on symptoms to report. It was making me sick just thinking about it.

“Hey, did y’all get any stuff yet?” I heard said through the dividing door between our room and the one next door. “We’re still empty. And I’m getting hungry.”

At least she hadn’t gotten to eat, either. Well, we had a box of snacks, but snacks weren’t going to cut it forever. I needed actual food. A cheeseburger. A taco. Or ten tacos. Whatever. Something with substance. For now, I was making do with a protein bar.

At that moment in time, however, I wasn’t feeling very responsive to her as a person.

She was the reason I was in this mess to begin with.

I now had to call my boss and explain everything that was going on. Court cases would be pushed back. Everyone that thought they were going to fix their lives before Christmas would find out differently, and I had to then, somehow, figure out how the hell to buy Christmas presents, get them wrapped, and hide them from my brothers.

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