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Race groaned as the thermometer beeped its special you have a fever beep, then groaned even louder when he took it out of his mouth and read the number—101.6. A degree and a half higher than last night.
It was times like these that Race wished he had a parent or two. Not his old ones—No, getting emancipated was the best thing he’d ever done—but a couple who weren’t perpetually fucked up on crack would have been nice.
He considered calling the school and telling them he was sick. He could do that, right? He was emancipated. He was his own guardian. In the end, though, he decided it would be best to suck it up and just get through the day. Tomorrow was Saturday; he could rest then. Besides, he had slept in sweatpants and his oldest, comfiest, shittiest hoodie, so all he had to do was grab his backpack and walk out the door.
The air outside felt cold, even thought it was May and the sun was shining. Race groaned and shoved his hands into the front pocket of his hoodie. Maybe he should have worn a hat. Instead, he pulled his hood up over his nasty hair—it was, at the moment, really greasy and horrible—before returning his hands immediately to his pocket, shivering as the breeze blew past.
School was bound to be miserable. The school board apparently didn’t have enough money to spend on arts programs, but they had an unlimited budget to blow on air conditioning. It felt like the arctic circle in there, and no one said it, but the students had a conspiracy theory going that they did it to keep from having to give people (read: girls) dress code violations for wearing revealing clothing. Race was pretty hot-natured, so it wasn’t uncommon to see him in the halls in a tank top and booty shorts in protest. Today, he actually considered turning around and going back to his apartment to put on another layer, at the risk of being late. He powered through, instead, even when he walked through the glass doors that lead into the school, and the cold air slapped him across the face. It was Friday. He could handle it for a few hours.
“You okay? Race. Hey, Racer.” Spot reached over and bopped his friend—Friend? Everyone knew they were more than friends. Spot would have happily driven to Vegas that weekend and found some sketchy minister willing to hitch an emancipated seventeen-year-old to his eighteen-year-old...friend…
Anyway, he bopped Race on the shoulder, and Race’s closed eyes flew open. He glanced over at Spot, who frowned deeply. Race’s skin looked like wax, and his cheeks were bright pink.
“Christ, are you feeling okay?”
“No talking in class, Sean,” the teacher, a nervous, mousy, young woman fresh off her Master’s degree in teaching said.
Spot ignored her, pressing the back of his hand to Race’s forehead. Race groaned weakly, leaning away from Spot’s touch.
“Miss Wilkins, I think Tony needs the nurse,” Spot said, running his fingers up under Race’s hood, into his sweat soaked hair, and pushing his hood off. “Race, can you hear me?”
This wasn’t like him. Race was quick as a whip, and he actually liked school. He didn’t just fall asleep in class.
Miss Wilkins took a look at Race, and her eyes widened. “Is he okay? What’s happening?”
Race mumbled something entirely incoherent, weakly trying to bat Spot’s hands off him. Even what Spot managed to make out—“S’a fire, geddout”—didn’t make sense.
“I think he’s breakin’ a fever,” Spot replied. He stood up and hooked his arms under Race’s, pulling him out from his desk.
Miss Wilkins nodded. “Take him to the nurse.”
“S’what I’m doin’, Spot grumbled, laying Race’s arms over his shoulders and picking up his legs, hooking them around his waist.
Luckily, Race had just enough sense left in him to cling just a little, like a koala, as Spot carried him out into the hallway.
“Save me, s’a fire,” Race mumbled into Spot’s shoulder, and Spot just sighed.
“I’ve gotcha, Race. There’s no fire; you’re just running a fever.”
He wanted to take Race to a doctor , not the school nurse who would probably give him Sudafed and salt packets and send him on his way. Hell, he could do better than that. Alas, he knew Race couldn’t afford a trip to urgent care. He also knew where Race kept his spare key.
Motherfucking cold as balls . That’s what Race thought, as he slowly woke up in his bed, on top of the covers, wearing his signature tank top and booty shorts, with an ice pack on his forehead. He whined, grabbed the ice pack, and threw it, moaning, “Yeet.” It bounced off the wall and hit the floor, and moments later, there was a person in the doorway.
“You awake, Race?”
Spot. Spot was in the doorway.
“Yeet,” Race repeated, sighing. He climbed under his covers and curled up in the fetal position.
The mattress dipped annoyingly as Spot sat down next to him. “I’m trying to get your fever down, Race. It’s high. I need you to take some medicine before you go back to sleep, or I’m putting you back in my car and taking you to urgent care.”
At the mention of urgent care, Race sat back up, though he was not happy about it. He cracked his eyes open slightly. “Whaddayou waaant?”
Spot grabbed a pill bottle from the bedside table, shook two little, round pills into his palm, and handed them to Race. “Here you go, and here’s some water.” He grabbed a glass with a straw, also from the bedside table.”
“Whadizit?” Race asked, squinting at the pills.
“Ibuprofen.”
“I don’ hurt.”
“It’s a fever reducer, dummy.” Spot took one of the pills out of Race’s hand and carefully stuck it in his mouth, then guided him to drink from the straw. “You’re running a hundred and four. I should have taken you straight to the doctor, but I didn’t.” He did the same with the second pill. “I’m gonna be in so much trouble for being here. We’re both supposed to be at school.”
“Oh,” Race replied lamely. He vaguely remembered getting to school that morning, but not much else. He frowned. “A hundred and four?”
“Point-four.” Spot nodded.
“Fahrenheit?”
He snorted. “Yeah, Race—a hundred and four-point-four, Fahrenheit. You’re not an oven. Now, go to sleep. I’ll check on you in a while, okay?”
“Nooo.” Race reached out and grabbed Spot’s arm when he tried to stand up.
Spot smiled softly. “You want me to stay?”
Race nodded.
“Okay, baby, I’ll stay.”
Spot checked Race’s temperature every half an hour. It was both convenient and concerning, how Race didn’t wake up when Spot shoved the thermometer in his mouth, though he supposed there were worse options. It hovered at 104.4, then up to 104.6. Spot immediately tried again, and the thermometer read 104.3, which didn’t instill great confidence in the accuracy of the thermometer, but at least it looked as though the fever was holding instead of spiking. He gently stroked Race’s cheek, heart hurting for the sick boy in front of him.
Spot had been there, when Race got emancipated. Race was sixteen, and Spot was just a couple weeks shy of his seventeenth birthday. Race came straight to Spot’s house from the courthouse. They went out for ice cream. Race was all smiles and not a lick of fear, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he had no more worries. He had always been a loud, vibrant, firecracker of a person. He was easily the strongest person Spot had ever known. Spot could hardly bear seeing him so subdued, knocked flat on his back by some illness.
If his fever hits 105, I’m taking him to the hospital , Spot thought with a deep breath as he took Race’s temperature again, thirty minutes later.
101.0 .
Spot let out a sigh of relief.
Race woke up feeling...well, shitty, but awake. He heard footsteps in the kitchen, and the smell of microwave soup filled the small apartment. Spot was still there. He had stayed.
Race sat up, groaning as his tired muscles protested, and rolled his way out of bed. He headed to the main area of the apartment, but stopped in his bedroom doorway, humming again. “So, did you change me into these shorts to break my fever, or because my butt looks so cute in them?”
Spot was standing by the stove, cooking what was, in fact, microwavable Campbell’s chicken noodle soup—he still had the can sitting on the counter—in a saucepan on the stove. He turned around, raising an eyebrow in
flirtation
question. “You want me to look at your butt?”
Race did a slow spin, winking when he made his way back around, and Spot laughed as he turned back to the stove. He moved the pan onto an unused burner, then pulled over a bowl he had sitting nearby and set it on top of a dish towel.
“I made you soup.”
Race gasped, placing a hand on his heart. “For me? Why, Spotty dearest, you shouldn’t have.”
“Call me ‘Spotty dearest’ again, and I won’t.” Spot poured the soup into the bowl, then wrapped the bowl up in a towel before picking it up.
He nodded to the table, and Race took his cue to head over and sit down.
“Okay, but seriously,” Race looked up at Spot as he set the bowl of soup down in front of him. “You shouldn’t have. You’re gonna be in trouble.”
“Oh yeah, I’m super grounded,” Spot said, taking the seat next to Race, “but my mom is my mom, so she said I can stay over to take care of you tonight, if you want.”
“I don’t know,” Race teased. “I don’t think I can be held responsible for my actions, in this state. I may do something improper.”
“God, I hope so. Eat your soup.”