Conjuring Dreams or Learning to Write by Writing

  Best Laid Plans

  Ugh.

  The only thing worse than feeling sick with a cold or flu when you had to go to class was being sick on your one day off in three weeks, the first day where you didn't have to work and didn't have classes since the new year started. The blurred vision, the raw throat, the constant dripping of a nose that no amount of bedside tissues could tame, combined with an aching body and chills meant that she would not be enjoying her day off at all.

  So unfair.

  It was probably the brats at daycare. They were always dripping snot and wiping it on sleeves, on their hand, on every surface in the room, including herself. Ellie sighed and rolled around under the covers, contemplating getting up to get medicine, then decided not to brave the chilly floor, or, for that matter, standing up.

  She loved the little monsters—sweetness and elbows and cuddles and tantrums and all—but she had no idea when she took the job how draining it would be to work with them three days a week and babysitting most weekends. Nor was she prepared for the constant bombardment of germs.

  She should have seen this coming. She shouldn't have put off her flu shot—and she wanted to be a pharmacist! She'd felt the tickle in her throat last night and should have skipped the party with her friends, but he was there.

  It's not like she thought she had a chance with the dreamy Alex. He was the rising star of the pre-med program which would have gotten him plenty fangirling even if he wasn't also the star of the diving team, using his sports scholarship there to get him a career with a future. Saying he was beautiful was a gross understatement, and everyone in the various science departments and half the girls in physical education departments (and a growing fan base that never missed a diving meet) were ready to swoon over him at any given moment. The only reason she saw him as much as she did is that her first year roommate, Andrea, happened to be his twin sister, so their friendship had definitely furthered her crush. Andrea gushed about what a great person he was, and Ellie seen him take care of his sister when she got drunk (an all too common occurrence), seen him helping other people with moving or homework or you name it so Ellie thought it was true. But Alex always seemed tight-lipped around Ellie.

  Two and a half years of hopelessly pining after the unattainable was enough. He'd graduate next year—as would Ellie—so Ellie had determined, January first, she'd wean herself off her fruitless obsession. And she'd done so for three weeks as she'd worked and studied herself to death. That isn't to say she hadn't seen him—since she was going into pharmaceuticals, they had several classes in common—but she'd been steadfast in avoiding other social functions where she might see him. Or maybe that was just her ridiculous schedule.

  But her starving, suffering, soon-to-be-sniffling soul had faltered when Andrea had called her up and suggested a night out prior to her first day off since before the new year had started, suggested as in all but dragged her by the hair. Andrea was a force to be reckoned with.

  Ellie threw the blankets off her head in horror as more of the previous evening returned to her. She'd taken some precautionary cold medicine so hadn't planned to drink anything alcoholic, but, her original orange juice had been consumed unnoticed when Alex came over to talk to her, and someone had replaced her empty glass with a tequila sunrise. She didn't even notice the swap until she had reached the grenadine. She was a lightweight when it came to alcohol under the best of circumstances, but, more than that, her body reacted violently to tequila which she never knowingly drank. About the time she realized her orange juice had been replaced with something alcoholic, her body went into its normal violent rejection of all things tequila-ish. She barely made it to the thankfully uncrowded ladies' room in time, then spent several miserable minutes regurgitating spiked orange juice.

  Ellie threw her blanket back over head as the rest of the night spilled into her consciousness in nauseating detail. She'd stumbled back out of the ladies' only to confront her idol whose concern turned quickly to censure of her drinking habits. Her hot denial was ruined when her body found another small pocket of tequila inside and reacted with no warning, all over them both.

  The rest of the disastrous evening was a blur. She thought there was more yelling by Alex, though she was hazier on the reason and had a vague memory of flying that somehow resulted in her being returned to her own bed. Wait! How did that happen?

  She sat straight up in bed and her head reeled. Somehow, she was certain Alex was involved. She wasn't the kind of lightweight just anyone could carry. And someone had tucked her into bed. Was she still wearing her puked on clothes? No. Someone had stripped them off and put her in her "sexiest" clothes, a black cotton camisole and boy cut panties. With big pink dots.

  She fell back into the bed and smushed her pillow over her head. With any luck, the flu would kill her. She hadn't been wearing them under her clothes so someone had put them on her. If it was Alex, she might as well die right now.

  A knock sounded on her door. She toyed briefly with feigning being dead already and then gave up. There wasn't much left to make the matter worse. "Come in," she croaked.

  Naturally, it had to be Alex walking in balancing a bowl on a text book while carrying a glass of juice in the other hand.

  "I am so so so sorry," Ellie said before he could even open his mouth. "I am not a crazy drunk person. I just—"

  But Alex set the glass down and lifted a hand for silence. "Andrea told me. Said you were feeling poorly but she talked you in to coming and didn't know someone had switched out your OJ with a real drink. I gave everyone a stern talking to when I realize someone had slipped you a drink, then Andrea gave them another when she realized it was tequila. She says there's something in tequila you're allergic to so it makes you throw up, or so I gathered from the way she was yelling at them."

  Ellie didn't think she had ever seen Alex say so many sentences at one time, at least not to her. "I'm so sorry I threw up on you."

  "It will probably be the first of many times," Alex assured her, then blushed as she protested. "No, wait, sorry. I didn't mean you'd throw up on me more. I mean I'm planning to be a doctor, so I'll likely be thrown up on a lot. Here, I made some soup."

  "Seriously? Thanks." She repositioned herself so the soup and book were on her lap.

  "Yeah, well, I just heated it up, but you've got to eat something with this medicine," he fished pills from his shirt pocket. Not the same shirt from the night before, she noticed. "Oh!" and from another pocket, he pulled out an electronic thermometer. "Let me check your temperature. I didn't realize until you fainted last night but you had a fever."

  Ellie glanced down at her clothes, but figured there was no sense acting modest now. "Have you been here all night?

  "What? Yeah, I mean no, well, yeah, but—" He blushed a lot for a college idol. He took a deep breath. "Yes, I brought you home in your car and Andrea came in mine. She got you cleaned up and I ran home for a change myself, then let her take my car home while I stayed here. On the couch. In case you needed help."

  Well, that explained her sexiest underwear. Andrea had known about her crush a long time. "Wow! That's so kind of you."

  To her amazement, Alex blushed again, going from pink to nearly red. "Well, I've—I've kind of had a thing for you for a long time, so when I didn't see you much this year, I was really glad you came last night. Then I yelled at you when you were sick, which is the last thing I wanted to do, and I just couldn't let things go without apologizing and explaining it to you."

  "You have a thing for me?"

  "Is—is that wrong?"

  So, was she breaking her resolution if it wasn't entirely unrequited? Ah, hell, who cares? This cold might just be the best damn thing that happened all year. "Nothing wrong with it at all. I've had a thing for you, too."