“Thirty-five,” she said with a teasing smile, hoping to coax a smile from him, but the stubborn bastard refused to play along.

Still…

He answered so she took that as a win.

“Thirty-six,” he said and she would swear to the day that she died that the corner of his mouth started to pull up into a smile.

“What else you got?” she asked, happy to have something else to focus on for once instead of her own problems.

“What else do you want to know?” he asked, honestly surprising her because the man was not known for his conversational skills.

He was known more for glaring…shouting…and making grown men cry…and many other things that probably gave people nightmares.

“Well, since you won’t tell me how you got your nickname, maybe you can tell me about those men that hang out in the parking lot every day calling you over a hundred different combinations of bastard?” she asked, biting her lip as she waited impatiently for him to answer, because that was one question that she’d been dying to know for the last five years.

“Pass.”

“Can you do that?” she asked with a frown.

“Yes,” he answered with a mocking frown of his own, further surprising her, because she honestly never would have thought that he could be playful.

She was definitely learning a lot about him lately, she inwardly mused as she tried to come up with something else to talk about, but it was proving difficult now that the pain in her stomach was starting to subside and the timber of his voice was lulling her to sleep.

“Go to sleep,” he said softly as he removed his hand from her stomach and pulled the blanket up to her chin.

“I’m not tired,” she argued even as her eyes began to close, calling her a liar and making it difficult to wrangle more answers out of him.

Maybe just a few minutes of sleep, she thought as she reached over and placed a hand on his arm, hoping that he would stay just until she was asleep. She felt the slight hesitation and then with a sigh he was pulling her closer and wrapping his arm back around her.

She considered telling him to keep his hand off her ass this time, but given the circumstances that seemed kind of rude. So, instead she stopped fighting sleep, prayed that Melanie didn’t come in here to get more photos for her Facebook page and let everything go, knowing that for once, she didn’t have anything to worry about.

Chapter 14

Thirty-Six Hours Later

“You’re being ridiculous,” Rebecca said, doing her best to resist the urge to yank one of the dozen or so pillows shoved under Melanie’s head free and smother her with it.

“Shut up. I’m dying,” Melanie muttered, sounding miserable as she curled up into a ball on the couch and pulled the comforter up to her chin.

“You’re not dying,” she said with a sigh as she stood there, wondering how she was going to talk sense into her best friend when she was so damn determined to go through with this asinine plan of hers.

She didn’t need to do this, but no matter how many times Rebecca tried to explain that to her, Melanie refused to budge. She’d made a promise and she was determined to keep it even if it killed her and judging by the last thirty-six hours, it just might do that.

“Just let me die in peace,” Melanie demanded as she squeezed her eyes shut and placed a hand over her stomach even though her salvation was less than a foot away.

Rebecca looked down at the pile of Hostess products that Melanie had declared upon reluctantly accepting the Celiac’s diagnosis that she would never touch again. She’d assured Melanie that wasn’t necessary, but Melanie was determined to support her. Granted, she probably wouldn’t have offered to do it in the first place if she’d known that she’d have to give up her precious baked goods or that she’d end up feeling like she was going to die.

It was kind of funny, well, not for Melanie, but for the first time in her life, she didn’t feel like she was going to be sick. She actually felt a lot better than she had in years. She was still exhausted, but it wasn’t so bad that she thought that she was going to be sick if she didn’t lie down and close her eyes soon. She actually felt like she could function without getting bitchy and wanting to kill everyone and everything for existing.

God, she was starving.

For the past day and a half she’d only been eating Hershey milk chocolate candy bars and drinking Coke, because those were the only things in the apartment that she was one hundred percent certain were gluten free. After she’d woken up to discover that Lucifer had disappeared at some point during the night, she’d jumped on the computer and did a little research to figure out what she could eat and what she couldn’t, but after six hours, she’d felt like pulling her hair out and kicking something.

There were so many things that she couldn’t have because they had some form of gluten in them and so many more things that she should have been able to have, but couldn’t because they were made in the same factory with gluten and now they were off limits. That was the part that sucked the most. According to the hundred or so websites that she’d scoured over, cross-contamination was a huge problem for Celiacs.

It was the other reason that Melanie was determined to give up gluten for her. She didn’t want to be responsible for making her sick. Rebecca didn’t think it was going to be a problem as long as they were careful, but Melanie being Melanie was determined to make their apartment one hundred percent gluten free.

“This is stupid,” Rebecca said with a shake of her head, because she was running out of things to say to convince Melanie that this decision of hers to give up gluten was a mistake.

“Shut up. I’m being supportive,” Melanie grumbled as she curled more tightly into herself.

“No, you’re being an idiot,” she pointed out, loving the fact that she had someone in her life that was willing to go through this with her even though she wanted to smother the life out of her if she didn’t eat a Hostess pie or a freaking Pop Tart soon.

“Ungrateful brat,” Melanie bit out as she cracked open an eye simply to glare at her.

“I’m not ungrateful,” she said, biting back a sigh, because as irritating as Melanie was being right now, and God, was she fucking irritating, she was also the only one that was there for her.

She wasn’t counting Lucifer, because he’d abandoned her the other night, which she could have overlooked if he wasn’t acting like nothing had changed between them in the last month. When she tried to say hello to him, he ground his jaw and ignored her like he used to. When she tried to talk to him, he glared at her. She didn’t know what his problem was, but honestly, she wasn’t sure how much of it she was going to be able to take before she told him to go to hell and quit. So, as far as she was concerned, he was a prick and no longer worthy of her time.