Playing the Bosses

Change in Tone

The Countdown: Six Weeks Until Eva's Deadline

37 Days Left

Eva groaned as she pulled herself tighter into fetal position. Her cramps were so intense that she couldn't muster up the tolerance to get out of bed for her medicine.

No wonder I've been acting like a nympho the past two days, she thought to herself. It was my fucking hormones.

She used what strength she had to grab her phone off the nightstand. Her first instinct was to text Adrian, but Eva stopped herself. She was becoming increasingly worried about how she felt about him and started trying to limit their time alone together. Switching over to the group chat she had with the three men, Eva texted all of them.

Eva: In bed with cramps. Need meds.

She started to grow agitated when there was no response to her message, but several minutes later, there was a knock at her door.

"Come in," she called.

To Eva's surprised, the man who walked through it was Caleb with a glass of water in his hand and a thick blanket over his shoulder.

Unable to think clearly between the cramps and brain fog, Eva asked, "Where's Adrian?"

"That's really the first thing you're asking?" Caleb sucked his teeth and walked over to the side of the bed where she was laying. He sat the glass of water on the nightstand along with a bottle of painkillers. "Your boyfriend got up early this morning and decided he wanted to do one of his solo hikes like the weirdo he is. If you were going to ask about Justin next, he's still asleep since you spent the past two days helping him with his stress."

"Caleb, I don't have the energy," Eva said with almost a grumble.

"You've had plenty of energy the past two days for Adrian and Justin. But I come to help you and suddenly it's gone."

"Could you stop with the attitude for ten-fucking-seconds? I'm not in the headspace for it right now."

Without saying anything further, Caleb opened the pill bottle and shook out to capsules into his hand and held it to Eva along with the glass of water. She lifted herself up just enough to take the pills and down the water after before she was laying back in bed.

When Eva felt him raising the covers off of her, she grabbed the linens to keep them down. "What the hell are you doing?"

Caleb held up a heating pad as he looked down at her with an indecipherable expression on his face. "This helps with them, right? My mom got bad cramps all the time before she went through menopause or whatever."

Eva adjusted herself to lay on her back before she let go of the covers to allow Caleb to lift them and place the heating on her lower abdomen.

"It shouldn't take long to heat up. I use it all the time on my shoulder."

Speechless, Eva simply blinked at Caleb.

"What the hell is up with that look?" he questioned. "You're looking at me like I'm a fucking alien or some shit. Why do you look so confused?"

"Do you really need to ask? Why wouldn't I be confused by this?"

"Did you forget that I offered my place for you to stay?"

"Out of the kindness of your heart?" Eva challenged. "Or because you wanted to fuck me?"

"Are we going to keep talking to each other in questions?"

"Are you going to keep acting like you don't understand my confusion right now?"

Letting out a frustrated huff, Caleb sat at the edge of the bed next to a lying down Eva. "For someone who's so good at reading people, you really think I only let you stay here for sex?"