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“I should’ve known your apartment building would be purple…”
“Huh?” Jonah shot upright in bed as Garrett barged in the door, pizza boxes and donuts stacked precariously on his lap.
“Still, the elevator didn’t stink of piss, so that was a nice touch.”
“Oh…” Jonah chuckled, lying back on the stack of pillows Amy had brought him back after work yesterday. “Yeah. It’s a nice building.” Jonah appreciated Garrett’s ability to immediately make everything feel normal again, even though none of this was normal in the slightest. As much as he’d been desperate to show his flat off to Garrett since he’d moved here, the thought of his best friend seeing him in this state was deeply embarrassing.
“Have you seen the roof?” He wasn’t ready to address his current predicament of being off work, laid up sick in bed, so instead he went straight to his favourite topical anecdote. His flat's flagship Scandinavian eco roof.
“Do I look like I’ve seen the roof?” Garrett gestured down at his legs.
“Oh, no, I-” Jonah winced, closing his eyes as he gestured up at the ceiling briefly. “The lift goes up there. It's nice.” He finished weakly. Garrett rolled his eyes.
“I brought pizza.” He dumped the boxes down on the end of Jonah’s bed with a flourish. “Amy said you were mostly done puking.” He noticed the bucket down the side of the bed and was grateful it appeared unused.
“Mm. Not since yesterday.” Jonah hesitantly took the smallest slice in the box and nibbled on it cautiously.
“How are you doing?” Garrett asked him in a tone much gentler than Jonah was used to from him.
“I’m good…” Jonah sighed, shifting himself up in the bed more. “Mostly dizzy. And really tired.”
“Amy said you wouldn’t make for the most exciting conversationalist.” Garrett chuckled. “I told her it would make a nice change.”
“Thanks.”
“Plain margarita.” Garrett gestured at the slice Jonah was holding, one very small bite missing from the end. “Figured it would be the safest bet, you know, with-” he gestured at the bucket beside Jonah’s bed. “I know Amy said you didn’t have much of an appetite, but I got it from that fancy Italian place you like, even though Papa John’s is objectively better.”
“It’s really good…” The fact that Garrett had gone out of his way to go to Jonah’s favourite restaurant even when he usually bitched and complained every time he brought it up, spoke volumes about their friendship, and it warmed Jonah’s heart. "Margarita is actually my favourite anyway. So many people think of it as just ‘plain cheese’, but done right, the simplicity actually allows the authenticity to-”
“-really shine, I know.” Garrett ribbed him, rolling his eyes. “You were right, though. It is good.” Garrett was already on his fourth piece as Jonah put his half-eaten slice back on his side of the box.
“You haven’t missed much at work. Well, after what happened with you, Dina tried to put GPS trackers on the employees and got into trouble with corporate when Glenn’s started going off in his lunchtime ‘meeting’ with Jerusha…”
“Ohh…” Jonah nearly spat out his pizza. “I…did not need to know that.”
“Yeah, join the club, dude, none of us did.” Garrett continued. “When Jerusha came to Dina’s defence because she ‘weirdly enjoyed it’, I left the room.”
“Ugh…” Jonah laughed, and it was the first time since arriving that Garrett had seen any color return to his face.
“Amy didn’t tell anyone, by the way. She seemed really worried, though. Does Adam mind her being your personal nurse?”
“She’s not-” Jonah broke off when he saw Garrett grin at him. “She brought soup round yesterday.” He continued quietly. “Said it was a family recipe, that her grandma used to make it...” He paused. Even that felt too private, too intimate somehow. “I threw it all up across the duvet a few minutes later, but it tasted really nice.”
Garrett pulled a face, laughing at how even such a heartwarming anecdote had still somehow ended in his own humiliation.
“So you’ve just been lying here, all snuggled up in your puked-up twin bed whilst me and Amy bring you soup and pizza.”
“I mean, when I stood up, I faceplanted the floor,” Jonah admitted awkwardly. “She told me to stay in bed because I ‘won’t look so pretty with a black eye’.”
“Since when have you ever taken instructions from Amy?” Garrett scoffed. The image of Jonah falling and Amy catching him entered his head, and he smirked at the thought of her carrying him, bridal style, back to bed. “You do realise that at this point, you’re basically just the store hamster.” He took another bite of pizza and grinned. “If you want, I can send Dina round next.”
“Please don’t.”
“She left work early to come get you, you know.” Garrett looked more serious now. He wasn’t lying when he said she’d been worried. “She left Dina in charge of the floor, and you know she hates doing that.”
“She told me she was already on her way home…” That information took Jonah aback. Suddenly given that context, things seemed very different. He assumed she’d felt obligated to pick up the pieces of her mess of a co-worker when he’d left the store short-staffed. She’d been so gentle with him, so caring… and considering what Garrett had just said, it sounded like she really meant it.
“You are SO in there!!” Garrett yelled after Jonah trailed off, trying to fist bump him as Jonah flinched at the noise. His head still hurt something dreadful, and he was overdue his next dose of painkillers.
“I don’t want to be!! -in…there…” Jonah blushed awkwardly. Garrett whooped, and Jonah flopped back on the bed to bury his face in the pillow. Sitting up for even just that short amount of time had taken it out of him, though he was embarrassed to admit it. His head was spinning, although he didn’t know how much of that had come from this new, sudden revelation. His face was burning so much he couldn’t even look at Garrett, so he lay there with his eyes closed as Garrett put the rest of the pizza in his fridge and returned with a small white box.
“Want a donut?”
“Huh?”
“Krispy Kreme’s” When Jonah just looked at him blankly, Garrett recoiled in horror.
“You’ve never had a Krispy Kreme?”
“Do I look like I’ve had a Krispy Kreme?” Jonah quoted him dryly.
“Nah, you’re more of an ‘organic kale and spinach’ type of guy.” Garrett rolled his eyes. “How have you seriously never had a Krispy Kreme?” He held one out to Jonah, who just shook his head sadly.
“Ah, sensible. Save the puking for Amy’s soup.”
“There’s no puking!” Jonah protested weakly. “I don’t feel sick anymore; I’m just…not very hungry.” A soft thunk landed on his chest.
“Did you just throw a donut at me?” He squinted his eyes open to see a small pink glazed donut on his chest.
“A mini donut. Jonah sized.”
Jonah sighed, picking up the donut and inspecting it cautiously. Truthfully, he couldn’t really tell if he was hungry or not. His body felt so out of whack that after three days of not holding down a lot of food, he was probably ravenous but at the same time struggling with the thought of actually putting anything in his mouth.
“You’re not gonna get your strength back up if you don’t eat anything. You barely made it through one single slice of pizza.” Garrett was right. Jonah had felt weak and drained ever since it had happened, and it still hadn’t really got any better. Amy had persuaded him to drink some Gatorade, but the last time he’d had anything substantial to eat had probably been several days ago.
Very hesitantly, he took a bite.
“Oh…wow.”
Before Garrett could look back, the entire mini donut was gone. Garrett immediately offered him another one, not missing a beat. Jonah immediately ate that one too, putting the whole thing in his mouth before pausing. For a moment he didn’t say anything, and Garrett was worried he was about to be rewarded for his efforts with regurgitated donut in his lap.
“...damn...” Jonah spoke quietly. “That was amazing.”
Garrett laughed at the shell-shocked expression on Jonah’s face.
“I mean, if all you’ve known are Cloud 9 donut holes, I’m not surprised that’s your reaction.” He handed Jonah a full sized donut and he took it without protest. Garrett rolled his eyes fondly.
“Glad to see you’re feeling better.”