The Billionaire's Secret Quartet

"What? Hertha dumped you?" Ethan exclaimed, feeling Alaric's forehead again.

"Whoa, you're burning up. That's one nasty fever." Alaric swatted Ethan's hand away with force, visibly annoyed.

"I'm lying here dying, and you're still in the mood to make fun of me?"

"I'm not making fun of you, man. I'm worried about you," Ethan said, struggling to keep a straight face.

Alaric gave him a sidelong glance. "Since when are you so kind-hearted?"

"You're doing me dirty, man," Ethan protested. Then, leaning closer to Alaric, he whispered, "Bet you never saw this coming. You, the heartbreaker, getting your heart shattered. Well, what goes around comes around, huh?"

Ethan couldn't help but laugh, his chest heaving with each chuckle. Only a true friend could joke about something like this.

"You wouldn't understand love if it hit you in the face," Alaric muttered, turning his head away.

love. But I do know that if you keep this up, you're gonna end up dead. Not from this fever, but from starvation," Ethan

if you can't help me,"

lives next door to you, right?" Ethan

Ethan's hand, his earlier humor gone, replaced by a look of sincere distress. "Don't go to her," he said, his voice tinged with a sadness that wasn't there before. "She

another joke but stopped short at the sight of Alaric's genuine

really shouldn't go?" Ethan asked,

shook his head.

shake off the memory of their last meeting, Hertha's

comparing him to something dirty and unwelcome: Alaric knew that his connection to Georgia was a

time, Alaric

Ethan decided to drop the subject.

don't wanna. I don't want to get out of