Does it have to be Bayer?
Yeah. The other shit can have animal by-products.
Will do.
You okay?
Headache.
I feel hung over.
I’ll bring you drugs and caffeine.
And love.
:)
I really hate crying hangovers.I haven’t had a lot of them, but I am filled with intense regret every time. I should know betterthan to let myself get that upset—or, at least, than to let myself sob like a hysterical child throwing a tantrum. I was thirty-one years old, and I really should have my shit more together than that.
And yeah, okay, extenuating circumstances, but I was still both miserable and embarrassed. Just not too embarrassed to beg for pain killers.
I did at least manage to drag myself out of bed, shower, and get dressed by the time Elliot came back with iced coffee and a little plastic bag from Kroger that had both aspirin and a package of Unreal almond butter cups. I had to swallow around the lump in my throat in order to thank him, but I was not going to let myself make this hangover any worse, so I tamped the emotion down.
Sugar, caffeine, and aspirin did help the headache, though, and I was feeling almost like a functional person when my phone buzzed. I picked it up and looked at it, finding a text message from an unknown number.
Mr. Mays, this is Michelle from Humbolt and Mallard. Are you available at 11am to meet with Mr. Humbolt?
I blinked, then checked to see what time it was.
Yes, I sent back. I still had about an hour.
Great. We’ll see you then!
“I have to go see Humbolt at eleven,” I told Elliot.
“What about?” he asked around a mouthful of ham biscuit that looked and smelled delicious and which I absolutely could not have.
“No idea,” I replied. It was too much to hope that it had anything to do with Noah, though. I had the feeling that if it had been, he’d have called or texted me himself. “Maybe something to do with Momma’s will?”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
I could tell he wanted a specific answer, I just wasn’t sure which one. I knew he’d been keeping up with Shira back at home, as well as updating Henry and the Harts, although I hadn’t personally had enough energy to be involved in any of that. Maybe he wanted to check in with everyone again. Or maybe he actually wanted to come with me.
I drew in a lungful of air, then sighed it out. I didn’t want to be alone. “Come to the office with me? You don’t have to come up, though, if you don’t want to.”
“I’ll come up,” he said, quickly enough that I knew the answer he’d wanted was to come with me. That made me feel a little better, anyway. “Should I put on something else?” he asked.
He was wearing shorts and a t-shirt again—different shorts and a different t-shirt, although we were both running out of clothes and would have to use the hotel laundry machines in a day or so if we were still here.
I shrugged. I was wearing khakis and another short-sleeve button-down, striped in salmon, white, and light blue, this time open over a plain navy t-shirt. “I’m going to wear this,” I said. “I don’t know that he’ll care what you wear.” Humbolt always wore a shirt and tie, but he didn’t strike me as particularly judgmental.
“You sure?” Elliot asked.
I shrugged again.
“I’ll change.”
Elliot followedme up the stairs to Humbolt’s office, having put on a pair of his nicer jeans, a grey heather t-shirt, and a yellow button-down with the sleeves rolled up. I opened the main door, and the admin, Michelle, looked up, her eyescreasing over her mask—this one a bright floral pattern—in a smile.
