Page 96 of The Business of Love Box Set 1: Books 1 - 4

JACKSON

I woke up with a mouthful of my own pillow on Saturday morning. It tasted like fabric softener and cotton and my mouth was dryer than the pillowcase. I pushed myself up and looked around my room through blurry eyes.

My head felt like there was a jackhammer going off against the inside of my skull, reminding me I wasn’t a twenty-year-old anymore who could drink and not suffer the consequences. My lips were dry and my stomach unsettled and I knew I needed water and a shower, in that order.

Getting out of bed had the room spinning within seconds. I braced myself on the edge with my feet flat on the floor and waited for the dizziness to pass.

“How many beers did you have last night?” I wondered to myself. Eight? Nine? Something along those lines. Usually, I could drink way more than that. “One of those nights, I guess.”

My phone lit up on my nightstand when an email rolled in. It was business related and today was not a workday for me, so I ignored the email but checked the time. It was half past seven. A lot earlier than I expected.

With a tired, self-pitying groan, I forced myself to my feet.

As I swayed on my feet, I heard a horrible retching sound.

I frowned. What the hell is that?

I padded across my bedroom floor. My door was half open and I wandered groggily down the hall until I reached Hailey’s bedroom. Her door was open a crack. I knocked softly.

“Hails?”

She didn’t answer.

Concerned, I let myself into her room. The place was still a bit of a mess.

The furniture we’d scanned while working with Hugo yesterday hadn’t been able to all come home with us.

We’d brought a couple of pieces, including the new bedframe, mattress, and blue-velvet chaise, but the rest of it was arriving on Monday or Tuesday, right around the same time as the rest of Hailey’s items were expected to arrive from Nashville.

The room was a bit of a disaster and would take some TLC to fix up together.

I heard Hailey throwing up again.

I went immediately to the closed bathroom door and pressed my cheek to the door. “Hailey? Are you okay? What’s going on in there?”

The toilet flushed and the faucet ran. The water turned off and the door opened and I found myself looking upon Hailey, who stood on the other side in her matching pajamas. They were navy blue, slightly oversized, and covered in small white polka dots.

Hailey slumped against the doorframe and peered up at me with red-rimmed, glassy eyes. “Did I wake you up?”

I shook my head but didn’t tell her it was my pounding head that had woken me. “No. But I heard you when I went to take a shower. Are you okay?”

She dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. “Ugh. I woke up feeling like shit. I thought maybe it was something we ate. But you feel fine?”

Aside from the dizziness, headache, and rolling stomach? “I feel fine. Maybe it’s just a combination of stress and travel? You might have caught a bug on the flight.”

She nodded. “Yeah. That makes sense. If that’s the case, you should stay away from me. I don’t want you to get sick.”

“Nonsense. I’m going to make you some tea to get some fluids in you. Maybe you can have some plain toast or something and that will help.”

Hailey closed her eyes and sighed. She looked exhausted. There was darkness under her eyes and her shoulders were slumped. “Thank you, Jack.”

“Can I do anything else?”

“No, I’m okay. I just—” she broke off. Her eyes widened and she clamped a hand over her mouth.

I grimaced. “Uh oh.”

She spun sharply around and launched herself onto her knees in front of the toilet. As soon as she was over the bowl, she leaned forward and was violently sick again. I’d never been very good with vomit but Hailey was my girl.

I stepped into the bathroom, ran some cold water in the sink, and found a face cloth in the cabinet.

I ran it under the water, wrung it out, and folded it into a neat little square.

I crouched down beside Hailey, who hadn’t moved from where she hovered over the toilet.

I gathered her hair up off the back of her neck and twisted it around my fingers.

Then I placed the cloth on the back of her neck like my mother used to do for me when I was a kid.

Hailey let out a contented sigh. “That feels good. Thank you.”

“Do you want water?”

She nodded.

I performed a masterful trick as she spat into the toilet as another wave of nausea rolled over her.

I held the cloth and her hair in one hand while reaching across the counter to the little glass cup on the far side.

I managed to turn on the faucet and fill the cup with cold water without spilling it—or dropping the glass in the sink—and bring the glass toward Hailey.

She took it gratefully and sat back on her heels to take a sip.

I let her hair fall and she replaced my hand with her own to keep the cloth on the back of her neck.

“I haven’t been sick in so long,” she said. “I forgot how much it hurts.”

It hurt watching her too. I couldn’t do anything to help her.

Not really. Sure, I could do my best to make her more comfortable, but comfortable wasn’t exactly an achievable state when acidic bile was climbing up your throat and spewing out your mouth against your will, making it damn near impossible to breathe.

“Could be worse,” I said.

She eyed me darkly from beneath her brows. “Don’t.”

“Could be coming out both ends.”

She rolled her eyes. “Didn’t you say you were going to make tea?”

“Not if you need me here.”

“Oh. Believe me. If this is how you’re going to behave, I most definitely don’t need you here.”

I chuckled and got to my feet. “You’re sure? I know you like to play the tough-guy role. It’s okay if you need comfort. I can rub your back. Or massage your feet.”

“Jack. Just go. Before I use your lap as a toilet bowl.”

Snickering, I made sure I was at a safe distance before saying, “I love when girls talk dirty to me.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“That’s what they all say.” I winked.

Hailey hurled the face cloth at me. It landed unceremoniously at my feet.

I leaned over, picked it up, and ran it once more under cold water before handing it back to her.

She shimmied closer to the toilet and I gave her some privacy and made my way to the kitchen.

Before I even reached the stove to grab the kettle, I could hear her being sick again.

Poor thing.

I busied myself with making tea and pulling bread out of my freezer for when Hailey was well enough to leave the bathroom.

I turned on some music to drown out the sound of her being sick and made sure it was loud enough for her to hear it faintly so she’d know I wasn’t listening.

Fifteen minutes passed before I heard the telltale shuffling of her coming down the hall.

She lingered at the kitchen island and watched me pour boiling water into the teapot.

“Feeling any better?” I asked.

She shook her head, rested her elbows on the counter, and dragged her hands down her face. “No. But I don’t think there’s anything left in me to throw up, and if I sit in front of the toilet, that’s all I’m going to keep doing.”

“Fair enough. Toast?”

“I don’t think I’ll be able to keep it down.”

“Worth trying. You haven’t eaten since that flatbread last night. And that was around what, ten after six?”

“Something like that,” she muttered soullessly.

I waited until the tea was properly steeped before I put her toast down so that when the toast was done and buttered the tea was ready.

I carried it into the living room for her and got her set up on the sofa under a blanket.

She used a throw pillow as a table and managed to take a couple bites of toast.

“Did you sleep well or were you nauseated all night?” I asked.

Hailey blew on her tea and took a sip. “I woke up around four feeling not like myself. It passed and then came back at five. I’ve been awake since.”

She’d need a nap. One thing I knew about Hailey was that she was not one of those people who could fire on all cylinders if she was sleep deprived. Sooner or later, she’d crash, and in my experience, it was always sooner.

“Well the good news is we can both have a lowkey day at home together,” I said. “Watch movies. Keep our asses on the sofa. Waste the day away. How’s that sound?”

“Like it’s all the permission I need to be an absolute piece of garbage today.”

“Glad I could help.”

Hailey and I spent the rest of the morning and afternoon doing exactly what I’d promised.

Nothing. We watched movies we’d both seen a dozen times, and by the time noon rolled around, Hailey was feeling a little more like herself.

I threw together a light snack of cheese and crackers and made a mental note that I needed to go shopping.

Then I popped some painkillers for the headache I couldn’t shake.

After we ate, Hailey and I cuddled back up on the sofa under the fleece blanket and started yet another movie. She snuggled into my side and fluffed up a pillow to put under her cheek, but after half an hour, she slid off the pillow and her cheek was crushed against my thigh.

I watched her sleep and thanked my lucky stars she’d followed me out to New York after all.

I’d felt lost without her here. Now all of a sudden, things felt right again. Like they were the way they were supposed to be. Minus her bout of spontaneous nausea, of course.

The sickness aside, things were looking up.

I had my best friend back in my daily life.

With any luck, things would look up for her and she would realize that she could do better with work—and that she deserved better than a company who used her as a frontline of defense against their entitled customers.

Hailey Brown was many things, and an empath was one of them.

Constantly taking on people’s baggage, especially petty baggage like phone issues, was draining her dry.

She might not have been able to see it, but I could.

And eventually, she would too. Instead of telling her, I’d have to guide her. I could be patient.

After all, the best things came from waiting.

She sighed in her sleep and nestled in tighter against me. I reached down and tucked her hair behind her ear and then ran a hand over her shoulder, where I let it rest. In the stillness of the moment, I caught myself thinking how nice it might be to spend my evenings like this.

All my evenings.

But if Hailey wanted such a thing, she would have said so, and we would have talked about the night we hooked up before I left Nashville.

As it stood, neither of us had brought it up, and I doubted that was a coincidence.

I wasn’t sure what the night had meant. I didn’t know if it was a goodbye or the start of something but I didn’t want to pressure Hailey into making something out of nothing if all it was to her was a night of careless fun.

We were allowed those, weren’t we?

After all, what harm ever came from two best friends having sex when they were pressed up against the wall and forced to say goodbye for an indefinite amount of time?