Fix It Up (Torus Intercession 3)

I shrugged. “The fact of the matter is, when you’re rich and famous, you have a lot of freedom…right up until you don’t.”

He was staring at me with wide eyes. “And why does Mr. Cox think you’re the man to help Nick?”

I grinned at him. “Because he knows I’m just as likely to help Mr. Madison as I am to break him.”

He didn’t have any more questions after that.

Three

Nick Madison needed sleep. I could tell he did because the entirety of Friday came and went, and he didn’t get up. I spent the day setting up his new household, and it was kind of nice to do so without any input or whining. I was in and out of his room a thousand times, checking on him, making sure he was breathing, but he didn’t come walking down the hall and out into the living room until around noon on Saturday.

He emerged around the corner, squinting, shuffling across the floor to the kitchen in low-slung, threadbare jeans and a T-shirt, with his damp hair combed back from his face. There was a flurry of activity going on, lots of workmen, and he had to stop a couple of times to let people walk by. When he finally made it to the kitchen, he took a seat on the barstool at the end of the counter and was greeted by Marisol, who was chopping vegetables for the kabobs she was making for dinner.

“Good afternoon,” she greeted him cheerfully, holding out her hand. “I’m Marisol, your new chef.”

He nodded, taking that in, shook her hand, and asked if he could have some coffee.

“How about a smoothie instead to kickstart your metabolism?” she suggested. “Then I can make you a latte or a café au lait.”

“Sure,” he agreed, clearing his throat, looking around, his gaze settling on me at the dining room table where I had schematics spread out. “Hello.”

I gave him a nod.

“Do you know where Gino is?”

“No,” I told him. Since I had no idea who that was, I was guessing he was a friend.

He took a breath. “Is Dana here?”

I shook my head. Dana had been employed as one of the maids who, it turned out, had also supplied him with oxy.

“Brent!” he yelled, desperate, I was sure, to see someone he knew, and instantly regretting the decision to yell, because the hangover had to be nearly blinding. The combination of alcohol he’d mixed in his system was daunting.

Brent was there moving his things out of the front bedroom that he’d claimed as his. He slept over quite a bit when he’d been managing things in Nick’s home, but since I’d moved his job to a Monday-through-Friday position, and since I was turning that room into a home gym, his stuff had to go.

For myself, I’d claimed the guest bedroom next to Nick’s, unpacked, moved in, made a place for my laptop, my tablet, and the new leather-bound journal with the wraparound closure, because I still took notes on paper. I used it for lots of other things, not just recording the steps I was taking to help my clients.

It was nice, the room I’d chosen, smaller, cozier, not yet renovated. The pink walls and bold geometric throw rugs were eye-watering, but the French doors that led out onto a small balcony made up for it. A potted golden pothos, which had to be ancient, took up a significant amount of the space, along with some striped spider plants in macramé holders. Those reminded me so much of an apartment my mother and I had lived in when I was little that I was prompted to take a picture and send it to her. She, of course, found that charming.

“May I offer you some ibuprofen and a hydrator?” Marisol asked Nick cheerfully, the pain etched on his features prompting her to offer.

“Yeah,” he replied haltingly, hand to his forehead. “Please.”

She mixed a powder into a tall glass of water and got him some Advil from the new locked medicine cabinet in the kitchen. He took the pills, drank down the hydrator, after which there was much gagging before she passed him a glass of regular ice water and then went to work on his smoothie.

“Good afternoon, Nick,” Brent greeted him when he came back into the house, empty-handed after loading his things in the moving van parked out front, and circled around the center island opposite Nick so he could face him. “How do you feel?”

“Like I was run over by a truck and left for dead,” he answered, lifting his head to squint at him. “What’s going on? Where is everybody?”

“Well, for starters, the party was the day before yesterday.”

“What?” he asked, shading his eyes.

I took pity on him and joined him and Brent at the counter, passing him the aviators I’d had on when I went outside to check on the landscaping. “Here you go.”