Millionaire Hero (Freeman Brothers 4)

Telling Bryn wasn’t going to be easy, but I also felt like there was something else about this I needed to figure out. I just couldn’t put my finger on it. Attaching my equipment, I headed up the face of the cliff. Climbing helped me puzzle out the problem as I made my way up. It was meditative for me. I spent my time thinking about everything Bryn went through. Then how I was going to handle this new development with Bryn.11BrynThere were many ways I enjoyed waking up in the morning. The smell of fresh coffee brewing in the kitchen. The smell of bacon getting crispy and amazing in a skillet. Birds singing. Waves crashing. Music.

A sudden surge of nausea was not one of them. There wasn’t really ever a time when I enjoyed the feeling of impending sickness but getting thrashed out of sleep by it was definitely the worst. And that was exactly how Monday started for me. I was sleeping peacefully, having a perfectly nice dream, when my stomach rolled over and the feeling that I was about to empty everything inside me rushed up.

It startled me awake, and I tumbled out of bed. Rushing for the bathroom, I was never happier about the attached bath in my bedroom.

The rippling in my stomach I had been feeling on and off for a few days came to full fruition for the next half an hour. I stayed on the cold tile floor of my bathroom for another twenty minutes just to make sure it was all over, then dragged myself up. Leaning on the sink, I filled my palm with water, tipped it into my mouth, and swished it around. I spit it out and rinsed a couple more times.

The cool water perked me up just enough that I could get out of the bathroom and back into my bedroom. I flopped facedown in my bed and lay there for another fifteen minutes trying to convince myself I felt better. When that didn’t happen, I made the executive decision I was going to take ahalf-day from work. This was not the kind of mindset I wanted to be in while I was trying to manage complicated coding.

Turning the notifications on my phone off, I pulled the covers up over my head and went back to sleep. As it turned out, this also wasn’t the kind of mindset I needed to turn the notifications off. Instead, I managed to turn them on even louder. Which resulted in my phone screaming at me and jostling me out of sleep for the second unpleasant time that day.

Not wanting to open my eyes, I felt around on my bed until I found my phone. I peeked at the screen and noticed it was almost noon. Just prying my eyelids up that tiny amount let a new wave of nausea roll over me, and I squeezed them down again. The phone could scream all it wanted. I wasn’t going to talk to anybody until it didn’t feel like I was on a ship tossing around in an angry storm.

Finally, it felt like I had control over my stomach, and I was able to open my eyes all the way without needing to rush back into the bathroom. It was enough to let me check my phone. I had a text from Nick asking for another meeting. It seemed like we had the same conversation over and over. I wished he would come up with something more creative to say, though I wasn’t really sure what. It wasn’t like he was asking me out or trying to win me over. He was being professional and finding time to talk about the situation at hand.

The thought of going to his office was out of the question. Considering a visit to the bar was even worse. As much as I wanted to know how the circumstances were unfolding and if anything new had happened, I had no interest in putting on real clothes or seeing a bunch of people.

I responded to the message explaining I was feeling ill and wasn’t going to be able to leave the house. The original plan was just to ask for a meeting in the coming days. But apparently my fingers were taking full advantage of my brain not working at peak functioning. They typed out my address and invited Nick over.

He messaged back that he would be over at two. That gave me enough time to slide into a bath and try not to slip beneath the surface and drown. When I managed to get out of the bathtub alive, I got dressed in a fresh set of yoga pants and a tank top, threw a lightweight cardigan over it, and went into the kitchen to make tea.

The smell of the tea didn’t make my stomach completely protest, and I realized it was actually rumbling just slightly. Because there was always the possibility that the rumble was just another wave of sickness getting ready to wash over me, I had to be cautious.