First Comes Love (Love Comes To Town)

With his words, the last of my anger seeps out of me. Suddenly, I’m incredibly, incredibly tired.

“You’re right” and a sad nod is all I can manage. “I’ve been failing a lot of people lately.”

Although the only one my thoughts keep circling back to is the last one I want to think about right now.

“Hey.” Landon raises himself to give me a pat on the arm. “Don’t sweat it. It’s a high-stress time right now for all of us. But we’ll get through it. Storm Inc. always manages to.”

“Thanks.” I smile at him, rearrange my features into a cool expression.

As president, that’s my job: keep up morale, even when I’m not feeling it myself.

Back in my office, I sit down at my computer, check my emails, then check my phone. I got a call while I was talking with Landon and had my phone on silent.

When I listen to it, chills go up my spine.

It’s Harley: “Greyson, hi. I… don’t want to disturb you. I just—I have to talk to you. Right away. It’s urgent.”

What strikes me isn’t how something in me aches at her voice, or how I have no idea what this ‘urgent’ thing could be. Or even how, now, finally, I have a legitimate actionable excuse to call her up.

It’s what was in her voice, what I’ve never heard there before: fear.Chapter 30Harley

A Few Hours Earlier

Ugh. Mornings.

My stomach gives a dismal lurch, and I groan.

Thank God I don’t have to go into work today. I’m not normally one for epic hangovers, but this morning I feel like death if death were a half-smushed pigeon trying to eat moldy scrambled eggs.

Ugh!!!

I lurch from the bed to the bathroom so abruptly that Anchovy lets out an angry grr and races to the main room, probably to unleash his fury on my favorite decorative pillow. Oh well.

Knees against the cool tile, face precariously close to the toilet, I dry-heave a few times before hot liquid pours out of my mouth into the bowl.

“Oh, blessed mother of… ugh…”

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you The Exorcism of Harley Davis.

When I’m finished, I have just enough energy left to totter back to bed and collapse there.

Is sadness barfing a thing? Maybe that’s it.

I check my phone, but of course there’s no text from Greyson. Just like there was no text from Greyson last night. Just like this morning, at whatever random way-too-early time I woke up, there was no text from Greyson. Just how tomorrow there will not, in fact, be any text from Greyson. Not ever again.

“He dumped you, idiot,” I grumble at myself. Which prompts my stomach to lurch precariously for no discernible reason whatsoever. Unless… sadness barfing?

I grab at the glass of water beside my bed and gingerly lift it to my lips. The cool water feels glorious going down my throat, not so much once it’s in my actual belly.

“Damn it,” I mumble as I stagger back to the bathroom.

An hour of back and forth bathroom trips later, and a terrible reply to Hannah’s text of How you feeling?, and there’s a knock on my door.

“Go away,” I groan, then, “What are you doing here?”

“Dear Lord, you look like a corpse,” Hannah says sympathetically. “Hangover that bad?”

“I don’t know, I never get hangovers,” I groan. “And who gets hangovers where they keep barfing and can’t stop?”

“Oh,” she says, sitting on the edge of my bed.

“What does that mean, ‘oh’?”

“Just…” She looks away. “It’s probably nothing.”

I dab at my face with a wetted face cloth. “I swear to God, Han, if you know something…”

“I’m just being paranoid.”

I glare at her. “Tell me.”

“No. You just need rest, and—I should go.”

I lurch upright then, half-up, totter with a whimper. “Hannah…”

“Get back into bed!” she snaps.

I don’t move, glaring at her, stomach doing strange contortions I didn’t know it was capable of.

“If I tell you, will you?” she persists.

“Sure thing.” I flop back on my back, exhaling in blessed relief, although I still feel like crap.

“It’s just… I’m going to go to the drugstore to buy you something. It’s probably nothing, but you did mention you skipped a period the other week, and now that you’re barfing like crazy—”

“Pregnancy test,” I garble out, horrified. “You think I’m pregnant.”

“No. I mean, just to be sure…”—reassuring not-a-big-deal smile that fails miserably—of course this is a big deal!—“…before we take you to a doctor…”

I chuck a pillow at her. “No doctor! Not pregnant! My Allenia pills haven’t failed me yet!”

She doesn’t have to say it: All it takes is one time.

Anyway, Hannah’s already out the door with a cheery wave and “See you soon, Har!”

Apparently, I manage to doze off because the next thing I know, she’s back, drugstore shopping bag hooked on her arm.

I glare at her and gesture to myself weakly. “No barfing. Look, I’m better.”