Matt pointed to the magazine spread. "You can hang that in the office you never use. Remember? The one you had to have?"
"Fuck you," Riley muttered. "And for the record, I'm in your office because you always pay for lunch."
"Like that's going to continue," Matt said, laughing. "If you're running projects like that one, you can afford your own meatball subs."
"All right, moving—" Shannon pressed her fist to her mouth and sucked in a breath through her nose, her free hand curled around the edge of the table. "Moving—" Her voice caught in a sharp gasp.
"Shannon…" Patrick leaned back in his chair and studied her. "Everything okay?"
"Yeah, I'm—" Her shoulders jerked forward, and she waved her hands in front of her face. "All good."
I caught Matt's eye, and he shook his head, mouthing, "I don't know."
"You're sure?" Patrick asked.
"Definitely," Shannon murmured, but then she shook her head and pushed away from the table.
She started to say something, but her words were obscured by unmistakable gagging. She darted toward the tiny washroom tucked into the corner of the attic. She tried to close the door behind her, though it gaped open, leaving us an audience to her distress.
"I'm out," Riley said, holding up his hands in surrender. "I'm sorry. I can't do puke. I'm a sympathetic vomiter. I'm gonna go build some shit."
While Riley gathered his things, Andy collected a box of tissues from the windowsill and headed to the bathroom with Patrick hot on her trail.
"We should—" I started, glancing toward the far side of the room.
"Yeah," Matt said. "We should."
We wandered across the room, all the while feeling as useful as a drawer full of dull knives. "We're here to help," I said when Patrick and Andy noticed us approach.
"I've got this," Andy said, gesturing toward the door. "All of you: finish the meeting, and I'll get her home."
She stepped closer to the bathroom, but Patrick wrapped his hand around her waistband and dragged her back. "You just got over major food poisoning," he said, weaving his arm around her torso, "and you are not taking another step."
Looking down, I stared at my wingtips for a minute while Patrick recounted the gory details of Andy's brush with listeria. She was all right now, after several weeks of recuperation, but she'd lost a substantial amount of weight in the ordeal. The outbreak was linked to some questionable cheese. Patrick instituted a ban on all food trucks and festivals until further notice, and forbade all varieties of basement-cultivated cheeses.
While the food-borne illness discussion did terrible things to the twitchier parts of my brain, I was more fascinated by their show of affection. In the two years they'd been living and working together, I'd never witnessed a true Patrick-and-Andy moment in the office before. Sure, there were light touches and inside jokes and all those non-verbal conversations that none of us understood, but they kept it exceedingly professional.
More painful retching echoed from the bathroom, and Andy pivoted in Patrick's arms. "I'm completely fine, and she needs someone right now. I can't stand here and not help her."
Patrick walked Andy back toward the conference table, and said, "Do not come any closer. If you'd really like to help, go to your office. No, no. Go home and get some rest. I can't handle seeing you suffer again."
He kissed her forehead and murmured something I couldn't hear. She shook her head and gestured in obvious disagreement, but he held her hands to his chest and spoke into her ear until she started nodding. After a long embrace, she collected her things from the table and headed downstairs.
Patrick returned to our uncomfortable gathering and knocked on the door. "Does your husband know you're sick?"
"Shut up," Shannon groaned.
"I can call Will," Matt offered as he reached for his phone. "Although he'll probably answer by telling me that he's still devising new ways to kill me."
"Nah," Patrick grunted, his fingers already flying over his screen. "Got it covered, but one of us should probably go in there and assess the damage."
Speaking before I thought about my words, I said, "I'll go." I shrugged out of my suit coat, unknotted my tie, and rolled up my sleeves. "You're all paying for my dry cleaning if this ends poorly, though."
"That's no problem," Patrick said. "I figured you'd want the whole suit replaced. We're getting off cheap with dry cleaning."
Shannon was slumped against the wall, her legs drawn up and her hands resting on her knees. Her ponytail was askew, her mascara was smudged, and she barely lifted an eyelid when I closed the door and settled on the floor across from her.
"You might want to vacate the premises," she said. "My aim is bad and the splash zone is wide."
