“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath as soon as the door is open. It’s worse than I remember. My desk is tipped over on its side, and there are papers and glass all over the floor. I shut and lock the door behind me.
Glass crunches under my boots, and I bend over and grab the stray papers before cramming them into the garbage basket. My head swims as I stand upright again, but I ignore it as I continue picking up. The desk is a little challenging to turn over by myself, but I wedge the bottom against the wall to tip it upright. From there, it’s easy to push it back into place. My hand burns like a motherfucker, but I use the pain to keep pushing forward.
I sweep my arm across my forehead, mopping up a ridiculous amount of sweat for the small task, then drop onto the sofa when the ache left behind from hitting the door settles in my head.
I’m about out of gas, but thankfully, I mostly got shit back into place. After a long breather, I open the door and yell for the back security. “Hey.”
The kid jerks to attention and looks at me like a scared owl.
“Get somebody in here with a broom and a vacuum.”
“Who do I get?” he asks, looking over his shoulder after taking five steps, eager to follow orders.
“Someone at the bar will know.” I close the door and take one last look around, deciding it’s the best it’s going to get.
There’s a tentative knock on the door several long minutes later. I haul open the wood to find a redhead holding a broom and dustpan. She looks up at me with a little fear and maybe some disgust, but she swallows down the latter and asks, “Do you have something you need cleaned up?” in a hesitant voice.
“It’s not a roleplay fantasy,” I snap and step to the side, revealing the broken glass.
“Oh!” She shimmies past me and spends longer than I would have bothered cleaning the floor. Thank fuck the nap on the commercial carpet is pretty much nonexistent, because there’s no vacuum in sight.
“Is there anything else?” There’s a hopeful note in her tone.
I’m not dumb enough to think these girls want me for anything other than what I can give them, but this feels insulting. I’m sweating like a fucking pig, and the last time I saw myself in the mirror, I was as pale as fresh fucking snow and had a knot on my forehead, yet she’s cocking her hip out and stroking the handle of the dustpan like she’s demonstrating a hand job.
“No,” I deadpan.
She stares at me until I walk toward her, pushing her out the door with my presence. Seconds later, I turn off the light and pull the door closed behind me.
Now that the job at hand is done, sickness eats into my stomach, making hot saliva pool in my mouth. I’m not puking here, so I hustle my ass out into the alley and toss my cookies. Well, I puke all the fluid I’ve sipped slowly today until my stomach cramps.
The pounding in my head intensifies until I want to dig my fingers into my temples to get some relief, and a growl leaves my chest as I force myself upright.
The emptiness in my stomach is a familiar feeling I promised myself I would never have to deal with again, but the sick sensation I get when I think about eating makes it impossible to ingest anything.
I stride out of the alley and head straight for my car. The absolute urgency and desire I feel to get home so I can suffer alone drives me to rev the engine and peel out of the lot.
My phone rings before I even hit the freeway, and I don’t bother looking at the screen before picking it up. “Yeah?”
“What’s going on?” Rex actually sounds concerned, or at least interested.
“Sick, man. I’m going home.”
“Masher said you ran out of the alley looking like shit. What’s wrong with you?”
“Stomach bug or some shit,” I lie.
“Ugh, I fucking hate puking.” I can hear his cringe.
“Yep,” I reply quickly, because every time I open my mouth, bile burns my throat.
“What’s wrong?” I hear Lucy’s soft voice in the background.
“Winger has the flu or some shit.”
“Oh no, is he okay?”
“He’s not dead. Why do you care anyway?”
