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“The fish I had this afternoon must’ve been bad,” I murmur as I hug the porcelain throne after being sick at least three times.
Vincent’s put his underwear back on, and he went to fetch a blanket to wrap around my shoulders. He’s sitting behind me now, holding my hair every time it looks like I’m going to be sick again.
The next few hours are rough, but no matter how much I snap at him to get out, he’s a goddamn rock. He gets me water, nausea tablets, and even manages to get my pajamas on while I feel like I’m slowly dying.
When we finally manage to get some sleep, it feels like our alarms start blaring almost immediately. Bleary-eyed and feeling like I got hit by a truck, I groan and roll over, but the motion causes my stomach to go ice cold again.
“Oh no,” I moan, rushing back to the bathroom even though I didn’t think there was anything else that could come up.
“Jesus. That fish must’ve been really bad,” he says as he appears behind me and holds my hair again. “Should I let your dad know you’re too sick to work today?”
I shake my head slowly so I can’t trigger any more nausea. “No, I think I’ll be okay after a shower. I’m never ordering fish again, though. As much as I love it, I think I may avoid all seafood for the rest of my life.”
He chuckles. “I won’t blame you. You look like hell. Stay in bed today, baby. There’s nothing really important going on. It’s the last few shows, and then we’re heading home. Maxim and I aren’t working on the tour today either.”
“Oh, right,” I say as I remember. “You’re shortlisting possible offices and stuff, right?”
“Yep. I still think my favorite option is the one down the street from that recording studio, but Maxim’s concerned about space. He’s afraid it’s not going to be big enough.”
“It’s just you two, though. How much space can you really need?”
He chuckles. “My point exactly, but he’s already interested in a few bands he found on YouTube, and he’s even set up a couple meetings with venue owners when we get home. If he books them as soon as he wants to, we’ll hardly have landed before he signs our first client. If we get momentum the way he thinks we’re going to, we’re going to outgrow that space really fast.”
“How’s the website coming along?” I ask, sitting up slowly to test myself before I even try to stand. When no new wave of nausea shoots through me, I smile hesitantly. “Hey, I think I’m feeling better.”
“The website is almost ready to launch, but I’m already fielding representation requests from the social media pages I set up for us.” He looks thoughtful as he offers me his hand and pulls me up. “On that note, he might be right about us outgrowing the office space too fast. Either way, I’m glad you’re feeling better. You should probably still stay in bed today, though.”
“Nah, I’ll be all right. It’s just low-grade nausea now. I think I’m over the worst of it, but I’m still never ordering fish again.”
He pulls me into his arms once I’m on my feet. Then he walks us over to the shower. “I love you, baby, but you really need to get washed up. I’ll be right here if you need me, okay?”
I shove his shoulder playfully, but even that small movement is painful right now. Exhausting. “Yeah, yeah. I know I need to wash up, but I think I may stay in bed for the day after all. If I thought I was tired before, it has nothing on how I feel after last night.”
“We didn’t get the most sleep,” he says softly, eyes filling with concern as he looks back at me. “Are you sure you’re feeling better? You’re still pretty pale.”
I wave a hand at him. “I’ll be fine. I think you should shower first so you can make it to your meeting with Maxim in time. Don’t worry about me today, okay? I just need to get some sleep, clean up, and I’ll be good as new by tonight.”
At least, I hope I will. Stomach issues are the worst. It’s been ages since I’ve had food poisoning, but I really hope it’s just that and not another bug. I wasn’t patient zero for the flu outbreak, but if I somehow caught a tummy flu and flatten the whole crew again, we’ll have to wait even longer to get home. And right now, that’s the only place I want to go.
35
VINCENT
“We definitely made the right call on these offices.” I turn in a slow circle as I survey the brand-new home of Moore Talent Management, or MTM as we’re going to call it.
Maxim nods beside me, his entire being smug as he takes it all in. “Yeah. This is going to be epic. Are you happy now that we took the bigger space?”
I nod. “I still think the other place would’ve worked fine, but this is pretty cool. It’s way better than just fine.”
Although I really liked the other location, I can’t argue that it would’ve been better. Maxim negotiated a killer deal for us to have the top floor of a building that has a recording studio on the second story and a club at street level. It’s fucking perfect, and we got it for a steal since the neighborhood is still in the process of being rejuvenated. Well, that and Maxim’s negotiation skills.
“Okay.” He claps his hands when the furniture we ordered arrives. Then he rolls up his sleeves—literally—and we start moving in.
It’s my second rodeo in as many weeks. Olivia and I moved into our new place last week, and it feels like we just got everything in when Maxim started talking about us moving into our offices.
We’re seeing the first act we might sign performing later, though. If we do decide to sign them, we’ll need somewhere to invite them to for a meeting, and for that, we need our offices ready to go. Even if we decide against signing them, we’ve got shows to go to every night this week. Our website has been up and running for just about a week, and we’ve already got more invitations to performances via our contact us page than I expected to get in our first month.
Once word got out about what we’re doing, things snowballed faster than I ever could’ve dreamed they would. So Maxim is right. We need to get our offices sorted regardless of how tired I am of moving.
