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Greyson
My heart leaptin my chest when I got a text from Laurel telling me she was wrapping up work early and wanted to hang out.
Are you sure you’re not doing anything tonight? If you are I don’t want to take up your time, but I’m done working and figured I would see what you were up to.
I chuckled when I read the message.
The only thing I wanted to do with my time anymore was hang out with her, and when I heard that she had the night off, my mind immediately went to what we could do together.
She’d told me already that her nausea was getting better, so I wanted to take her out to dinner. I felt bad that she had to work when she wasn’t feeling one hundred percent, and now that she was starting to feel a bit better, I wanted to make it up to her.
Dinner? I would love to take you to one of my favorite places downtown. Bud’s is the name if you want to check out the menu and see if there’s anything you’d like. It’s all American, so if you’re stomach is still tender you should still be able to find something.
I hit send and waited, but she sent me a reply almost immediately.
That sounds amazing. I’m going to take a quick shower and put on some clean clothes, then we can go. I’m already back to the hotel, and I’m starving.
I sent her the thumbs up emoji at her response, then I headed to the bathroom to shave and freshen up myself. I didn’t know she was already back to the hotel, and I was glad to know she was hungry. That must be a good sign. I hoped she hadn’t gotten anything too bad, but with how long the nausea had been lingering, I worried she had contracted a virus of some sort.
But, I pushed those worries out of my head when she agreed to dinner, and I quickly got ready. I didn’t know how long it would take Laurel before she was prepared to go out, but I already had noticed she wasn’t a girl who took too much time in the bathroom or in front of the mirror.
Of course, she was already the most beautiful woman on the planet, so I didn’t think she ought to be spending any time in front of the mirror, but then, if she wanted to put on makeup, I wasn’t going to stop her. I wanted her to feel her best no matter where we were, and I wasn’t going to try to dictate to her how that would be.
By the time I was done shaving and heading back out to my bed, I saw that she had texted me a few minutes before telling me that she was ready to go.
I’ll be down in the lobby whenever you’re ready. I’ll wait a few minutes and call for an Uber so it’ll be ready about the same time you are.
I put my phone in my pocket and headed out the door, amazed once more with how smart she was. She seemed to think of literally everything, and that made me happy. I loved the way she was always one step ahead of everyone else. I wouldn’t have thought to get an Uber while I headed down to the lobby, so I was glad she had taken the time to do that already.
I reached the lobby and found Laurel, and we headed out the door, getting into the Uber that had just pulled up.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her.
“Starving, like I said,” she replied with a giggle. “I was so busy all day, I didn’t take the time to eat. I know I should or I wind up getting shaky when my blood sugar falls, but when I get in the groove of working, I don’t always have the time to just stop in the middle of what I’m doing to eat something.”
“You might want to make a habit of doing that,” I told her. “I know how it is to get wrapped up in work, but if you’re already not feeling so good, you might not want to make it worse by not eating.”
“I know,” she said as she rolled her eyes like a teenager. “But when my stomach has been upset for the past few days, I don’t want to make things worse with putting more food on top of it. I mean, I know I’m hungry now and want to get something, but earlier today I wasn’t feeling so hot and worried if I were to try to eat something, I would make myself sick again.”
“Maybe you need to go see a doctor,” I told her. “I know you can take care of yourself, but it’s been almost ten days now since you started feeling sick, and I would rather you went in to see what’s going on than pushing through the work to try to get that done.”
“I can’t miss any more deadlines,” she replied.
“I know, but you also can’t work at the expense of your health,” I told her. “I don’t want to be bossy or trying to control you, but you do have to think about your own health before you do a job.”
“I know,” she said. “But I told you already that I’m feeling better tonight, so I would say it’s just a bug that’s got a hold of me. I’ll be fine, especially after I get some food in me.”
“Alright, alright,” I said. I let the subject go by the wayside, not wanting her to think I was trying to control her. She was an adult, after all, and it wasn’t my job to boss her around, even if I was concerned with the way she was doing things.
We got to the restaurant, and I was glad to see the place wasn’t too busy for it being dinnertime. There was always the chance in Seattle that we were going to have to be on a waiting list or make reservations, but since it was the middle of the week, it didn’t seem like it was too busy here tonight.
I let Laurel into the restaurant before me, and we were soon seated in a corner booth.
“I like booths better than the tables in the middle of the room,” Laurel told me. “I know everyone here is busy with the people they came with, but I always feel like I’m put on display when I’m in the middle of the room.”
“Makes sense,” I told her. “I prefer to have all your attention anyway. If they put us in the middle of the room, I might lose you to someone else.”
Laurel laughed. “I don’t think that’s much of a risk. I’m pretty interested in the things you have to say.”
