It was in her waking life that everything had gone wrong.
Instantly, memories of the previous night and Kane’s threats flooded her mind. He was such a poor replacement for Red Jameson; everything about Kane was a turnoff for Nicole. At least when Red was being aggressive, you knew it—but with Kane Wright, it was all hidden. He didn’t even have the guts to just command her to fuck him. Instead, he’d tried to bribe her, extort her—as if he had to fool her into being with him.
But would he hurt Red if she refused to play along? That was the million-dollar question.
Nicole wondered what Red would advise her to do. Probably he wouldn’t advise anything, he’d have been too busy hunting Kane Wright down so that he could turn his face into a bloody mess.
Suddenly, her stomach lurched. Nicole’s mouth flooded with spit and her throat constricted. Stumbling out of bed, she ran to the bathroom and as soon as she got to the toilet, heaved her guts up.
Last night’s mac and cheese (hurriedly eaten before going out with Danielle) was clearly visible now in the toilet water. Just looking at it was enough to cause her to heave again. More came up, and then Nicole was using some toilet paper to wipe her chin and mouth, tossing it in the toilet. A quick flush and down it all went.
She patted her stomach, feeling a little better now.
What was it, she wondered? A slight case of food poisoning? She’d never had food poisoning before, but she’d always assumed it was pretty brutal. She imagined herself clinging to the bowl, sleeping in the bathroom, every twenty minutes being struck by another bout of nausea.
This didn’t feel like that at all.
Maybe a touch of a stomach flu? Nicole certainly hoped not. She didn’t feel like spending the next twenty-four hours in bed.
She went to the sink and quickly washed her face, patted it down with the nearby hand towel, looked at herself in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy, but other than that she looked fine. Not great, just fine.
How could she ever really be great again? She was lost without him.
Don’t think like that, Nicole told herself. She’d been doing a lot of pep talks lately, telling herself to buck up and stay strong and other clichés that never really helped.
I miss Red. I miss him so bad that it literally hurts. Maybe that’s why I threw up.
She was thinking crazy thoughts. Nicole knew she needed to get it together. But the plain fact was, she was tired of keeping it together, tired of pretending everything was okay. Not only did she miss him terribly, every single moment of the day—but now she also had to deal with Kane Wright completely on her own.
Today was going to be a no shower day. In the past, before the latest and greatest breakup with Red, there had never been a “no shower day”—she took a shower at least once, very often twice a day.
But lately she couldn’t even muster the energy for that. Today she simply put her hair up, put on deodorant and some clean clothes, a little makeup—and done. She didn’t feel sexy or fresh or awake.
Nicole didn’t much care though. Perhaps I’m depressed, she thought. She found she didn’t care too much about that either.
And then it was off to work for the day.
Work had become an altogether different place since Red was fired. The fun had left Jameson International altogether. There was an interim CEO, someone she’d never heard of before, who’d given a twenty minute speech a couple of days ago. He’d talked a bunch about ships travelling rough seas, teamwork, holding strong through the tough times, and on and on.
Nicole had found herself spacing out a few minutes into it and just daydreaming about Red. Their work lunches together, the way he’d looked at her, the hunger in his eyes.
But she knew she wasn’t the only one who missed him. Even Remi had commented on it one day. Remi wasn’t the type to get all soft and nostalgic about anyone or anything, but she turned to Nicole randomly and said, “I put my resume up online yesterday. I just can’t see myself working here in six months. All the life has gone out of this place.”
Nicole had simply nodded, because if she’d spoken, she might have started to cry, and the last thing she needed was to be seen sobbing in her cubicle.
A mental breakdown at her job? No thanks.
Today, she had a busy day, thankfully. Edward was using her as his all-purpose assistant, which meant accompanying him to his meetings, taking notes, getting his schedule straightened out, and going over the reorganized files on the network.
Being busy was good. Being busy was the only was Nicole stayed sane anymore.
Still, in those brief downtimes, the quiet moments, no matter how short they were in duration—she instantly wondered where Red was and what he was doing right now. And of course, the most clichéd line of all: Does he miss me the way I miss him?
Towards the end of work, her cell phone started to buzz. Her heart started racing at the mere possibility that it might be him—that Red might finally be breaking his self-imposed exile.