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I can’t help but grin at that. I like the effect the ring had on him. And I like, too, how quickly and easily it marks me as taken. This ring means something, like it or not. It means I belong to Xander—at least for the time being. Though for how much longer, I don’t know…
My stomach churns.
“You okay?” Devan’s hand finds my shoulder.
I nod, but even that much motion makes my head spin. Without another word, I push past her and start to race. I make it to the bathroom, where there’s a huge line. But I can’t bother with the queue. I shove my way toward the front, one hand clamped over my mouth. Luckily the girls waiting in line catch one glimpse of my face and instantly understand what’s about to happen.
“Make a hole!” a girl at the front shouts, and another girl, just emerging from a bathroom stall, practically leaps sideways to get out of my way.
I fall to my knees at the edge of the toilet and vomit into the bowl. My body keeps heaving, until I’ve coughed up everything I ate for dinner earlier and then some. When it’s only dry heaves still racking my body, I hear heels clack up behind me.
“I’m with her, sorry,” I hear Devan murmur, probably to the girl at the head of the line. Then I feel her kneel behind me and rest one hand on my shoulder, rubbing in slow circles along my back. “Hey, Mel. You okay?”
“I don’t feel so great,” I moan into the toilet basin.
“How many of those drinks did you have?” I can feel her smirking behind me. But I don’t have the heart to admit that all night, while I’ve been buying her marg after marg, I’ve just been refilling my own glass with ginger ales and diet cokes. “Is it all out?”
“I hope so, unless my intestines plan to make an appearance next,” I grumble as I reach for tissues.
Devan helps me clean up, and then keeps a steadying arm around my waist as she helps me toward the elevators. “Come on, let’s get you home. I guess you can take the lightweight out of the country, but she still can’t party with the city slickers.”
I laugh faintly, even as my ears ring. A little voice in the back of my head whispers that I didn’t have anything to drink… just like the other day. At dinner with Xander’s family. I barely had a sip of champagne there, either, and yet…
Oh no. Oh, please no.
But I’ve never been the type to get nauseous easily. Cars usually don’t make me motion sick either, and especially not cars that Andrew drives as smoothly as he does. If this is what I think it might be…
I push the thought to the back of my mind and force a smile. “Guess I had too many of those,” I agree with Devan on the long elevator ride down. Anything to stop her from guessing what’s racing through my mind. Because I’m not ready to face the potential consequences, if I’m right.
Downstairs, Andrew steps out of the car the moment he spots us, worried. “Is everything all right?” he asks, his gaze darting from Devan to me and back again.
“Little too much fun.” Devan grins and nods toward me. “We’ve got to head back to the penthouse.”
“I’ll let Xander know,” Andrew responds, holding the door for us both. I don’t miss the way he brushes Devan’s shoulder, helping her into the car after me.
If I didn’t feel like a sack of boiled crap right now, I’d be happy for her. She deserves to have some entertainment and flirting while she’s in town, especially if I’m going to drag her home from a fun party long before we should’ve needed to leave. But my stomach rebels the second we get into the car, surging again, and Devan quickly opens my window, helping me lean my head out it.
Nothing comes out this time, but it doesn’t stop the discomfort. I sag against the window, my eyes shut, and let the breeze play across my forehead as Andrew steers us toward home.
When we get there, though, I wait until Devan tucks me into bed, and then listen for the sounds of her prepping for bed in her own room on the far side of the apartment. Once her door shuts and the house has lain silent for at least fifteen minutes, I tiptoe back out of my bedroom. There are half a dozen texts from Xander on my phone—I guess he’d been at a meeting with his father on the far side of town. He’s rushing back, but he’ll be another half an hour at least.
I need to move quickly.
I take the elevator down to the ground floor. The front desk attendant shoots me a worried look, probably because I’m wrapped up in a bathrobe right now, but he points me in the right direction of the nearest pharmacy.
