Cinnamon Roll Set Up (Cinnamon Rolls and Pumpkin Spice)

19. Miles

Chapter 19

Miles

My brain is trying to kill me. It’s honestly doing a pretty good job. Kudos.

I should have known when I had trouble sleeping last night. Definitely should have suspected when I struggled to keep track of the ingredients when I made pumpkin cinnamon rolls this morning. But I couldn’t avoid it when half my vision turned blurry.

I don’t get migraines often, maybe every other month. More when I’m stressed out over writing deadlines, tax time for the bookshop, or if my mom’s health has hit an especially bad patch. Maybe later I’ll examine my mindset to hunt for a cause for this one, but right now, all I can do is sit here and die slowly.

It’s like my brain is ballooning, pressing against a skull lined with broken glass. The pain makes a detour straight through my right eye socket like I’ve been hit across the face with a two-by-four. My medication kicked in, but now I’ve got the headache, nausea, and caffeine jitters.

Not a great day.

“Do you mind putting on something else?” I ask Arlo. “I’m struggling with the country today. ”

It feels like there’s a steel guitar playing in my brainpan, and I need it to stop.

“Sure thing.” He messes with the old music player, and something classical fills the room. “Better?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He finally pauses to take a look at me. Our morning customers have kept him pretty busy since he came in. I’ve spent most of my time in the back room finishing the baking and clean up, my headache worsening every hour.

“Are you okay?”

“Migraine.”

“You could go home. I can cover the afternoon shift.”

“I don’t want to drive when I’m this out of it.” Impaired driving is still impaired driving. I won’t risk it.

He gives me another once-over and pulls out his phone.

“You don’t have to call anyone. I’m not that bad.” I would really love to crawl into the back room and lie down in the dark for a few hours, though.

“Don’t need to wait for it to get worse.” He turns away from me to make his call. “Hey, it’s Arlo. Yeah, Miles is in a pretty bad way with a migraine today. Do you think you could— Great. Thank you.”

I don’t have to ask who he called. “It’s Georgia’s day off.”

“She’s not coming in to work. She’s coming to take care of you.”

Nothing has ever sounded so perfect.

“You didn’t have to call her.”

He hitches a shoulder. “My sister gets bad migraines too. I know what they can do. Why don’t you go in the back and turn the lights out while you wait?”

This is my store, my responsibility. I should be out here. But currently, it feels like a sadist is trying to scoop my right eyeball out with a spoon. So I go into the back room .

I flick off the lights, sink to the ground against the wall, and lay my head on my forearms draped across my knees. The dark and quiet help. Not nearly enough, but one layer of the throbbing in my head eases.

Ages later, a cool hand brushes over my forehead. I peel my eyes open to see Georgia crouched next to me, hazy in the darkness. She’s a vision, even in this mangled state.

“Hey, sweetie,” she says softly. “Let’s get you home.”

I can’t protest. I let her help me up, and she slips one arm around my waist, the other on the center of my chest as if she thinks I might fall. I’ve never passed out from a migraine. The litany of things I have done from one pushes me to accept her help without argument.

She carefully takes us into the shop and thanks Arlo for calling her about me.

“Are you sure?” I ask him, even as I let her lead me to the door.

“Go, man.” He waves us away. “You don’t need to be here.”

I don’t have time or the mental capacity to say anything before we’re out on the sidewalk.

“I parked right out front.”

Normally, I’d know Georgia’s car anywhere, but today it doesn’t even register. Migraines scramble my brain’s wiring like an old PC with half the cables ripped out.

She opens the passenger door to her little sedan and helps me inside. I press a hand over my eyes and rest the side of my face against the cool glass window. I cannot throw up in Georgia’s car.

She climbs in and pulls away from the curb. “What else do you need?”

“I just need to sleep it off. I have medication at home that will help knock me out.”

“You could have called me right away. ”

In this state, I can’t process her inflection. Is she hurt? Scolding? Both at once?

I didn’t avoid the call because I thought she wouldn’t respond. I just have too much to do in any given day to walk away from it at the earliest sign of trouble.

“I was cautiously optimistic.”

She takes one hand off the steering wheel and runs it over my leg. So soothing. I can’t properly appreciate that gentle touch right now, but I’m grateful for it.

“Let’s get you home to bed.”

In another life, that sentence would have me on my knees. As it is, I might still drop to my knees, but not for any fun reasons.

When we reach my apartment, she comes over to help me out of the car. I want to tell her that I can handle it, but that would be a lie. My head swims and my stomach roils, and although the migraine blind spot cleared up hours ago, my vision’s still off. I hold onto her and pass her my keys when we get to my door.

Inside, I head straight for the bathroom. I take more meds, remove my contacts, and slip into my sleep pants and T-shirt. I rub an essential oil blend on my temples and the back of my neck for good measure. When I emerge, I stumble to my bed and pull the covers up.

Georgia’s already closed the blinds, the sweetheart. She sets a glass of water on my nightstand. “Do you need anything else?”

“There’s a cooling eye mask in the fridge.”

She disappears and returns a minute later with the mask full of green gel beads. I take off my glasses and slip it over my eyes. I have just enough sense to regret the ridiculous situations she’s seen me in these last few weeks.

“I bet your special ops guys don’t look this good.”

She gently runs her fingers through my hair. “ That would be impossible. How about I come back later with dinner? Will that be okay?”

That leaves me a good eight hours to sleep this off. Might not be enough to completely drown it, but it should douse it a little. “Thank you.”

Then, the softest, sweetest lips press against my forehead.

At least if this migraine kills me, I’ll die happy.

When I wake up, it takes a while to shake off the grogginess from the medication. Also, I fell asleep with the eye mask on, and I need a minute to figure out where I am. But I no longer feel like I’ve got a harpoon stuck in my eye socket, so all in all, it’s an improvement.

Another benefit is that the nausea has subsided enough for me to recognize that I need to eat. I shouldn’t take all those meds on an empty stomach, but sometimes the thought of food is so unsettling it makes it impossible to dose properly. I put on my glasses and pad out to the kitchen, ready to rummage around in my kitchen for the most filling thing I can find, when I stop short.

Georgia’s on my couch. She’s curled up in one corner wearing black sweatpants and a rust-colored long-sleeve T-shirt, working on her tablet with her stylus. The sight of her here, fully at home in my space, makes me forget every last thought of food. How many times have I imagined her exactly like this? A different me would wrap myself around her and find a hundred ways to thank her for taking care of me this morning.

She looks up and catches me daydreaming. She immediately sets her tablet aside and rushes straight to me, her arms out like she expects me to tumble into them.

Maybe I should.

“How are you feeling?” She gazes up at me as if she’s a nurse scanning my vitals.

“Better. Not a hundred percent, but it’s manageable.”

She runs her hand over my forehead as if she can smooth away the lingering headache. I’m willing to give it a solid effort to see if it works. Her hand slides down to cup my jaw, and her fond smile squeezes at something in my chest.

This is all I want. Georgia here with me. Georgia looking out for me. Me looking out for her. Us together, making sure the other is safe and well and happy.

“Good. You look better.” She runs her hand down to rest on my shoulder and leans in. “You smell like lavender and mint, too.”

“It’s essential oils that are supposed to help migraines.”

“That explains it. I’ve wondered what that was.” She slips her hand away from me. “Do you feel like eating?”

“I was just coming in here to find something.”

“I’ve got it covered.” She lets me go and beelines for my stove. “I made chili with the fake beef crumbles you like. I cooked it at my place. I figured all those strong smells might not help your headache.”

Past her, a pot I don’t recognize sits on the stove, and there’s a fresh loaf of bread on the table. She grabs a green bag off the counter and holds it up.

“I also found this herbal tea that’s supposed to help, too. The guy at the apothecary said he swears by it, but who knows?”

“You went to the apothecary for me?” Sacred Roots sells crystals, beads, and incense, as well as a variety of over-the- counter herbal remedies. I haven’t explored their more unusual offerings, but I love their tea blends.

“One of the ingredients is catnip, so…” She shrugs. “Don’t go in for a drug test anytime soon.”

Georgia fixes a mug of the tea and sets it in front of me. I don’t know about catnip, but the scent of peppermint and cinnamon swirls through the air. She dishes up the chili and slices the bread. As I fill my stomach, even more of the headache ebbs away, and I don’t feel quite so weighed down as I did this morning in the throes of it.

“This is exactly what I needed. Thank you.”

“The protein and fiber seemed like a good choice.”

I can’t help my smile. “You’ve been doing a lot of research lately.”

“You haven’t had a migraine for a while. I figured it might be worse than usual.”

“You were right. I didn’t have any of my food triggers yesterday, though.”

A little line forms between her eyebrows. “It was probably from stress. You’re working too much.”

I focus on the food in front of me. “It’s the same amount of work I always do.”

“It isn’t, though. With Hannah gone, you’re in the store all day, every day. Baking, working the register, hanging out for half of the book clubs. If we weren’t closed on Sundays, you might as well live there.” She watches me like she’s trying to calculate something. “Now that I think about it, you’ve never had a vacation.”

“That’s pretty normal for a small business owner.”

“Plus, you’re volunteering at Fiesta Village.” The smile that peeks out ruins her scolding.

“It’s playing games for a couple of hours every week. I’m not sure it counts as stress. ”

“You’re at the Harvest Festival most Saturdays helping out there. I know you do a lot for your mom. And somewhere in between, you have to find time to work on your books.”

Okay, so maybe it was a stress migraine.

“I’ll admit, there are a lot of things on my plate?—”

“Your plate is heaped buffet-style.”

I pause, accepting that assessment. I do take on a lot. And yes, lately it’s been harder to focus on my next book for long periods of time, with a hundred other things pressing on my thoughts. But I can’t just “go to my writing cave” and shut the world out. I can’t pretend my needs outweigh everyone else’s.

She runs her hand over mine. “You’re going to burn out if you’re not careful. Your body’s telling you that today. You can’t do everything.”

It’s like my mother telling me a few weeks ago that it’s okay to take time for myself. Even if I know it’s true on paper, some habits are hard to break.

“There’s this quote that says the best way to honor someone who’s passed away is to carry on the qualities you loved most about them. My dad was always there for people. Family, neighbors, strangers—he was always the first to step up and help. To really be present. He had a way of making everyone feel like the most important person in the world. After he was gone, I guess I took that on, in some small way.”

Working in my own store and doing a bit of volunteer work a couple of times a week is such a drop in the bucket compared to the man he was.

“That’s really sweet,” she says softly. She holds my hand tighter and drops her voice. “I love that you’re carrying on his legacy. But don’t forget, while you’re helping everyone else out, you’re allowed to receive some of that back. You deserve to feel like the most important person in the world sometimes, too.”

In this small, quiet moment, I do.