Page 55 of Cinnamon Roll Set Up

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 Ihavedone 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.

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