Chapter 37 Ella
ELLA
“Ms. Hale?” a calm, quiet voice says.
My mind is foggy, lost in the haze of a drugged sleep.
“Ms. Hale? We have landed in London, and the car is out on the tarmac waiting for you.”
I blink my eyes open, but my mind is having a hard time clicking into place. Where am I? What’s going on?
Then it slowly starts to piece together. I’m in London. I took a sleeping pill as soon as I got on the plane so that I could adjust to the time difference easier. But my brain is a mushy mess.
The flight attendant smiles down at me and asks if I’m okay.
“Yes, sorry. Just groggy.”
Matthew groans next to me. That’s right. We ate dinner in the car on the way to the airport after frantically packing, then we both took sleeping pills and crashed in the bedroom on the plane. Because Asher’s private plane has a bedroom in it with a king-sized bed, no less.
“What time is it our time?” Matthew asks me, his voice scratchy and much deeper than normal.
“I don’t know. I think New York is five hours behind. But I can’t math right now. Math is too mathy for my sleepy brain.”
We crawl off the bed with the grace of freshly turned zombies, and Matthew, gentlemen-like, lets me use the bathroom first. I do my business, and then see the horror that is my face reflected in the mirror as I wash my hands.
I look like I’m half dead. This is why I don’t take sleeping pills.
As a lightweight through and through, I feel like a truck ran me over, backed up, and then ran me over again.
And the worst part is that I only took half a pill.
Blessedly, I regularly keep an emergency hairbrush and toothbrush and toothpaste with me, so I fish them out of my purse. After brushing my hair and teeth, with a hand and arm that don’t quite feel attached to my body like they should be, I feel marginally better.
The flight attendant is waiting outside the room, chipper and polite, with a cup of coffee for me.
“Bless you,” I say, taking it from her. “May all the good things happen to you.” I’m fairly certain my words slur a bit.
She gives me a wry smile. Then Jenkins, who also slept on the plane but who does not look or act like a freshly turned zombie, takes my coffee from me, insists on holding my arm with his, and orders me to hold onto the railing with my other arm while we walk down the stairs of the private plane and onto the tarmac.
He gives me my coffee back once I’m buckled into the back seat of a large, luxurious black car. Is that the only type of car Asher uses? But my wonder dies in the haze of sleepy brain and the sleeping pill that took things too far.
I notice with some disdain that no one escorts Matthew toddler-style down the stairs of the plane.
I lean heavily against the window since my head has doubled its weight, and set my coffee in the drink holder. I don’t trust myself not to drop it since remembering to keep a grasp on it with my hand feels too taxing for both my brain and hand.
I doze off and fall back into a sleep coma as soon as the car drives away.
“Ms. Hale?” a soft voice calls.
“Hmm?”
“Ms. Hale? We’re at the hotel,” a man’s voice says. Is it Jenkins?
“Ella,” a sharper voice says. That one is definitely Matthew’s.
“What?” I say, trying to sit up.
“I’m never giving you a sleeping pill again. Why didn’t you tell me it would knock you out beyond repair?” Matthew says, lightly tapping my cheek with his hand.
“I only took half.” I think my words are slurry again.
“Yeah, well next time we’re going to Alice in Wonderland that shit, and you’re only going to lick the pill a couple of times. No more ingesting for you.”
“Okay,” I agree in a sing-song voice.
“She didn’t take anything else, right?” Jenkins asks, and his voice sounds tense.
“No.”
“Motherfucker. She doesn’t take any prescriptions that it would react weird with, right?”
“No. She’s not on any prescriptions. She just has no tolerance for things. I knew she could get drunk easily, I just didn’t expect her to be this affected by half a sleeping pill.”
“We can’t walk her through the lobby like this.”
“Ella,” Matthew snaps. “You have to wake back up. You can lie down once we’re up in the hotel room.”
“How is she worse now than when she got off the plane?”
“I fell back asleep,” I mumble. I can hear their conversation, and I understand it, but adding to it takes a lot of effort. “If I fall back asleep, it’s extra hard to wake up.”
“Open your eyes.”
“They want to stay closed.”
“For fuck’s sake. I’m just going to carry her,” Jenkins groans.
The car door opens, and a cool breeze slithers along my face. That helps me blink my eyes open a little. But they’re still so heavy.
“Come on, Ms. Hale. Let’s get you upstairs.”
I feel myself being lifted up out of the car, and I wrap my arms around Jenkins’s neck and let my head flop onto his shoulder.
My body sways with the motion of his walking, but I can’t bring myself out of the fog of half-conscious sleep to pay any attention to where we’re going.
I vaguely hear the dings of elevator chimes and the opening of elevator doors.
Then I hear the sound of a voice I’ve grown to know all too well these few weeks, and it sounds mad.
“What the fuck is going on? Why are you carrying Ella?” Asher demands.
Matthew sighs dramatically. “Because she took a sleeping pill when we left New York. And it’s knocked her the hell out.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Just still very sleepy.”
I feel myself being lowered onto a bed, and I curl up on my side.
“Ella?” Asher’s voice says, near me. “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay,” I say, the words still sort of garbled.
My body is rolled, and I hear the swoosh of blankets being undone. Then I’m rolled back over and tucked under the sheets and comforter.
“Alright, you sleep it off for a bit. But we have a meeting in two hours.”
Asher’s voice turns away from me, speaking to someone else. “Is one hour enough to get her ready?”
“That will be tight, but I’ll let the hair and makeup team know they have to work quickly.”
I let my sleepy mind fade back into oblivion.
“Ella?” Asher’s voice says, soft and calm.
I feel a brush of fingers down my arm. The bed sinks under someone’s weight.
“Ella, you’re starting to worry me now. You need to wake up.”
I think very hard, and I’m able to blink my eyes open. But they still feel heavy and dry, and they don’t like the open, outside world.
“Should we postpone the meeting?” Matthew asks.
“We may need to; she can’t go like this,” Asher answers.
My brain is still foggy, but it’s slowly clicking things into place.
“Can I have a drink?” I ask through a raspy voice. “Water will help.”
A second later, Asher’s arms wrap around me, lifting me up so that I’m sitting propped against pillows and the headboard.
“Do you need me to help?” Asher asks.
“No, I can do it. Just help me stay sitting up. My whole body feels like rubber.”
He hands me a water bottle, and I take a small sip. It immediately helps my brain to kick in a little bit. I take another sip. The room slowly forms around me, and I’m able to fully pull myself into the present.
“Shower and coffee. Those are the next two steps,” I say.
“Coffee first,” Asher says, adamantly. “I don’t trust you in the shower yet.”
He helps me sit up farther and swing my legs over the side of the bed. He sits next to me and wraps his arm around my waist. Matthew enters the room right at that moment, coffees in hand.
Bless him and his perfection.
“Yours is iced so that you can drink it faster,” he says, handing it to me.
I take a sip, and it’s suddenly like all will be right in the world. As soon as I have a few more sips, of course.
“Here, take a bite of this.”
Matthew shoves a breakfast sandwich at me. “I found a place that has American breakfast options. I didn’t think you could stomach beans on toast on a morning like this.”
“I don’t think I could ever stomach beans on toast, no matter the morning.”
“Indeed.”
Asher and Matthew sit and watch like weirdos as I take a bite of a ham and egg sandwich.
It tastes different than it would back in New York, but it’s good enough.
I take another bite, and then another sip of coffee.
The food and drink are doing wonders for my foggy brain, but I still feel really heavy.
Good god, now I remember why I never take sleeping pills.
When my sandwich and coffee are half gone, I set them aside. That’s all I can take right now.
“Okay. Shower now, and then I should be back to my normal self.”
“Are you sure?” Asher says. “We can reschedule.”
“I don’t want to do that. Isn’t this meeting really important?”
“It is, but you are the important piece, so if you’re not doing well, it’s better to postpone. I need you at your best.”
“You have so little faith.”
“I just saw you carried in like a corpse an hour ago.”
“I’m much less corpsy now.”
He snorts. “The bags under your eyes and the pallor of your skin are still quite corpsy.” He flicks my nose lightly.
“A gentleman should never insult a woman’s appearance.”
“I’ve never claimed to be a gentleman. Also, your hair looks like it’s suffered an electric shock.”
“It’s very unfair for you to keep insulting me when you look perfect.”
“I also never claimed to play fair.”
“You’re a cad and a scoundrel, Mr. Langford. See? I’ve even got my London vernacular with me. I’m fine.”
“Okay then, now we get you in the shower, miss damsel in distress.”
He tugs on my arm and leads me to the bathroom.
“What is this ‘we’ you speak of?” I demand.
“The ‘we’ of you and me.”
“I don’t need a ‘we’ to shower.”
“You need a ‘we’ when I’m not sure you’ll make it out without slipping or collapsing and hurting yourself. I can’t have you concussed on top of drugged.”
“And what exactly do you think this ‘we’ involves? Showers are private affairs.”
“Not today, they aren’t.”
“You can’t just follow me into the bathroom while I shower.”
“I can, and I will. I’m serious; I don’t trust you to not get lightheaded and slip and fall.”
“I’ll be fine.”