“Not till you're done puking, I promise,” he replied. She managed a laugh, but that just made her stomach cramp up worse, and she was back over the toilet.
Sanders eventually appeared with a ginger ale. Jameson moved to sit on the floor with her, feeding her crackers. She thanked him, then laid down, resting with her head in his lap. She was too hungover to be mad at him anymore. Besides, she knew that most wealthy stock-broker-CEO-financier-tycoon-type dudes wouldn't be willing to hold their girlfriend's hair back while she puked, so she figured that made up for Jameson talking to her staff behind her back.
When there was absolutely nothing left to vomit up, they finally moved back into the main cabin. Tate stretched out on a couch, beaching herself against Sanders while Jameson went to scrounge up something real that she could eat and potentially hold down.
“Are you alright?” Sanders asked in a soft voice, closing his laptop.
“No, I'm dying,” she croaked, shivering. He draped his arm on top of her, rubbing her wrist affectionately.
“You are not dying. You shouldn't drink so much,” he pointed out. She pinched his leg.
“Hindsight is twenty-twenty. You should've stopped me,” she retorted.
“It is not my job to police how much you -,”
“Sanders?” she interrupted, wrapping her arm around his waist and pressing her face against his ribs.
“Hmmm?”
“Please shut up now, you're making me feel worse.”
“Of course.”
Tate slept against him all the way to San Francisco. They landed there to refuel, and Jameson actually left the plane to run an errand. Normally, Tate would have been suspicious, but she was too hungover to care. He could be arranging the sale of her body to an oil sheik, and she wouldn't care. So long as no one bothered her while she was hungover.
After they took off, she slept some more, clear to the halfway point between the U.S. and Hong Kong. Then she woke up, let out a loud belch, and realized she was starving. Sanders was sleeping in a back room, but Jameson had stayed up to keep an eye on her, so he had some food brought out for her.
“Jesus, Tate, don't make yourself sick again,” he laughed, watching as she wolfed down a plate of food.
“I feel like I haven't eaten in years,” she replied around a full mouth.
“You're certainly eating like it.”
“Jameson,” she ignored his rudeness.
“Yes?”
“Why do you need me to come to Hong Kong?” she asked. Now that her brain was clearer, she didn't feel the need to be quite so bitchy.
“Because. As hard as it is to believe, baby girl, I like being around you,” he told her, moving so he was sitting next to her.
“That's very sweet, Jameson. But I really, really, don't like how you went about it. You could've just asked me,” she said, pushing her tray away and tucking her feet underneath herself.
“I was trying to do something spontaneous. Fun. Remember those words?” Jameson taunted her. Tate tried to glare, but couldn't hold it up. She smiled and leaned into him.
“Once upon a time. And Hong Kong? It's gonna be so hot,” she complained.
“You'll love it, I promise,” he assured her, kissing the top of her head.
“You can't just ditch me,” she started, wrapping her arm around him. “No spending all day in meetings. I hate that. You ruined London for me, that one time.”
“You're never gonna let me forget that, are you?” he sighed.
“No, probably not,” she shook her head.
“I'll spend every day with you, I promise, Liebe,” he whispered. She smiled.
“Good.”
They talked for a while, about a lot of different things. Conversation always flowed between them, despite the fact that they were two very different people. It just worked for them. Then an hour before they were scheduled to land, Sanders wandered out, looking fresh as a daisy in a newly pressed suit. Tate looked down at herself, still wearing her hangover clothing, and laughed. Kissed Jameson before flouncing off into the back to change and clean last night's makeup off her face.
When they landed, Tatum felt almost halfway normal again. She had changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top, looking as unlike a financial mogul's girlfriend as she possibly could. She yanked her hair up into a ratty ponytail, shoved on her aviators, then followed them off the plane.
It was hot, like she'd predicted, and good lord, the humidity. She could feel herself sweating through her tank top and wondered how the guys could hold up in their suits – Jameson was in a three piece! But he acted as cool and comfortable as ever, strolling through customs like it was something he did every day.
“So are you meeting your lawyer today?” Tate asked during the ride to the hotel.
“No. He's actually not in Hong Kong,” Jameson replied.
“Excuse me?” Tate didn't believe her ears.
“He's not in Hong Kong. He's in Singapore,” he explained.
“So why the fuck didn't we go to Singapore!?” Tate demanded.
“I don't like Singapore. I like Hong Kong. He's going to meet me here,” Jameson continued, scrolling through messages on his phone.
“Oh. Like tomorrow?”
“Like in a couple weeks.”
Tate sat very still. In Boston, Jameson had said it would be a week, maybe longer. Now suddenly, the lawyer was going to show up “in a couple weeks”. It was all very strange. How far away could Singapore be!?