“Do you think we can close the damn drapes?” I ask for the second time.
“That depends,” Luc answers.
“Do you want to climb in?” Stacy asks, pushing the covers aside and scooting closer to me so that Luc could climb in next to her. “I’ve always wanted to have a threesome.”
“All right, then.” I roll out of bed on the other side. “Sorry, Stacy, but I think it’s probably time for you to get going.”
“Already?” She pouts in what I’m sure she thinks is an attractive manner.
“Yeah, already.” I grab my jeans and search through the pockets for my wallet. When I find it, I pull out forty bucks and hand it to her. “Call a cab to come get you.”
“But we haven’t even done it yet! After we got back here last night you just weren’t into it, so you promised we could do it this morning.”
Oh, thank God. I close my eyes against the sun and the relief that swamps me. I don’t know why it seems like a big deal when I’ve done it hundreds of times before, but I am suddenly, intensely grateful that I didn’t spend last night fucking this girl who I actually can not stand in the light of day.
“That’s not going to happen,” I tell her after a second. “You should take the money.” At first it doesn’t look like she’s going to, but after Luc turns down her offer of a quickie, she grabs the cash and reaches for her phone.
I start toward the bathroom with a vague plan of being violently, disgustingly ill.
“Hey! Where are you going?” Luc demands, getting in my way. “This is your mess.”
“I’m going to puke. You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”
He snarls his disgust, but he lets me pass as he heads over to the bed to help Stacy find a cab company.
It’s just one more reason he’s been my best friend since kindergarten.
After a shower that makes me feel at least partially human, I drag myself out of the bathroom to find that all traces of Stacy’s existence have been wiped out of my bedroom. Her clothes are gone, and so are her shoes, her purse, everything—including her.
I breathe a cautious sigh of relief. Though I don’t know she’s gone for sure, with any luck she’ll have left the premises sometime during my twenty-minute puke fest or half-hour shower.
On the nightstand next to the bed is a cup of black coffee and two painkillers. I take them both, so desperate for the relief that I don’t even care that I’ve probably scalded my throat for life.
I drag my jeans on and think about walking downstairs, maybe getting some breakfast. But just the idea takes more effort than I’m capable of, so I lie back down in bed and stare at the ceiling. Except now that I’m awake and mostly sober, I can smell her in my sheets, a combination of tequila, pot, jasmine, and something else that turns my stomach all over again.
Suddenly I can’t take it for one second longer. I bound to my feet and rip the black sheets off my bed. I take the pillowcases off, the comforter, everything, and kick them into a ball near the door. Then I sink back down on the edge of the bed and just sit there, my head in my hands.
That’s how Luc finds me a few minutes later. “Rough morning?” he asks in a voice that isn’t exactly sympathetic.
“You have no idea.”
“Oh, you might be surprised. Come on. I made breakfast.” He turns and walks back out the door, and for long seconds I think about not following him. About staying right where I am. But what the fuck good will that do? The drapes are open, the covers are gone, and I’m wide awake and sober—which, if I’m being honest, totally sucks.
When I get downstairs, there are two huge bowls of cereal on the table along with a gallon of milk. Breakfast. Right.
“Is Stacy gone?” I ask, walking to the coffeepot and pouring another cup. It’s shaping up to be a five-cup morning.
“Yeah. No thanks to you. That chick was like a fucking octopus.” He shoves a bite of Cheerios into his mouth. “Every time I thought I had her under control, she’d grow another arm and grope me somewhere else. I’m pretty sure by the time I got her out of here she’d violated me in ways that are illegal in twenty-seven different countries.”
“Sorry about that,” I say with a wince. Now that I think about it, I’m feeling pretty damn violated myself. What the fuck was I thinking, getting so drunk that I brought home some woman I don’t even recognize? Sleeping with a stranger is one thing. Doing it when I’m too wasted to even know what I’m doing is totally another. And bringing her back to my house—letting her spend the night in bed with me when I don’t actually sleep with anyone, ever—is totally fucking nuts.
Just thinking about her in bed with me makes me a little crazy, which only makes the pressure inside me worse. Like it’s been fucking building and building since the moment I walked out of Ophelia’s apartment and—
Shit. I cut the thought off before it can even form. I knew the girl barely twenty-four hours. She’s just another girl, just another resort bunny who’s here for a season and then gone. There’s no reason to let her get in my head and fuck with me like this. No need to pay any attention to her. No need to take anything she said seriously.
Except she was being serious when she said all that shit to me. When she told me she was willing to fuck me for the express purpose of driving me away. She wasn’t being cruel, wasn’t throwing shit out there to hurt me. She was telling me the truth. She’d actually been willing to have sex with me just to get me to go away.
That’s dedication, man. I mean, shit. I’ve known for years how fucking repulsive I am, but still, this is a new level. Even for me.
Suddenly I want another shot of tequila so badly that my hands are fucking shaking with it. Normally I’d ignore the urge, but it’s been a hell of a week already and it’s only Sunday. A few more shots won’t hurt anyone.
Except as I wander toward the bar for the Herradura, Luc stops me with a hand on my shoulder.
“Dude. What are you doing?”
“Getting a drink.” I hold up the bottle. “Want one?”
“It’s ten o’clock in the fucking morning.”
“Then I’m getting a late start. I should probably have two.”
“Really?” he asks, ripping the bottle of tequila out of my hand. “This is really how you want this to play out?”
“No, how I want it to play out is with that bottle of tequila in my hand, not yours. Give it back.”
“Fuck, no.” He walks to the bar sink, empties the entire bottle of Selección Suprema.
“That’s three hundred dollars’ worth of tequila you just poured down the drain, you know.”
“Yeah, well, you’re in the middle of throwing away about five million dollars in talent and endorsements, so what the fuck. Three hundred bucks doesn’t really mean shit to you, does it?”
“Not really, no.” I reach under the bar and grab one of the spare bottles I stock up on this time of year, in case of just such an intervention.
Luc watches in disgust as I crack the shit open and take a long swallow right from the bottle. It burns all the way down, but that’s okay. It’s just proof that I can still feel something.
“You’re acting like a total loser, you know that, right?”
“That’s not acting. It’s just truth in advertising, my friend.” I toast him with the bottle before taking another swig.
“Goddamnit.” He wrenches the Herradura out of my hand and throws it against the wall. Except it doesn’t make it. Instead, it takes down a sculpture halfway across the room, and I watch with something like awe as they both crash to the floor and shatter.