Before I even opened my eyes, I felt it.
“It” being the pain in my head that felt like my brain was pounding against the inside of my skull, trying to get out. Instinctively, I knew taking that step was not going to be a good thing. The unfortunate truth of it was that lying there without looking was giving me time to notice all the other parts of me that seemed to be in an open state of revolt as well.
My stomach ached, but that didn’t overshadow the nausea. My throat was sore, but the idea of even drinking water to ease it made me want to gag. I couldn’t even start on how horrible the taste in my mouth was. On top of all that, my whole body simply ached.
In the years since I’d left home, I’d come to realize that a lot of the things my father had railed against in and out of his church were wrong. However, after last night, I might have to concede his point on alcohol.
It was devil juice. Pure and simple.
I started to groan, then cut off on a wince because even the sound of my own noise was too loud. The movement sent a sharper wave of nausea roiling through me.
God, I’m sincerely sorry for whatever I did to earn this. If you just make this stop, I promise to never drink again.
When my body relaxed back to just the latent misery I was saddled with this morning, I finally had the clarity to notice I was not laying in a bed. I had a blanket on and below me, wrapped around my back, but the surface beneath it was hard. And once I realized that, I noticed that the thing under my head wasn’t a pillow. It was too firm. Still afraid of opening my eyes, I reached an arm up to feel what it was. It was rounded and long, and there was something rough covering it like…
Jeans.
It was a leg.
Oh, okay. Someone was there. That was…alarming.
Bracing for the agony I was sure was coming, I opened my eyes just enough to get a peek. At first, my vision was too blurred to make anything out, and then I noted it was dark. Or at least, dark enough that I wasn’t blinded. Maybe it was still night. When I had enough of a handle on what I was seeing to take in more, I gingerly turned my head to look to my right.
Stone was sitting there, leaned against a wall, his eyes closed.
Oh, jeez.
Next to him was a tub, and I realized the hard thing I was laying on was the bathroom floor. Given the state of my stomach, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why we were in there.
What surprised me was that I had no memory of getting there. Or of how Stone ended up there with me.
The last thing I recalled was being in the car on the way home. We’d shut down the club, hanging out until after the last dance had ended and the crowds were gone. Then, Daz and Ham practically pushed us all out the doors and into their cars, breaking up the hug fest as we all said goodbye to do so. I remembered being in the car was making me kind of dizzy, so when we dropped Ember off, I laid down in the little space she’d cleared up.
After that, it was all blank.
Definitely, after this, alcohol and I were not good friends.
And I was starting to have my questions about Max since she was the one that made me drink so much.
I let out another groan, this one quieter after learning my lesson.
In response, I saw Stone stir.
“You feelin’ sick again, bunny?”
Bunny?
And why was he being so loud?
“Shhhh. Why are you shouting?”
He chuckled. It sounded so good, but it also made his leg move. It was probably barely anything, but it felt like the whole world was shaking beneath me.
“Please stop moving,” I begged.
When he spoke again, he did it much softer. Though it still twinged a bit to hear, it was much better. “Tried to get you to bed after you stopped, or just give you a pillow. You just settled in on my leg.”
Well, we could add the burn of humiliation onto the other symptoms I was experiencing. Of course, that triggered the delayed mortification of processing that he’d been in here while I’d been throwing up.
Never. Drinking. Again.
I shut my eyes, hoping I could at least stave off some of the physical pain if not the mental anguish. When I did, I felt Stone’s hand sift through my hair. I barely contained my sigh at how good that felt. At least if I had to live knowing he’d seen me that low the night before, I got this as a consolation prize.
Honestly, it might be totally worth it.
Maybe I’d humiliate myself again. Stone always seemed to be around for those moments.
Oh, jeez, now I was just being dramatic.
“You ready to move to a bed now?” he asked, still running his fingers through my hair. “My back’s had about all it can take.”
Right. He’d been sitting up all night on the bathroom floor. “Sorry,” I whispered, not only to keep my own voice down but also because the way he was playing with my hair was relaxing me to the point I was nearly asleep again.
“Do it again,” he replied oddly. “Didn’t like you being sick because I know firsthand how much that shit sucks, but you’re a sweet drunk and get even more so when you aren’t feelin’ good.”
Really, at this point, I didn’t even want to know.
“Come on,” he urged anyway, “let’s get you up.”
With his assistance, I managed to get up to a seated position with no small amount of misery. He stood and stretched while I seriously contemplated just laying back down. Standing didn’t seem within the realm of possibilities.
As it turned out, it didn’t have to be. Once he stretched his back, Stone leaned down not to help me up, but to pluck me right off the floor and carry me.
“What are you doing?” I demanded as he hoisted me up.
“Taking you to bed.”
“You can’t carry me,” I shared.
“You think you walked from the car and up the stairs last night?” he shot back.
Not based on that question, I didn’t.
“You carried me up the stairs?”
“You’re light; it was easy.”
Or he was just strong. Based on the muscles I could feel then and had seen already, I was thinking one of those was more likely.
He was about to step out of the bathroom when I cried out, “Wait!”
The word bounced around in my head, striking like a blow.
“Jesus, Evie. What’s wrong?”
“I need to brush my teeth,” I explained.
“You can’t even stand.”
Sure I could.
Maybe.
“I need to,” I insisted.
With a sigh, he knelt until he could lean me forward and my feet were right on the floor. He didn’t release my torso until he was sure I could stand on my own. Or at least until I stopped teetering so much.
“You good?” he asked.
“Mhm.” Peachy. Totally. Legs were supposed to feel like Jell-O, right?
“You got it in you to take two steps to your right so I can find you a toothbrush?”
“Mhm,” I answered, but didn’t move. This was mostly because I was trying to figure out which way was right. When his hand came to my hip and applied pressure to one side, I figured that was a good bet and moved with it. Stone disappeared from my side, so it must have been right.
A thought occurred to me then. “Why do you need to find me a toothbrush? I have one.”
“Not in the same bathroom you use,” he explained. “This is an en-suite to my room.”
Oh, okay.
I’d not only spent the night on a bathroom floor with Stone after seemingly puking my guts up, I’d done all that on his bathroom floor.
It just kept getting worse.
After hunting around for a minute, he stood back up with a toothbrush in hand. He didn’t give it to me, though. He turned on the tap, wet it, then got the toothpaste tube and squeezed some on the brush first. That was sweet because I wasn’t sure how long all those simple tasks would have taken me.
“You’re good at this,” I told him.
“Using toothpaste?” he asked like I’d lost my mind.
“No,” I responded as I took the brush, “taking care of me.”
The room felt weird as I focused on getting through my task. I just didn’t have it in me to figure out why.
When I’d finished with the brushing and rinsing business—which was more complicated than I ever remembered it being before—Stone asked, “You need to do anything else in here before you lay down?”
It was a pointed question that even I didn’t miss.
Awkward, but also weirdly sweet.
“Yes.”
“You gonna be able to handle that?” I got the sense that if I did say no, he’d actually stick around to at least help me get to the toilet.
Nope. No way. I’d die of shame if he did that.
“I’ve got it.”
“You sure?” he pressed.
“Yes.”
“All right,” he said, moving to the door. Before he stepped through and closed it, he warned, “Gotta turn on the light. It’s pitch black in here without it. You ready?”
No. I definitely was not.
I squinted my eyes, hoping that would stave off some of the light before I gave him the go ahead. Squinting, I found, may have helped, but it did not keep the light from making my head pound worse.
After, when I managed to wash my hands and get through the door, I found Stone sitting on the edge of his bed, waiting for me.
“I’ll just…” I started but trailed off when he stood and came my way.
“Get in bed, Evie. We both need more sleep. You’ll feel a fuck of a lot better later.”
Well, yes. Sleep was my plan, but not in here.
“I can go back to my room,” I said, gesturing vaguely to the door since I didn’t know which way my room was from here.
“Babe,” Stone replied like this was a response that made sense rather than just a word.
“What?”
He sighed and looked to the ceiling like he was seeking deliverance. “Just lie down. I’m fuckin’ wiped.”
Not having the capacity to put up a fight, and not able to resist the allure of getting into Stone’s bed with him, I did as he asked. He walked around the bed, getting in the far side by the time I’d gotten to the close edge. I climbed in, the soft surface beneath me instantly stealing any alertness I had left.
I collapsed, not moving as Stone pulled the covers over me. I was already drifting off when he settled and then reached over to pull me into him.
Maybe I should have protested. Maybe, had I not been hungover and exhausted, I would have. Since I was those things, and because I really liked the feel of his big, warm body wrapped around mine, I didn’t.
I just fell asleep.