Chapter Five
Sophie
I could feel the thudding pain in my head before I even opened my eyes. I groaned and felt the dryness in my mouth and throat that told me that it wasn't just a seasonal cold that had gotten its hold on me. The night before was fuzzy to the point of near blackness, but I was fairly well certain that it had involved plenty of alcohol. Where and why I had consumed that alcohol, however, wasn't immediately coming to mind. I shifted and something about the movement of my body seemed to jostle my memory and I suddenly remembered storming into Levi's bar and taking over a table to drown my sorrows in some seasonal cheer. A few shakier memories formulated in my mind and I saw Levi's face swimming in my field of vision.
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach as I realized that I wasn't smelling the cool neutrality of a hotel room. Instead, I was smelling hot coffee and bacon. Oh, no, I thought to myself. I felt the bed on either side of me, relieved when I felt only sheets that felt distinctly cool rather than holding any residual heat like it would if there had been anyone lying beside me recently. Anyone like an irritatingly gorgeous and arrogant bartender who I might or might not have thrown myself at the night before while I was still trying to process the idea that my mother was getting married. Reassured that I was the only person in the bed, I gradually opened my eyes. I hadn't seen this far into his apartment the first night that I was in it and I took a moment to look around, taking it in. I would have expected his apartment to be the epitome of bachelor pads, containing a tremendous amount of black leather and possibly a few neon signs. Maybe a tiny version of the bar that he already had downstairs so that if he didn't have the time or patience to go all the way down he could still get a drink.
What I was seeing, though, surprised me. The bedroom was surprisingly neat and decorated in shades of cream and navy blue. A stack of throw pillows on the floor told me that when he wasn't occupying it, Levi actually made his bed. I climbed out of the bed and noticed that I was wearing a T-shirt that went to my mid-thigh and a pair of oversized sweatpants rather than the clothes that I had been wearing the night before. I felt the sinking feeling in my belly again and covered my face with my hands for a moment, trying to talk myself through the awkwardness that I was feeling and that I knew was just about to get worse. I looked around for my clothes, found them draped across the dresser, and hurriedly got into them. I was just dropping my shirt down over my head when the bedroom door opened. Levi stopped in his tracks when he saw me.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't realize that you were up yet. I was just going to grab a clean shirt. I splattered a little coffee on this one."
He gestured toward his shirt and I noticed the stain.
"Um, it's OK. I just got up. I'm going to go."
"You don't have to hurry," he said.
"Oh, but I think I do."
"You can stay and grab some breakfast."
I shook my head as I stepped past him through the door and into the hallway.
"No. That's alright. I'm just going to ---" I paused and turned around to face him. I let out a sigh. "I have to know," I said. "I woke up in your bed, in your clothes…"
I didn't really want to finish the question, but Levi seemed to know what I was asking and smiled, shaking his head.
"Don't worry," he said. "I didn't...stuff your stocking."
I felt my cheeks flush and my jaw set slightly.
"Well, that seems a touch more graphic that I think that it really needed to be."
He laughed.
"You're the one who said it, not me."
I looked at him strangely.
"I didn't say that."
"Yes, you did. Last night."
I hung my head and drew in a breath.
"Oh, dear lord."
"Yep."
"Could you tell me what else happened?" I held up a hand and squeezed my eyes closed before he started speaking. "In the least embarrassing terms possible, please."
"Well," Levi said, "if you want, you could come have some coffee and I can tell you all about our holiday adventure."
"That doesn't sound good at all."
Levi laughed and gestured down the hallway. I followed the invitation and walked down the hallway toward the small kitchen. There was a table tucked in one corner and a box of doughnuts sat in the middle of it. Levi went to a cabinet and took out two mugs, placing them on the table before filling each. He turned his back but when he turned around to offer me cream and sugar I was already downing the black beverage.
"Alright," he said, putting the containers down on the table. "How about some bacon?"
"Bacon and doughnuts?" I asked.
"Nothing but the very best in balanced breakfasts."
I nodded.
"The salt and fat might do me some good right now," I agreed.
"Not to mention the sugar and gratuitous sprinkles."
"Gratuitous sprinkles?" I asked. "That sounds very scandalous."
Levi reached over and opened the box, revealing an assortment of doughnuts covered in thick icing and coated so heavily in sprinkles that I had a hard time differentiating the flavors of icing on some of them.
"Absolutely," he said.
"That is certainly gratuitous," I agreed. I took one that I thought might be chocolate frosted and settled back in the chair. "Alright. I think I'm properly prepared. Go ahead and tell me what I did last night."
Levi took a doughnut and piled a couple of pieces of bacon on top. He took a bite and sighed happily as he chewed and swallowed.
"It wasn't that bad, I promise."
"I told you that you weren't allowed to stuff my stocking," I said.
"No, you didn't."
"But you said…"
"You told me that you wanted me to stuff your stocking."
I nearly choked on the piece of doughnut in my mouth.
"I did what?"
"You said that you had a really shitty day and that you really needed me to…"
I held up my hand again to stop him. I was starting to feel as though that was my signature move when it came to him.
"That's fine," I said. "I don't need you to say it again."
"Alright. Then I'll back up."
"I know that I was in the bar drinking egg nog," I said. "Between that and waking up is where things get kind of fuzzy."
"That's a pretty wide gap, but fortunately not too much happened in it. You commandeered the table and riled up some people, so when I came in the manager told me."
"That's right. I came in and you weren't here, but they told me that you were going to be in later, so I decided to wait."
"Why?"
I opened my mouth, then closed it again, tilting my head to the side as I looked at him.
"I'm not sure," I said. "As I said, I had just had a really shitty day, and for some reason when I was sitting around at the hotel, I thought that it would be a good idea to come back here."
A mischievous smile crossed Levi's lips.
"You just wanted to pick up where we stopped the other night."
In the back of my mind I knew that that assumption was probably not terribly far off, but I wasn't about to admit that to him.
"So, what happened when you found me?"
"At first you tried to convince me that you weren't drinking, but that fell by the wayside pretty quickly. I knew that you weren't in any condition to be by yourself or to get back to wherever you are staying alone, so I removed you from the bar and brought you up here so that you could be safe while you slept it off."
I hesitated for a moment, not sure how to word the next question.
"When I woke up I was wearing what I can only assume was your shirt and sweats. If we didn't…" I sighed. "Why was I wearing different clothes?"
"I've found that women tend to not appreciate wandering home in the same clothes that they went out in the night before, and that even if someone seems like they have themselves together, things can still get messy when a lot of alcohol is involved, so when I got home, I had Crissy help me change you into some pajamas. I'm a little surprised you didn't wake up during it, but you were totally out of it."
"There are a few things in that that I'm going to need more information about."
"I had to go to a party for my father and I asked the bartender, Crissy, to check on you a few times during the evening."
I nodded.
"Thank you for clarification. So, when you left me here…"
“I went to the party, came back, made sure you were comfortable, and then I slept in the living room. That brings us to this morning when I bought doughnuts and now I'm here. "
"Was it your father's birthday?" I asked.
He shook his head.
"No. It was his bachelor party."
"Your father's engaged?" I asked. He nodded. "You're not upset about it?"
"Should I be?"
"Well...do you like the woman? Do you think that he should be getting married? Do you think that they're right for each other?"
Levi hesitated, looking down at his doughnut like he was contemplating my question along with all of life's mysteries and hoped to find the answers among the multicolored sprinkles. Finally, he looked up at me.
"I mean...he's happy. I haven't seen him happy like this since my mother died. I'll go along with just about anything that's going to make him that happy again. Besides, I don't really think that it's up to me to decide what he's supposed to do. He's the adult."
"I think you qualify as an adult, too," I pointed out.
"I know that. What I mean is that he's my father. I don't get to tell him what he should do or what's good for him. If he's happy and I don't see any real and present danger, then who am I to say anything to him? It doesn't really matter that I barely know the woman. He says that he does, and I can't really argue that that's all that matters. He's marrying her, not me."
I immediately felt guilty. In a matter of seconds, I had gone from feeling like I had stumbled upon an unexpected ally in my fury over my mother being engaged to feeling like scum because I wasn't somehow more thrilled for her. It was just like she had said. It didn't matter what I had gone through or how much I thought that this wasn't the right decision for my mother. Apparently, I was supposed to be happy for her. Apparently, I didn't have any right to have any negative thoughts about this. That wasn't my place.
"So, what was it that made your day so awful yesterday?" Levi asked, apparently able to detect my discomfort.
I knew that I couldn't tell him the actual reason. After that speech that he had just delivered, there was no way that I could tell him that my day was so shitty because my mother was getting married. Unfortunately, I couldn't think of anything else to tell him. I didn't want to go the whiny woman route and complain about a bad breakup or an impending divorce. I didn't want to complain about work when I had seen the chaos that he faced on a regular basis at his work. I didn't really know why it mattered to me what he thought of what I was going through. After all, once my hotel-imposed stint in town was over, I wasn't going to be seeing him again. And yet the look in his eyes made me want to be careful with what I told him and craft the perception that he had of me. Maybe I had some chance of being able to repair some of what I had done the night before.
"It was just a bad day," I said. "We'll just leave it at that."
I was relieved when Levi nodded and didn't push any further.
"Well, as I see it, I rescued you last night."
I thought about what he had told me about the night before and nodded, smiling at him.
"I guess you did. Thank you."
"I think that that means that you owe me."
Thoughts of my stocking stuffing commentary crossed my mind and my mouth went dry.
"I owe you?" I managed to get out.
"Yep. You're going to help me decorate for Christmas."
It took a few seconds for what he had said to sink in. I thought about it for a moment, feeling like it hadn't really gotten all the way into my brain.
"Excuse me, what?" I asked after a few seconds.
Levi laughed.
"The restaurant is closed for the next couple of days for an event and I need to decorate for it."
"Restaurant? I thought it was a bar," I teased.
"It's a bar at night, but it's a restaurant during the day."
"So, it has a secret identity."
"Not really a secret identity. Just a daytime identity. Like a CEO who likes to ride motorcycles."
"That's a visual."
"It is, and you are going to help me bump up the visual even more."
"I don't think that you understand what I meant."
"Doesn't matter. We're wasting time."
"I'm still not sure what it is that you think that I'm doing."
"You're going back to the hotel, freshening up, and then helping me decorate the bar for the event."
"I thought it was a restaurant."
"It will be a bar during the event."
"But it's a restaurant now?"
"Yes."
"I hope that you give it flashcards or something so that it knows what it's supposed to be at any given time."
"Oh, it knows. It's very confident in itself. All it needs is a good festive makeover."
I sighed. I knew that Levi was right. He had definitely saved me. In the condition that my mercifully waning hangover and lack of memories indicated that I was in the night before I would have been extremely vulnerable to whatever and whoever. Levi made sure that I stayed safe and even willingly gave up the bed in his own home to make sure that I was kept comfortable while I slept off the egg nog that had knocked me on my ass.
"Fine. You got me. You can tell your bar-slash-restaurant that I will help you make it as Christmassy as you could possible want it to be. But then we're even."
Levi gave a nod.
"Absolutely."
I finished my doughnut and bacon, swallowed down two more cups of coffee, and gathered my purse before heading out to the parking lot to return to the hotel. Levi said that he would pick me up in an hour, which didn't give me much time to scrape off the reminders of the night before and try to make myself presentable, but I would do my best. At least this was something to keep me distracted while I waited out my prepaid hotel stay. As I finished my makeup and wound my freshly washed and dried hair up onto my head I considered that I could just give up the money that I had already paid for the reservation and go home. I didn't actually have to stay for the whole stretch. The thought of leaving, though, made me feel as though I were giving up, like I was somehow letting the hotel win. I wasn't going to let the hotel win. I tried to tell myself that it had nothing to do with the fact that I had taken my vacation time from work and that even if I went home I would have literally nothing to do until the new year, but if I did that it would mean that I had to accept that there was something else that was keeping me there. That wasn't something that I wanted to let myself think about right then. There was already enough on my mind.
I finished getting ready, slipped on my coat, and rode the elevator down to meet Levi in the parking lot as we had arranged. I was stepping out when I noticed my mother walking across the lobby toward me. I stopped in my tracks and looked to either side, trying to find a way that I would be able to avoid her, but before I could slip behind one of the columns or make a run for the side door, Gloria noticed me. Her face lit up in much the same way that it had when she first saw me outside of her house, but with slightly less exuberance behind it. I stayed in place as she rushed up to meet me.
"I'm so glad that you're still here," she said.
"I'm meeting someone, Mom. I don't have time to talk."
"Alright," she said, sounding somewhat crestfallen but as if she didn't want to give in to the difficult emotions that she was feeling. "I just wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about what happened yesterday and give you this."
She held an envelope out to me and I took it, pushing it down into my purse without so much as glancing at it. The guilt that I had begun to feel when I was in Levi's apartment had started creeping back, but I could still feel the pain so sharply, I couldn't just let it go. I couldn't just pretend that everything was alright. I couldn't just ignore everything that I was feeling and pretend that all that had happened between us had never occurred. Levi might be a better person than I was, but there was a much stronger chance that he had simply not faced what I had and didn't have any reason to have the same response that I did.
I walked around Gloria and headed for the door. I heard her calling my name, but I didn't turn around. I didn't want her to see the tears that were forming in my eyes as I scurried across the parking lot toward the car where I saw Levi smiling at me from the driver's window. He looked at me strangely as I slipped into the passenger seat beside him and fastened my seatbelt.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
I brushed at my cheeks and shook my head to try to regain my composure, plastering on a smile that had become familiar to me over the years.
"I'm fine," I said. "It's just cold out. Are you ready?"
Levi nodded, still not looking completely convinced.
"Sure."
He glanced over his shoulder to start pulling out and I noticed him lean forward sharply, twisting as if looking at something
"Is everything OK?" I asked.
He settled back into his seat and nodded.
'Yeah," he said. "Sorry. I just thought that I saw something. Anyway, let's go. There's a lot to do. The bar isn't going to Christmas itself."
"Restaurant."
Levi laughed, and we pulled out of the parking lot, some of the heaviness lifting away from me as soon as we put the hotel behind us.