A Story of Now (16 page)

Mia laughs and pokes her clumsily in the arm. “I’m not sure that it’s completely owing to my state of drunkenness that I have no idea what you are talking about right now.”

Claire watches Kate accept a glass of champagne from the guy she came in with, a wide, tall guy with curly hair. She gives him a simpering smile of thanks. Claire just stares. She cannot believe Kate has turned up here, a completely unexpected and irritating intruder in what has turned out to be the most random of fun nights.

“See, I knew it was that kind of party,” she moans and presses her face against the sofa as Kate eyes the room again.

“That kind of party?” Mia laughs. “You make it sound totally sinister. Like we’re going to be injected with drugs against our will in darkened rooms and induced to perform bizarre sexual acts.” Still, she’s clearly sympathetic because she pours them each another shot, which they slug quickly. Then she picks up a jacket and holds it in front of Claire’s face.

Claire giggles. “Thanks.” She positions her head right in front of the jacket. “No, I just mean full of boring vapid idiots like her.”

“That’s okay then.” Mia looks over at the couple and then turns back to Claire, her brown eyes shining. “You want me to make up a story about her? Will that make you feel better?”

“Sure.” Claire settles into the chair behind her protective shield.

And Mia, with a surprisingly evil glint in her eye, goes off in a long-winded tale of debauchery and punishment, where nothing good has ever happened to Kate and her date. Sadly, it actually does make Claire feel a little better. Well, at least it makes her laugh.

And the game continues, accompanied by more shots of tequila and even more hysterical, face-numbing laughter. Claire shakes her head at her mental image of them in their corner. Who knew the highlight of her night would be stuck behind a jacket in a corner on top of a pile of coats? The game escalates and the stories grow stupider, with more laughing than actual storytelling. It’s as if the whole night is this deeply funny joke, and they are the only ones in the room who get it.

Then it happens. She has no idea
how
it happens or who started it. In fact, if she were questioned in a court of law, she’s not sure she could answer truthfully. And when she looks back at it the next day, via the lens of her mind-blowing hangover, it looks like a series of grainy jump shots from one moment to the next. There is no necessary cause and effect, no incident and consequence. One minute they are downing another shot and laughing hysterically, Mia’s elbow resting on Claire’s knee as she continues to hold up the jacket to hide her. Then, for a split second, they just look at each other. And then, mere seconds later, in a clash of hot breath, lips, tequila and tongue, they are kissing.

It’s not a long kiss, but long enough for the jacket to be dropped and hands to start grabbing for leverage. And it ends when Mia accidentally pulls at her hair, and Claire is yanked back to reality. She snaps her head back, eyes wide. And staring straight back at her is Mia, her eyes equally wide.

Then suddenly Mia begins to laugh as she pulls herself up to sit on the arm of the chair. “Umm…” Mia folds her arms over her chest and pulls an
eek
face. And before Claire can say anything, Mia grins. She leans down close and points at her. “So, inappropriate, drunken make outs are generally a solid cue for me that it’s well over time to go home. Which means I am out.” She sighs and hands Claire her glass. “See you.”

Claire takes the glass and nods, still too speechless to respond.

Mia swings her long legs over the side of the chair, picks out her coat from the pile, and disappears into the crowd by the door.

Stunned by both the impromptu kiss and the rapid departure, Claire stays nailed to her seat, both the glasses clutched in her hands. She has many,
many
questions.

Her most pressing being, what the hell just happened?

But she knows no one can tell her because she was right here, and she has no idea.

The second question is does that mean she should leave too? Claire’s done plenty of inappropriate kissing in her time. It’s part of the fun of parties like these, being messy. Never with a girl, though. That part’s definitely new. Maybe it
is
time to go home. Claire nods to herself. She must be very, very drunk.

Third, how did that even happen? Who the hell started it? She shakes her head, rests her cheek on her hand, and frowns.

And fourth, did it really mean that Mia had to bolt like that? Did she have to leave her stranded on a chair, a Claire-shaped pile of stunned and drunk? That’s no fun. Surely they could have just gotten over the awkwardness and gone back to the dance floor and forgotten about it? She sighs. How the hell did a night that started out so lame and then turned so freaking fun, catapult itself somehow to outright bizarre?

But before she can get any further along in her stunned and somewhat circular self-interrogation, a body flies over the arm of the chair and lands in her lap. It’s Robbie.

“Where have you been? I need tequila.”

Claire blinks at him for a second. He clearly didn’t see what happened. “I’ve been right here,” she grumbles as she reaches under his legs for the bottle. “And you’re sitting on it.”

He snatches the bottle and the proffered glasses. “Shall we drink?”

Claire shrugs. She might as well, right?

“Where’s Mia?” Robbie asks, unsteadily pouring tequila into the glasses. He hands one to her.

“Gone home.”

“Boo. Want to dance?”

“Why not?” Claire snatches the glass and throws back the shot. Might as well carry the night all the way to ruin.

CHAPTER 21

And that’s exactly how she wakes up. In ruins.

Actually, she wakes to the sound of quiet strumming, a sound that immediately begins to somewhat violently compete with the symphony of
ouch
,
ugh
, and
what the hell?
going off in her own head.

She opens her eyes to daylight, winces, and closes them just as quickly. The world hurts, and that sound coming from outside her skull is not helping one bit. She also has the instinctive feeling that whatever she’s about to see will only cause her to hurt more.

Before she finds a way to make the sound stop, she has far more pressing concerns, like whether or not she’s wearing clothing. This is something quite difficult to ascertain without making any actual, physical movement—particularly given the current state of her brain. But this is a question that must be answered before she greets whatever remnant of last night she is about to face.

It takes a moment of sheer concentration to focus at the surface level of her skin. Then, slowly, she registers the cling of denim at her hips, and the space where her top has ridden up slightly at her lower back, retreating from the hem of her jeans. She wriggles her toes gently. Hell, she’s even wearing socks. Checklist complete.

Yes.
She’ll take that as a win.

The light strumming continues, then stops, and then starts again a moment later.

Time to deal. She opens her eyes halfway and mutters into the unfamiliar brown covers. “Tell me I did not spend the night in the bed of someone who plays guitar. Acoustic guitar.”

She hears someone chuckle and then the thrumming thud of the guitar being put down on the floor. “Two chords. That’s all I can play, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Not really.” She remains under the covers. She knows she should look for a way to get the hell out of here, but it’s kind of cosy and way less nauseating to lie very, very still in this strange bed.

“It’s not even my guitar,” the voice continues. “It’s a friend’s. I’m looking after it. His girlfriend was furious at him, and he was scared she’d smash it or something.”

“What’d he do? Play it?”

“Wow, you’re sharp this morning.”

“Are you trying to suggest that last night I was
not
?” She finally commits to opening her eyes all the way. It has to happen sometime.

He’s sitting on the bed—which is a mattress on a floor—leaning against the wall, a lanky guy wearing a faded green T-shirt, with honey-brown waves of hair that fall below his ears. She can only see him in profile, but he’s
kind of
familiar. No name floats to the surface of her memory, though. In fact, nothing much at all surfaces.

“Oh no, you told me last night that you were a hippo.” He laughs. “I think you meant an elephant. And you don’t forget a thing, so not to lay a hand on you once you got in my bed because you’d remember.”

“I did?” she mumbles. “Well done, me.” She tries to think of a way to ask for a glass of water without revealing just how hungover she is. She needs to go to the bathroom, too, but that is terrain she’s not sure she can negotiate, not without knowing if there are housemates, or family, or pets. Too difficult. Too dangerous.

All of a sudden, he climbs off the mattress. The movement sets off a wave of nausea through her. “I’ll be back in a sec.” He disappears.

She takes this minute to assess the situation, to double-check. Lifting the cover and her head, she looks down. Wow, she’s not just dressed, she’s, like,
impressively
fully dressed. Only her jacket and her boots are missing. She gazes around the room. Her jacket is hanging neatly on a chair at the end of the bed, with her boots just beneath. She crawls out of the covers, grabs her jacket, and checks in the pockets for her phone and wallet. Both are present and accounted for.
Well done, me
. So far so good in coming out of last night intact.

Relieved, she lies down again and allows a second surge of nausea to abate. She may have all her belongings and some of her wits about her, but this is not going to be a fun hangover. No chance.

She lies back down and tries to recollect whatever fragments of last night she can gather from her cloudy brain. Tequila. And dancing. Lots of tequila and dancing. Maybe she found him on the dance floor? Her little game of memory is interrupted by his return. He’s carrying a glass of water, and she prays it’s for her. He sits on the edge of the mattress and passes it to her. Grateful, she takes it.

“Thanks.” She drinks it down quickly and puts the glass on the window sill next to her. The sun is shining outside, easing in around the dark-brown curtains, a fabric that nearly matches the colours of his equally ugly bedspread.

She realises she has absolutely no idea what time it is. She pulls her phone out of the pocket of her jacket. It’s just after eleven. And there are already a ton of messages and missed calls.

The latest one is from Robbie.

I think this can be fixed with bacon. We’re going to try, anyway. Come? Ike’s in half an hour?

“So, last night was fun.” Mystery guy yawns and stretches his arms above his head.

“Was it?”

A phone starts ringing in the hallway. Then a dog starts barking. He sighs. “Hang on, I’ll be back.” He leaves the room again.

No hurry,
she thinks.

She considers meeting Robbie. The thought of food is slightly off-putting, but it might be nice to commiserate over how awful she feels. She assumes he shared in whatever fun happened last night because dancing with him is one of her few scattered memories. She checks the time of the message. Twenty minutes ago. She could make it. “We” must mean Mia is coming as well.

Mia.

And then she freezes, remembering. The dance floor. The game. The beige armchair. The kiss.

She bites her lip. Oh yeah. How did that happen again?

And, even more pressing a question, how did last night just keep on going after that little episode of randomness? Surely that was enough craziness for one night? She was so drunk, she’s not sure how she went from drunkenly kissing her friend—a
girl
friend—to ending up in this guy’s bed. The problem is she can’t remember much beyond the time on the armchair. She knows Mia went home because of her own somewhat stunned, drunken reaction to that moment. Claire knows Robbie made her dance again. But just how long did she stay out?

She wonders if Mia remembers the kiss too. That could make a hungover breakfast date kind of awkward. And Claire’s already facing one ghost from last night. Can she really face another right now?

Before she can decide, he comes into the room again, stands by the door, and smiles. He actually seems kind of nice, which is a bonus, she guesses. And she’s sure there was probably some drunken making out if she felt it was okay to use his bed at the end of it.

And he did bring her water. That says something. She remembers one horrendous morning, after one of those unfortunate post-Brendan one-night stands, when the guy didn’t even talk to her. He just grunted from over his controller, fixed on the screen that was positioned, sadly, at the end of his bed. She made a hasty departure back then. This guy and his cheekbones are clearly perched a few steps up the evolutionary ladder.

She wishes she knew his name. Hell, at this point any biographical detail would be good, aside from the fact he doesn’t seem to use a vacuum, and he is overly fond of the various shades of brown. And yeah, those cheekbones.

“You want breakfast?”

She actually kind of does. Well, she wants the coffee that comes with breakfast. But where, and with whom? She quickly assesses the potential levels of awkwardness between each breakfast option and makes her decision. “Uh, no, I actually have to meet my friends.”

Better the potentially uncomfortable devil she knows. That’s what she tells herself as she climbs slowly out of bed and pulls her top down to meet her jeans. “So…where are we?” She acknowledges her lack of memory of last night. She has to get out of here somehow. She quickly scoops up her jacket and her phone.

“Near the corner of Mason and Ascot. You know it?”

“Yep,” she mutters. Good. She’s near the university, at least. And Ike’s. She can make it there in time.

He flops down on his bed again, sits against the wall, and crosses his legs. “What are the chances of you giving me your number?”