Chapter 16
Marlow
My headache stabbed at me from right behind my eyeballs, threatening what little breakfast I was able to force down my throat before heading down for roll call this morning.
I’d been fighting the nausea ever since—my penance for getting blasted all weekend with my friends with no cares as to what Monday’s future held.
In a rather dramatic bit of irony, meeting Blake’s grandfather felt like divine timing.
Had I known such a bigwig was going to be cruising around the campgrounds with Blake trailing after him, I would’ve tried to look a little bit more presentable. As it stood, they got the best efforts I could manage for the time being.
Honestly, it was a miracle I didn’t throw up right on Blake’s shoes the moment he got close enough for me to touch him.
He was stiff in my hold, his body growing rigid the second my arm fell over his shoulder in a way that was mostly insulting to my ego, considering seventy-two hours prior I had him contorting under me as he came.
This new tension between us wasn’t sexy at all.
In fact, it was downright exasperating.
Look, I was no stranger to regret. Had my fair share of it in my thirty-four years on this spinning rock in space more times than I could count.
College had been filled with those. Each experience a steep learning curve from the last that finally culminated into a nice little portfolio of ‘no’s and ‘hell no’s that I still followed to this day.
There was no shame in realizing that the decision you made the night before was best left untouched in the future and to not fall into the trap of it being repeated again once the dust finally settled.
But for Blake to clearly be that remorseful over what we’d gotten up to hurt my feelings more than finding him gone from my bed Friday morning.
Had he woken up with that sick feeling in his gut that told him to run? Or did that come much later, after he’d finally gotten back to the safety of his own cabin and the events from the night before had finally hit him?
I wanted to know, yet at the same time, the answer was definitely going to force me to drown my sorrows in booze like I had all weekend with Silas and Avery.
Tossing back drink after drink until I was numb from the rejection and could no longer remember why I was so damn beaten up about it in the first place.
I barely remembered my weekend outside of getting dragged back to the campgrounds and carefully snuck back into my cabin by a very foolishly wasted pair of friends who ended up crashing on the couch and in the other guest bedroom until I’d had to kick them both out before the sun chased away the morning dew.
The worst part about all of this was how good being with Blake felt before it all went to shit. I’d never gotten off like that in my life, and now, to find out the other party wanted nothing to do with me, it stung like a fucking wasp to the eyeball.
Where did I go wrong? Did I go too hard on him? Scare him away?
Maybe he thought he wanted it rough like that but in hindsight, realized he’d let himself go too far into some unknown territory he had yet to explore within himself or with a partner in bed.
I wasn’t sure.
Whatever was going on, and whatever feelings were stirred up the moment I’d had Blake standing in front of me again, was forcing me to reevaluate everything.
I was thankful—no, grateful—that both Silas and Avery had shown up for me, whisking me away in a black Mercedes like I was Cinderella going to the ball.
I’d pulled the sick card with the medical staff, playing up my symptoms from the white water rafting incident as a residual sickness that seemed to come over me a day later.
They were all too inclined to believe me, promising not to bug me outside of the occasional check-in’s I’d wormed my way into doing by handing over my phone number the minute it was asked of me.
Sneaking off the grounds was easy enough once the sun set, and soon, I was feeling like a kid sneaking out past curfew.
Blake’s ability to sniff me out was impressive. Enough that it had me considering ratting out his coworkers as a reward for him connecting the dots so easily. I wouldn’t, of course, but the temptation was certainly there if only to get Blake to talk to me again, even if it resulted in a scolding.
I longed for any sort of attention from him. A sad side effect from having him on my mind the entire weekend and having no good outlet to waste my energy on outside of drinking myself stupid.
Avery and Silas had listening to my drunk rambles I don’t know how many times, each one circling back to the main focal point of: what the fuck happened?
With no real theories from either of them, or myself, my brain refused to move on to something else. Too stuck in trying to rewrite history until it finally made sense.
It never would. Not unless I got Blake to actually talk to me and I doubted that was happening anytime soon.
He had his youth program to run come tomorrow morning and now with his grandfather hanging around the campgrounds, I would be to be lucky to see passing glimpses of him for the next week or so.
My stomach squeezed pitifully.
“Ugh.” Settling my head down onto the table, I let my eyes fall closed while my headache throbbed dully.
I wasn’t up to lying out in the sun after Blake and his grandfather had stopped by, the situation causing me to feel too raw and way too exposed for my liking.
I doubted they’d be swinging back around after whatever they were out doing, but regardless, it had me hightailing it back to the mess hall where I could wallow in one of the forgotten corners.
There was no motivation in me to do anything today. Not go hiking, jet skiing, try my hand at the challenge courses further up into the wooded area. Nothing.
Forcing myself out of bed this morning had been a chore and a half, and now that I was among people, I was feeling even less social than I was before I’d thrown on an outfit to come down here.
What was stopping me from sneaking away and going back to my cabin for the rest of the day to sleep off my hangover and avoid anyone else from bugging me?
There wasn’t much time left before the sun started to set and nighttime activities were in full swing. Plus, I wasn’t partnered with anyone today, so I had free rein to do whatever I wanted, which should include doing nothing, too.
Given my foul mood, avoiding people was probably a blessing in disguise. No one wanted to be around a total bummer.
I didn’t get the need for the staff here to make sure I was getting my money’s worth with this package.
Sure, maybe this was all stemming from the fact that I was absolutely not in the mood to do anything at the moment, but still, it wasn’t like I was going to be demanding a refund because every second of my day wasn’t jam-packed with activities.
How often did that happen?
Imagining poor Lindsay down at Guest Services getting screamed at for something that stupid by some rich-ass snobs had my blood boiling. I hated entitlement more than anything.
Having not grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth, and now having the ability to bestow that onto whatever offspring I happened to maybe have in the future, I could confidently say that people like that needed to get a fucking grip.
Much like me with this whole Blake thing.
Silas’s words rang in my head loudly.
Get over it.
Easier said than done.
Though, he had a point.
Why the fuck was I getting so hung up about this?
It couldn’t just be an ego thing. I’d had my fair share of being knocked down a peg or two in my time and this was nothing in comparison to that.
Seeing Blake again had re-ignited the flame of betrayal. Like the wound had slowly been staring to heal and then was unceremoniously ripped right back open, leaving me bleeding all over the damn place yet again.
Get. Over. It.
Something cold shocked the back of my neck, heavy and slightly wet. Instantly, I brought my hand up to slap at it, coming into contact with something solid in the process, along with whatever it was that had been placed there.
“Relax,” a familiar voice said from above me.
My entire body froze in disbelief.
He moved it—an ice pack I was starting to realize—up toward my hairline, keeping it there with a firm hold.
Relief rippled through me at the compress.
My chin met with the table again, my attention pinned on the figure moving just out of my peripheral and then slowly shifting into it when he hopped up onto the table to sit on it next to me.
“Who gave you the booze?”
I rolled my eyes. Wasn’t even going to allow me to enjoy a second of this without some kind of interrogation. “Is that what you came back over here to bug me about?”
“Yeah. I want to know who I have to fire.” Blake’s tone was hard to read. If he was serious about that, then I definitely wasn’t going to be ratting anyone out no matter how many times he poked and prodded at me to do so.
The medical staff were good people and actually seemed like they gave a shit when I’d walked in there playing up my cat-with-a-limp-paw scheme and pretended like I needed the weekend to recuperate without anyone coming around to bug me as I slept off my cold.
“Technically…” I tilted my head to the side, letting my cheek rest against the table instead. “A bartender gave me the booze.”
I heard him mutter ‘bartender?’ under his breath while rearranging the ice pack, following the curve of my neck in order to rest it right at the junction right below my ear. I nearly groaned at the pressure, both pain and relief reverberating inside of my poor skull at the same time.
Fuck, the last time I had a hangover this bad was when I went out to celebrate my first million-dollar trade.
To this day, I still couldn’t stomach tequila.
“You snuck off the property?” He sounded bewildered. Which was so cute.