Chapter Thirty-Two
The first morning of the new year greets me with a hangover that’s all too familiar, but in a bed that’s a complete mystery.
Every ounce of last night’s booze lingers in my system, which is odd since I distinctly remember throwing it all up—about the last thing I remember, in fact.
When the room steadies enough for me to turn my head, I see a human form slumbering, its back toward me.
Male, by the look of it, but if I’m being honest, given how serious this hangover is, all bets are off on gender, attractiveness, species…
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck oh fuck.
Okay, so I’ve slept with Kieran Campbell, though the degree of “slept with” is yet to be determined.
Now that my mental fog has started to lift, I can see that it’s obviously him, his tight black curls, the surprisingly graceful neck on top of his big, beautiful shoulders, his bicep-spanning tattoo of Knowsley Stadium.
I picture his face and the memories come roaring back through the haze: Kieran finding me puking my guts out in the men’s room, him ushering me into the back of his car, me blubbering into his shoulder, him comforting me and making me drink about a liter of water as his driver sped us away from downtown.
All good so far, good decisions all around.
Then us getting to his house, him offering me a shower and the guest bedroom, me shaking my head, me fixing us gin and tonics.
Bad decisions. Very bad decisions. I think harder, probing deep through the blackness of what followed.
More gin. Me sticking my tongue…Oh Jesus, that’s right, I realize as the heat and the shame floods back through me.
Me sticking my tongue down his throat. Him pulling back, nervous, eager, polite, questioning.
Me pressing harder, sad, angry, grateful, reassuring, consenting.
And then…nothing. Blackness. Until now, waking up in his bed, me having gone through a costume change, him half-naked (…at least half-naked).
FUCK.
Okay, Abby, you have to just do one thing at a time.
The triage instinct kicks back in: Pee first, ask questions later.
I trot to the bathroom, do my business, and reckon with the ghoulish specter that stares back at me in the mirror.
Smudged mascara, caked-on drool by the side of my mouth, lipstick that’s been smeared off by God knows what nocturnal activities.
The juniper-scented vise that’s wrapped itself around my head squeezes like a boa constrictor and I grip the side of the sink as I reel with pain.
I’m shivering and swaying, my mouth bone-dry.
I’m not sure if this is a hangover or a panic attack, but either way, it’s not good.
I ease open the medicine cabinet looking for ibuprofen and find it behind a bottle of Proactiv.
Oh, bless his hormonal, twenty-two-year-old heart.
His sweet young heart that has no idea what it’s in for now that it’s been sucked into the sweaty, seething morass of my life.
I swallow a couple of tablets and take deep, steadying breaths.
I shake my hands, like maybe I can jiggle out all the nerves and the questions and the absolutely crushing weight of guilt and shame.
It will be okay, I tell the specter of myself.
I just need to grab my things and sneak out of here before I can make things any worse than they already are.
It would have worked, too, if it weren’t for my phone.
The one night it retains enough power not to die without a charge, it goes and bleeps its bleeding alarm.
I silence that stupid fucking marimba as quickly as I can, but it’s too late.
Kieran stirs and rolls over, and in the three seconds that I stare openly at his eight-pack abs, the thought crosses my mind that maybe it’s not such a bad thing that—if?
—we hooked up last night. And then my eyes travel down to the duvet, where even through layers of fabric and goose down, I can see the telltale bump that proves it is, indeed, morning, and Kieran is up and ready to greet the day.
Unfortunately for me and my ambitions of slipping out the door, he notices me staring.
“Hey babes,” he says, grabbing my wrist and pulling me down onto the bed. “I gotta say, waking up to find you in my boxers is the hottest fucking thing I can imagine.” He laces his fingers through my hair and moves to kiss me.
But my brain has kicked into high gear, the Anxiety Death Star fully operational.
My first thought is that in 2008, Kieran Campbell was eight years old, which is depressing for a million reasons and also confusing because why is the Class of 2008 shirt that I’m wearing a men’s extra-large?
My second thought is that I wish the Anxiety Death Star would concentrate on more pressing matters than shirt size, as it is high time for some damage control.
Before his lips meet mine, I remove his hand from my head and scoot backward. “Kieran, look…”
“Come on, let’s finish what we started last night.”
A tendril of relief unfurls inside me. “So we didn’t…” I make the universal “you-me-do-it” symbol, wagging my finger back and forth between the two of us.
“Lol,” he says. Actually says out loud, digital native that he is. “Abs, I’m all for a drunken hookup, but there’s a line, and I’m a gentleman.”
I exhale and close my eyes. “Oh, thank God.”
He scoots up in bed. “Uh, none taken,” he says, a frown crossing his beautiful—and, it must be said, acne-free—face.
“No, no, yeah, you’re right, sorry. No offense. I mean, obviously I find you very attractive and I’m extremely grateful for your help last night. But it’s just…not the right time.”
Kieran shakes his head. “No, don’t give me that bullshit. You were so into me last night. Nothing has changed.”
Yeah, except now I’m sober and all my drunken chickens have come home to roost. Past Abby’s land mines are exploding in Present Abby’s face.
The “Fuck Around” stage has conclusively ended, and we are solidly in “Find Out” territory—and it is unpleasant.
What’s a nice way to explain all that to the extremely beautiful and famous man inching closer to you in his bed?
My brain stalls as I try to think of the right words to say, and I can’t seem to control-alt-delete myself back into rationality.
He’s so close to me now, and though I’m averting my eyes like it’s fucking Medusa, I cannot fully look away from what’s happening under the duvet.
My mouth, already a barren wasteland, goes even drier.
Is it possible that this is actually a good idea?
A quick, harmless rebound with this kind and funny and hot guy?
To shake the cobwebs out, to once and for all banish Steven and…
Lachlan. Lachlan. My mind zooms out and lands on him, on the things he said to me last night while his hands were cupping my ass, on the look in his eyes as he realized I wouldn’t end his marriage for him.
I freeze as reality hits me like an ice bath, a cold plunge that almost knocks the air from my lungs.
I have no idea what Lachlan and I are to each other now, but I know I need time to resolve it, one way or the other.
I need space to process. I’m dying for some mental clarity.
And none of that is helped by hooking up with Kieran.
It wouldn’t be fair to him, this sweet guy who did not ask to be the hypotenuse of this love triangle. And it wouldn’t be fair to me.
I push myself away from him and scoot over to the side of the bed.
“Kieran,” I say, and get the next part out before he can interrupt.
I’m breathing heavily and I’m shaking and once again, it’s such a jumbled mess of emotions on either side of the panic-sanity line.
“Thank you so much for rescuing me last night and letting me stay here and loaning me this top-tier outfit. But I mean it: This can’t happen. ”
“Why not? You know how much I fancy you.”
“And I’m flattered, truly, but it wouldn’t work.” I cast about for any excuse other than the fact that I’m desperately in love with his married teammate and also milliseconds away from a nervous breakdown. “I’m way too old for you.”
“That’s such bullshit. I don’t care how old you are. I love how old you are. And I love the way you look and feel and how you make me laugh.”
I know I should love hearing this, but Kieran is not the one I want to be saying it.
Kieran is not the one who was supposed to be my first kiss after Steven.
Kieran’s is not the bed I was meant to wake up in on the first morning of the new year.
These realizations hit me one after another, and it’s like being stabbed in the gut with a dull pencil.
“There’s just…there’s too much going on in my life right now.
I can’t drag you into it more than I already have. ”
He mutters something that sounds an awful lot like “Fucking Ramsay” and crosses his arms over his knees, no longer meeting my eyes.
Hmm…The smart move is to ignore that he’s just said that; maintain plausible deniability and all. But there’s a very vocal, agitated part of my ego that is dying to know what he knows, what he’s seen, what—if anything—Lachlan has said in the dressing room. “You know?”
“Of course I know. I’m not fucking blind. We’ve all seen the way you two carry on.”
“Yeah, well, then you also know that he’s married and I’m in big trouble there and I can’t possibly get entangled with someone else from the team.”
“I know that whatever he said to make you feel the way you did last night is not your fault. And it’s also not my fault.”
“Yes, you’re right, but—”
“I’m not married. I’m not even dating anyone right now, at least not seriously. We’re clearly into each other. There’s no reason we can’t do this for real.”
“Kieran—”
“No, I mean it. Give me one good reason.”