Chapter 3
Cotton mouth and a head that feels like it’s stuffed in a vice and calves aching from hours balancing on heels feels like a horrific flashback to freshman year.
She hasn’t felt like this since she was eighteen.
Except back then it was easy enough for Bianca to down some water and Tylenol and grab some greasy food in the dining hall to make the hangover go away.
At thirty, with her face pressed into the microfiber of her living room couch and her joints already aching from sleeping on a surface not specifically designed to protect her back twice in one day, it’s a million times worse.
Plus, she can’t move.
Not like too stiff to stretch can’t move, but actually held down by a strong arm around her waist and pressed into the cushions by a firm chest and a large, muscled leg thrown over the top of hers can’t move.
Apparently Xavier is a snuggler.
And if she was feeling even semi-human, she might be able to appreciate it more.
She doesn’t even remember how they ended up like this.
Wracking her brain, she has a vague recollection of why he’s here.
Too much vodka followed by way too much tequila.
The absolutely batshit idea of faking an engagement, his mother’s ring, an Instagram post and .
. . enough ouzo to knock out an entire Greek island.
The last time she had that much was at her sister’s wedding five years ago, right before she started her degree – funnily enough, just a few days before she met Xavier.
It would be kind of poetic if everything didn’t hurt so fucking much.
And if he wasn’t giving off the heat of a thousand suns.
Last night it was kind of cool out for late May in LA, but this morning or afternoon – or whatever it is, she can’t tell because she refuses to open her eyes and let the room spin – it’s back to normal and the amount of heat his body is generating is suffocating.
She tries to shift in his arms, as the entire left side of her body is pins and needles, but that just seems to encourage him to press in closer, burying his face in her hair.
And that solves the problem when he inhales, pulls a few of her curls into his nose and mouth and coughs himself awake.
“Fuck” – more of a rumble of his chest than an actual word – “sorry.”
And in one motion that she’s sure would have been impressive if she’d seen it, he pulls away and manages to sit on the edge of the couch without crushing her or falling down to the floor.
“Shit, that was a lot of ouzo,” he mutters.
“Ouzo and tequila and vodka,” she agrees and finally gets up enough courage to open her eyes. It’s bright, but not too bad. “Ugh, help.” She pats vaguely at his back and he twists, taking her hand and gently pulling her up into a sitting position.
“Huh, thought I dreamed this.”
“What?” she asks, but then looks down where her left hand is in his, that ring still on her finger, shining in the light fighting its way through her curtains. “Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.”
She turns her head, willing her body not to betray her and send the room off its axis with the motion.
He looks . . . unfairly hot in the morning.
His hair’s longer than when she met him, curling around his ears, almost to his chin.
It’s an absolute wreck, but can’t possibly be worse than hers.
He’s scruffy, but that’s nothing new, and how his stubble would feel against her skin is definitely not something she’s thought about ever.
And his eyes, bright green with flecks of blue and gold, that never quite seem to be the same color twice, are hooded with sleep and probably a hangover to match hers.
Prepping to defend your thesis does not leave a lot of time for partying this hard and they’re both clearly out of practice.
It’s all just . . . too much. She needs to get out, somehow, because she’s gross and sick and fucking embarrassed as hell.
“I’m gonna jump in the shower; you can use Julie’s bathroom if you want.”
Before he can respond, she’s up off the couch and heading into the bathroom, grabbing her phone from the coffee table as she goes. She needs a minute to get her head right.
First things first, she needs to scrub her social media of all incriminating evidence.
Ignoring the massive influx of actual texts that poured in overnight (she absolutely does not have the mental energy to deal with those first thing in the morning) and pulling up her account, she frowns down at the last two posts.
It’s actually kind of pathetic. She scrolls back to her previous picture, from just before the party.
It’s a selfie taken in front of the university library, her smile wide and bright, and the caption underneath reads, “That’s Dr Dimitriou to you.
” The picture has a few dozen likes, mostly the usual suspects, including everyone who didn’t make it last night, along with some congratulatory comments from them and the other students in her program.
The picture with Xavier though, it’s closing in on a thousand likes when she doesn’t even have a thousand followers, and while she knows it’s kind of insane to put any stock in social media algorithms, it stings.
A lot.
Ugh.
She’s never been so annoyed to be right in her life. Because she remembers that part of last night, the part where she knew everyone would care about this way more than they cared about her actual life’s work.
Slamming her phone down on the counter, she strips off her clothes, wrinkling her nose at having slept in them. She’s about to get in the shower when she sees the ring again.
Nope, can’t deal with that right now, even though it’s absolutely gorgeous. It’s not something she would have picked out for herself, but that doesn’t make it any less beautiful. She slips it off her finger and places it in the jewelry dish she has on her counter before she hops into the shower.
Keeping the water lukewarm, she just lets it run over her to wake herself up fully before washing her face and scrubbing the night out of her hair and off her skin.
And as she does, it becomes super clear what she has to do.
She absolutely has to call this off right now.
She can just delete the post and tell everyone that they were very drunk and it was a stupid prank gone too far.
She’s not even that mad anymore.
Her friends and family love her. It was just a weird confluence of life’s bullshit that conspired to keep them all away last night. They’ll celebrate with her when they can and that’s more than fine.
In fact, maybe she’ll put it off for a while, celebrate once she’s officially secured a job, hopefully her dream job, for the fall.
In addition to that second interview, she’s got a bunch of others lined up in the next few weeks with schools all across the country looking for someone to head up their libraries, and a few universities looking for adjuncts to continue their post-doctorate research.
That’s it. She’ll celebrate with them all once she figures out her next move. One problem at a time, though, and now that she finally feels human again, she needs to return the ring to Xavier.
Leaving her dirty clothes to deal with later, she wraps a towel around her body and moves out of the bathroom as she’s pulling her soaking wet hair up into a bun. While it’s not the best look, after this morning, Xavier’s seen worse.
She’s about to close the door to her bedroom so she can change, when she hears voices coming from down the hallway.
One is distinctly male and obviously Xavier, but the other . . . That’s . . . that . . .
“Lexi!” Bianca shouts as she charges down the hallway to see her sister standing in the kitchen with a freshly showered Xavier, even though he’s wearing last night’s clothes.
At some point she’ll stop being stunned that he somehow looks good when normal people would look like complete crap, but it’s ridiculous that even in his rumpled t-shirt, with two days’ worth of scruff and his shoulders stained with water droplets because his hair is still wet from his shower, that he’s one of the hottest guys she’s ever seen.
Maybe it has something to do with him being extremely her type.
Whatever.
It’s so distracting that she forgets for a second that her sister is standing there, staring at her, looking very unimpressed.
“Bianca! I was just meeting your fiancé, who I’ve never met before today because I had no idea you were even dating anyone.”
She deliberately ignores Lexi’s sarcasm and sends Xavier a grimace of apology.
He returns it. “I should give you guys some privacy.”
“No, it’s okay. Lexi, if you want to talk about this, fine, come with me.”
Spinning on her toe, she heads back to her bedroom and throws a robe on while letting her towel drop to the floor, knowing her older sister is right behind her.
Bianca’s still trying to figure out what to say when Lexi shuts the door and starts.
“What the hell is going on, B?” Lexi whispers through gritted teeth. “You’re engaged?”
“It happened fast.”
Which is not a lie, not really.
“Obviously. So fast you couldn’t even introduce him to your family.”
“We were keeping things private. We’re in the same degree and it’s frowned upon to date someone in your program.”
Okay, that is a lie and she’s not even sure why she’s doing it.
She’d literally just decided to call off the whole thing, but there’s something about the judgmental expression in her sister’s brown eyes, the only physical feature they share, that’s pissing her off.
If she’d just showed up last night, none of this would have happened.
“Not even our family? I mean, you’ve talked about him before. Xavier, right? I didn’t think you guys were this close though, or at least you haven’t been for a while.”