Chapter 7
Cecily
Pounding head.
Dry mouth.
Stomach one moment away from heaving.
I've never been so hungover.
Light presses into the slits of my eyes. Fogginess hangs heavy in my thoughts, making them difficult to form.
Slowly I turn my head left to right, my head thumping with the movement. I don't know where I am, but I know I am in a bed. It's soft beneath me, plush. I must have made it back to my hotel room.
My memories swipe at the fog in my brain, revealing bits and pieces of the evening.
Tequila. Dinner. Dancing. More drinks. Sweat gathering at my hairline.
Feet aching. More drinks. Laughing until tears ran down my cheeks.
Paloma and I in the bathroom, pressing a cool wet washcloth to our necks.
Waffles dripping with cinnamon syrup. Klein carrying Paisley on his back.
After that, a haze blankets the night. The memories are jagged, angular, forming an incomplete picture.
Dom appears over and over. Smiling. Happy.
Laughing. Staring at me with this look in his eyes, baffled at first, and then later, a look similar to the one from our disastrous date. Back when I thought he liked me.
I rarely drink as much as I did last night, but I was anxious. Nervous. I saw Dom, and he was so handsome, and he looked hurt when he saw me. It was confusing, and I was already a mix of emotions, so it all melded together and turned into outrage. The burn of tequila seemed like the best solution.
Not so much now, especially with—
The bed dips. But I haven't moved.
No. No no no.
There's a soft shuffle of sheets. Horror mixes with the rolling nausea in my midsection. Who is beside me in this bed?
Please let it be Paisley. Please let it be Paloma.
Taking a deep breath, I crack open one eye.
The bed is empty. My other eye opens. The room spins when I push up to my elbows.
There's the quiet snick of a door closing across the space.
The bathroom. Slowly, to keep from expediting an almost certain need to vomit, my gaze explores the room.
It looks exactly like the room I checked into yesterday, but I know it's not mine.
There isn't a black dress draped over a chair, the runner-up in my choice for what to wear last night.
No propped open suitcase on the floor. My comfortable sneakers I wore on the plane aren't lying haphazardly after being kicked off.
In fact, from here I can't see anything personal in this room. Not a stray shoe or sock.
Was this a room rented solely for—NO.
I can't go there right now.
Panic overtakes me again. I am not in my room. This is the room of whoever is in that bathroom.
A toilet flushes. Water runs.
I need to get out of here before whoever that is comes out. If I never see their face, I'll never have to know it happened. Sound logic if there ever was any.
I attempt to sit up, but the dizziness sends me back to my elbows.
The bathroom door opens.
With all the reluctance I've ever felt in my life multiplied by ten, I force my gaze that direction.
A man stands in the doorway. Bare chest. Shoulders that stretch on and on, carved and expansive like he was built to carry the weight of things.
Things like furniture, or boxes filled with books, or a wanton woman to his sex lair.
Dom.
Silently, I send a mighty and heartfelt thank you to the heavens. It could be so much worse.
But also, this isn't good. In fact, this is monumentally bad.
Dom is beautiful, and not in a brooding-for-no-apparent-reason cologne ad way. Not at all. Dom has a brand of attractiveness that begs to be obsessed about later, the kind that has staying power in a woman's thoughts.
He leans a ridiculously muscular shoulder on the doorframe, skin faintly illuminated in the morning light. His hair, normally neat, fluffs up in caramel tufts, suggesting he ran a hand through it.
I look away. Or I try to, anyway. My gaze drags itself back to the cut of his abdomen, the way his shorts hang just a little too low on those hips. Dear me. Send help.
Nope. No. Absolutely not.
I am not about to be charmed by this man.
But my stomach flips anyway.
Just once. Maybe twice.
"Good morning," he says, voice like a rake over hot gravel. "You look—"
"Like a roadkill coyote, I'm sure." I don't need this guy telling me how terrible I look. I palm my hair, swipe under my eyes, discovering the telltale crust of old mascara.
He smirks. Shouldn't he be too hungover to smirk? I know I am.
"I was going to say you look good wearing my shirt."
Stomach sinking, I glance down.
No Muff Too Tuff.
I'd say I've officially hit rock bottom, but I have a feeling the bottom is an illusion at this point.
My head snaps up when Dom takes a step toward me. My hand shoots out. "Stop right there. On a scale of one to ten, how likely is it that you saw me naked last night? Or, this morning?"
Dom pauses. He's wearing shorts, something like what he wore to dinner last night. Probably the same ones, unless the airline found and delivered his luggage.
He stays quiet, evaluating. Then he says, "As much as I would love to tell you something that would make you want to crawl into a hole, I'll be honest. You grabbed my shirt the second we walked into this room, went into the bathroom, and came out with it on."
Hmm. Ok. I can work with that. I'm pleased with hammered-yet-modest past Cecily.
"Did we..." I gesture from me to him.
He shakes his head. Does it not kill him to motion that way right now? "Did we what?"
"Did we...you know?" I make a ring with my pointer finger and thumb, poking my finger from the opposite hand through.
His brow furrows. "I'm not sure what you're getting at."
An angry breath streams from my pursed lips. I don't have the patience. I may not have much time before I'm placing my face where faces are not meant to go. "What about that hand motion are you not understanding? Did. We. Shag?"
He grins.
Comprehension dawns. "That was mean."
"That was fun," he argues. "I was wondering how creative you could be while nursing a hangover this atrocious. And no, we didn't sleep together. Not in the way you mean, anyway." He gestures at the bed. "We most definitely fell asleep on that bed at the same time."
He steps closer, cautious, testing the temperature between us. This time I don't stop him. I'm feeling more generous now that I know we didn't do anything totally regrettable.
He pauses, eyes locking with mine. "For the record," he says, voice low but steady, "Enthusiastic consent is a requirement for any woman I take to bed. And you were not in a position to give enthusiastic consent." There’s no bravado in his voice, just conviction.
My pulse skitters at the idea of being enthusiastic with Dom, but I tamp it down. "You do know the difference between enthusiastic and my show starts in two minutes that should be enough time for you, right?"
Dominic nibbles his lower lip while he stares at me.
Shirtless. Ugh. Fuck him and all his muscles.
He opens his mouth, pauses, and decides against it.
He sinks onto the bed, staying on top of the comforter.
I push myself all the way to seated, still fighting the effects of the hardest night of partying I've ever participated in, and drag my knees into my chest. My arms wrap around my knees, and my head leans on my forearms in a way that makes it possible for my eyes to remain on him.
Now that he's closer, I see the redness in his eyes, how the hangover tugs at the corners.
I am delighted to note he looks a shade green.
"Cecily, you—"
"Dom?" Klein's panicked voice punches through the door at the same time he knocks hard. "Dom, open up. Now."
Dom's eyes find mine briefly before he stands, striding for the door. From my position on the bed, I can't see around the little corner to the door, but I hear it swing open. Klein says, "Please tell me that picture was a joke."
Paisley's higher pitch joins in. "Dominic, I'm going to inflict bodily harm on you. Something creative. You'll never see me coming."
"What are you talking about?" Dom asks. Klein and Paisley barrel further into the room, clearing the corner that was keeping my presence unknown.
Paisley screeches to a halt. She stares, her eyes as bloodshot as Dom's, and probably mine, too. Her blonde bun dangles precariously from the crown of her head. Klein looks like he has aged five years overnight.
The four of us are a motley crew.
"Hey," I say weakly. It's not lost on me that although I'm in front of my friend, I am also in front of my boss. It's not a good look.
"What's going on?" Dom demands in that scratchy voice, sidestepping Klein. He has the sensibility to take a seat in a chair in the far corner of the room, instead of returning to the bed.
Klein and Paisley look at us like we're telling a joke that is not at all funny.
"This isn't what it looks like, I promise," I say, just to get it out there.
Paisley's pulling her phone from her pocket, swiping quickly over the screen and crossing the room in a few steps. She plops onto the bed, thrusting her phone in my face. "This isn't what it looks like?"
Every breath in my lungs disappears. Poof. Gone.
It's me.
It's Dom.
We're standing in front of a wall of multicolored fake flowers. Dom holds me by the waist, dipping me backward. My arms encircle his neck, one leg kicked out. Above us is a neon sign that reads Just Married.
All the breath that vanished comes rushing back, too much for my throat. I'm dragging it in, holding my chest.
"What?" I manage. "No." Alarmed eyes find Dom, already crossing the room. Paisley hands him the phone. A second later, Dom's looking down at me, eyes wide.
Memories develop like film in a darkroom. Slowly but surely, coming into stark relief.
Dancing with Dominic. My fingernails raking over the back of his neck. The hard press of him against my backside. Him groaning into my neck as the music thumped through us.