6 — OF HANGOVER SOUPS AND HOSTILE KISSES

ANAHERA

My head is hosting a heavy-metal concert where the lead singer is screaming directly into my frontal lobe.

I groan. My throat feels like I swallowed a handful of dry, sharp sand. Eyelids heavy like they’ve been glued shut with industrial adhesive…and what the fuck is wrong with my body?

Slowly…very slowly, I crack my eyes open. Sunlight attempts to scrape them clean off my skull. And, wait…

This isn’t my room. My room has worn out furniture and a pile of laundry in the corner that I’ve been ignoring for three days.

This room? This room has high ceilings and minimalist grey walls and a window that probably offers a view of the entire city.

And it’s not mine. So where the hell am I?

I’m in a bed that feels like a cloud and my body feels like it had been ripped open, pieced apart and stitched together again.

Where am I? I mean…w-what happened?

Little by little, the memories start to assemble in my cloud-fogged brain. O’Malley’s. Tequila. A stranger who smelled like old gin. And then…

Green eyes.

I shoot up to a sitting position and the room tilts to the left.

“Oh god,” I whisper, clutching my temples.

On the nightstand sits a tall glass of water and two white tablets. Tucked underneath is a neon yellow sticky note with neat handwriting.

‘Drink me. There’s hangover soup in the kitchen if I haven’t burned the building down yet. Aspirin is for the hammer in your head. Take it and don’t die on me. N.’

N? Noel?

Well, I’ll be damned. He can cook and he has neat handwriting? For someone who’s paid to slam into people…that’s impressive.

I down the pills and the water in one go, then lay back down gingerly against the pillows as I wait for the chemicals to begin effect. As the fog begins to lift, I try to turn to my side and what do I feel?

Nothing.

Cold washes over me. I’m not wearing my clothes. No bra. No panties. I am wearing an oversized forest-green and red hockey jersey with the number 23 on both sleeves.

“He undressed me!” I shriek. “That slimy bastard took a look at my pearly pearls.”

My headache is suddenly secondary to the volcanic rage exploding in my chest. “That arrogant, opportunistic, boundary-crossing son of a—”

I jostle down from the bed and the jersey hits mid thigh, but I don’t care. I am going to murder him. I will use my medical knowledge to find his most painful nerve ending and press it until he begs for mercy.

I stomp toward the kitchen, my bare feet silent on the cold hardwood. I’m ready to scream and burn his life to the ground.

“Noel Rautio, you disgusting, perverted pig—”

But the scene in the kitchen is not what I expect to meet.

Noel is standing at the stove but he looks less like a star athlete and more like a man losing a fighting with a kitchen appliance.

There are pots everywhere and plates stacks haphazardly on the counter. A suspicious-looking orange liquid is bubbling over, looking every bit like a portal to a demon world.

There are small puddles of soup on the floor and Nowl is frantically waving a dish towel at the steam, looking completely overwhelmed.

The rage in me forgotten, I burst out laughing. The full-blown cackle makes my head start to hurt again but I can’t stop. He looks so pathetic.

He spins around, his face flushed from the heat and from embarrassment.

“It’s not funny! The tutorial lied to me. Make hangover soup in ten minutes but I’ve been heat close to an hour. It also said medium heat yet this stove won’t cooperate.”

I wheeze, leaning against the doorframe. “You’re a professional athlete! You have a billion-dollar contract, and you’re telling me that you’re being defeated by soup?”

“Shut up, Hera,” he grumbles, turning back to the stove to turn off the burner. Then his shoulders slouch. “I was trying to be helpful.”

Then I remember the jersey and my laughter vanishes.

“Helpful, huh? You were trying to be a creep! Why am I in your clothes, Noel? Where are mine?”

He sighs, dropping the towel and leaning against the counter. For a while, he looks like he did not hear me. Then his smile returns.

“That was my fourth attempt at the soup, by the way. Apparently, I’m better at breaking things than fixing them.”

He did not hear me.

“Clean this mess up. I don’t want the soup. I’m preyyy sure it’ll melt the cutlery I touch it with anyway. Make a decent breakfast. Eggs or toast. Something you can’t ruin with a YouTube video.”

He grunts but gets to work. Twenty minutes later, the kitchen is fairly okay and the smell of burning soup has been replaced by the scent of buttery eggs.

We sit across from each other at the breakfast bar.

“So,” Noel says, poking at his plate. “About tomorrow. 9 a.m?”

I stop chewing. “I’m not coming back, Noel.”

“We’ve been over this. The contract—”

“I don’t care about the contract!” I snap, then gesture to the jersey. “I do not feel safe working for a man who undressed me while I was unconscious. That’s a massive breach of…everything!”

He scoffs, putting down his fork. “Safe? Hera, have some common sense. Your dress was covered in your vomit which you graciously, thank you very much, deposited on my chest and face before dropping like a sack. I couldn’t exactly leave you to marinate in it all night.”

My face burns. “I did not puke on you. You are making that up to justify feeling me up.”

“I wish I were making it up,” he retorts with a sneer. “My coat is currently at a specialty cleaners and I’m pretty sure the guy looked at me with pity. You were a disaster and I did you a favor. I kept my eyes shut as much as possible. Trust me, it wasn’t exactly a Victoria’s Secret catalog moment.”

“Liar!” I yell. “You just wanted an excuse to see me naked!”

“Please. What do you have that I haven’t seen in a dozen other women? You’re not that special, sweetheart.”

Ouch!

“Then you should have left me in my soiled clothes instead of pawing at me under the guise of being a gentleman!”

His voice rises to meet mine. “And leave you on the streets? Because I sure as hell wasn’t letting you into my bed smelling like a distillery trash can!”

“Duh! That would have been better, you perv! I’d rather sleep on the sidewalk than with a blackmailer!”

“Calm the fuck down, Hera!” He roars.

I flinch, and we both fall silent.

Noel rubs the bridge of his nose, exhaling deeply. He begins to narrate the whole night up till now. As he speaks, the hazy memories start to click into place.

He did the right thing. He was actually…decent.

But my pride is a stubborn beast and it refuses to let the words ‘thank you’ or ‘I’m sorry’past my lips.

“You’re still an ungrateful, whiny little girl,” he mutters, leaning back and looking away.

“I wanna go home.”

“Fine. But you owe me.”

I narrow my eyes. “How much? For the eggs? For the laundry?”

His annoyed expression fades off, replaced by that dark intensity that makes my heart skip a beat.

“Not money. You owe me a kiss. You promised me one last night before you decided to use me as a puke bucket.”

I stop breathing. “You’re joking.”

“I’m very serious. Pay the debt, and I’ll let you go.”

I take one look at him. His messy hair and the bruise on his jaw. Just one kiss. A chaste thing to get him off my back won’t hurt.

“Fine,” I grumble, standing up. “Have the stupid kiss.”

I reach across the bar, grab the collar of his shirt and pull him toward me. I expect it to be stiff. Or maybe feel nothing but the desire to get out of here.

But the moment our lips touch, the world around me spins.

It isn’t chaste or quick like I envisioned. It’s a match dropped into a pool of gasoline. He tastes like coffee and heat, and his mouth slides against mine with a hunger that threatens to burn.

My hands slide from his shirt to the back of his neck, fingers getting lost in his hair. A low, desperate sound escapes his throat and hunger claws in the pit of my stomach.

Agghhh!

I pull away abruptly, gasping for air. We stare at each other for a few seconds, processing what the hell had just happened.

Then he breaks the spell first, clearing his throat and looking away toward the floor. He stand up quickly with stiff movements but I caught what he’s trying to hide.

A very obvious erection straining against his jeans.

A traitorous thought slips into my mind at the last second before he turns. What does he look like without the denim?

Horrified at myself, I shake the thought away.

“I’ll be back. I need to…get your clothes from the dryer.” His voice is breathier than usual.

And for some reason, I start to think THOUGHTS.

After a few minutes, he returns with my dress and heels neatly folded. He hands them over alongside my car keys.

“Work resumes tomorrow,” he announces, regaining his usual persona. “I’ve already briefed my lawyer. He’s drafted an arrangement for us. Something like a professional conduct agreement. It ensures you don’t weasel your way out of the sessions and it protects both of us. You sign it tomorrow or the footage goes to Tiare.”

I clutch my dress to my chest as I glare at him. He’s back to being the villain. The kiss has been tucked away behind legal threats and hockey-player ego.

Typical douchebag.

“I hate you, Noel,” I say, but even I don’t feel those words.

“9 a.m Hera,” he reminds me, walking me to the door like a gentleman. My ass. “And wear something professional please. No jerseys.”

I storm out. As I walk to the elevator, my lips are still tingling and that hunger in my belly hasn’t gone away.

I know for sure that tomorrow is going to be a disaster.