8 Hangovers and spiders

Date = 28 March

Place = San Francisco (Enrique’s home)

 

POV - Aria

BWWAAA BWA BWA BWA BWWAAA!

I jolt up and from shock widely open both eyes, instantly regretting it when my head feels like it just exploded. I look around to find the sickly hoarse goose that made that awful sound, but instead of a honking bird, I only find a laughing Enrique at the end of the bed, holding some kind of plastic trumpet thingy. He holds it against his mouth and blows.

BWA BWA BWWAA!

I close my burning ears with my hands, giving the damn twit a look that would kill ten men. The fact that he’s only wearing CK boxers not going unnoticed. I mean, seriously, that body is anything but ugly. No wonder he’s such a sought-after model.

“Ug!” I croak, touching my pounding head with my fingertips – extremely lightly. I close my eyes, not only repelled by the luminosity from the sunshine glaring through the open curtains but also to keep my sexual organs from becoming Niagra Falls. Cause that’s what’s gonna happen if I stare at the almost naked specimen much longer.

“What happened? Was I smashed on the head? I swear that bitch … eh … whatsername … Anna … “

“Amanda,” he corrects me patiently.

“ … yep, that one, hit me on the head with a bat or something. But I can’t remember exactly.”

“I think you just had too many blowjobs. Or maybe too much sex on the beach. No, wait … it was the unprotected sex that threw you over the edge.”

I slowly open one eye, just a tad, pulling my face as the bright light affects my cornea too intensely. I quickly close my eye again and moan softly, wondering if he knows something I don’t. Did I do something embarrassing? Don’t tell me I sucked his … no no no! Was I so drunk I forgot about having sex?

BWA BWA BWWAA!

“Will you stop blowing that freaking trumpet!” I yell, forcing my eyes open, having serious hearing loss from the 1000-decibel sound – or at least close to that.

“It’s a vuvuzela,” he says laughing, and throws the thing on the bed. I look at the foreign object, wondering what ass-hat invented something like that. He must have noticed my large frown cause he continues with an explanation.

“I bought it in South Africa when I went there for a photo shoot. They love to blow it at soccer matches.”

“Ah – newsflash, I’m not South African!” I pick up the vuvu-whatever and hit him over the head with it, getting him back for waking me up like a bat from hell. I fall back onto my pillow and pull the blanket over my head, hoping he would disintegrate into thin air. But luck has never been on my side, and it is not going to start now.

“Sooo, Aria, care to tell me why the whole world thinks I’m gonna be a father?”

My body stiffens for a mere minute and then I slowly peep from beneath the safety of the blanket.

“Yeah, about that … “ I say hesitantly, and then I try to explain the situation about how they mistook the parcels to be mine instead of his sister’s.

“But, just to be clear … I never confirmed any pregnancy … I just kept quiet so as not to put Mel in a bad situation!” I look him straight in the eye now. The fact that I saved his sister must count for something … right? And suddenly I remember that he’s not so innocent in this whole debacle.

“You’re the one that said how excited we were about the baby, remember?”

“I thought they found out about Mel. But nonetheless … you did a great job of convincing everybody with this photo, don’t you think?” He scrolls on his phone and hands it over to me. I stare at myself, looking down at my hand that’s protectively on my tummy. I must admit, he’s right - I look very pregnant.

“They caught me off-guard, I was checking for fat rolls, not a baby.” Honesty is always the best policy, is it not? Ug.

“Fat rolls?” he sounds puzzled, “Why would you … I mean, you have the perfect body so why … “ he clears his throat, “… eh … never mind. Okay, just let that slide, but the case where you assaulted a man – that calls for some serious punishment.” He gets this slick wicked smile on his face that sends shivers down my spine, for more than one reason. I mean, he’s still not wearing any shirt and I’m having a duel in my head – one side seriously wants him to put one on; the other seriously doesn’t.

“That man had it coming … but let’s not forget your little encounter with Amanda. So tit for tat we just cancel the punishments out,” I say hoping he would agree. He scoffs, pulling a face that leaves me unsure of his answer, but I’m gonna take it as a yes.

“Now to get to the topic of Brian … “ Those multicolored eyes scrutinize my whole demeanor, and I can feel my nipples contract under the thin layer of the T-shirt. I look down, only now wrapping my mind around the fact that I’m wearing one of his shirts and boxers, definitely not the clothes I had on last night.

I frantically look around the room just to find my lacy underwear laying traumatically on the floor next to the pillows that seem to remove themselves magically from between us every night. Flipping fish-sticks! I stare at the black bra as if it holds all the answers to my foggy mind. What happened last night? Was he serious about the blowjob part? Would I be able to forget having any sexual encounter with a man like Enrique? Now that would just be sad.

Feeling the rush of embarrassment pushing up, I pull the blanket higher, trying to hide the evidence of my reddened face, but failing miserably – he clearly noticed.

“Eh, Brian bumped into me on the street, then he showed up and helped us to change our tire, and later he also appeared in the same restaurant as us.”

Enrique doesn’t look too happy about that explanation if the frown on his face is any indication.

“Aria, you have to be careful around him. I don’t trust him at all.”

Don’t worry, me too, I think to myself. There’s just something about Brian that turns my guts into a knot. And I’m now sure he planned everything for some unknown reason.

“Okay, so since we’ve canceled one of your punishments out, it still leaves one,” he says.

“One?”

“Yep, for getting wasted last night. So I’ll think about it a wee bit and get back to you on that.”

Enrique gets up and I peek at the black undergarment again. Fuckit, I need to know.

“Eh, about last night … can you tell me what happened? I mean … did we … did something … how did I end up in bed, like this?” I pull the T-shirt to reveal exactly what I’m blabbering about.

He sits down on the bed again, this time very close to me, his mouth pulled into the sexiest lopsided grin I’ve ever seen on a person. His eyes sparkle with lights of blue and gold and I can for the death of me not choose which one is my favorite. It’s as if both are like a mixture of pleasure and sin combined.

“Well, first you puked on me while I was carrying your drunken ass in.” I can feel his breath fanning over my cheek, he’s that close.

“Then we took a warm steamy shower together, to get rid of the vomit.” Our eyes are stuck in a battle of wills. He moves his head even closer, our lips almost touching and I’m magically frozen by his voodoo gaze.

“And then I put you in bed and we slept. I don’t fuck drunk girls, no matter how much they throw themselves at me or how cute they are. Anything else you want to know, fairy girl?” I move my eyes and stare at those kissable lips, swallowing down serious spit.

“Eh, no. I think that’s enough information, thanks,” I murmur, trying to imagine myself under the shower with him. His eyes are also now on my mouth and I bite my lower lip self-consciously. The next moment he swears softly and then his lips crash on mine. For a moment I’m pixilated, but then, instead of pushing him away like I’m supposed to, I move my hands around his neck and stick my tongue in his mouth. His arms hug around my body, pulling me closer, and somewhere in my timid mind a spark is commanding me to get out of his grip before it’s too late, but my body doesn’t cooperate at all.

“Eh, did we come at a bad time?” The voice at the door ambushed me and I jolt my head in a quick motion, accidentally hitting Enrique on his cheekbone.

“Fuck Jackson! Can’t you ever knock?” Enrique scolds his brother, wiping his hand over his bruised face.

“Sorry, my bad but if you’re finished with your porno session, we brought Leyla over. Haley dropped her at my place since she’s going with the love-couple to see the next generation Grimm on sonar. I swear, that unborn little fetus gets more attention than all of us combined.” Jackson’s baby-blues scan the room, lingering on the black lacy bits on the ground, and then he looks all knowingly at me and again my cheeks burn like little fires.

His face sprouts a broken lip and a new bruise just below his eye. Hockey must be some seriously dangerous sport, cause he always looks like he stepped out of a boxing ring.

“We?” Enrique asks.

“Oh, you don’t know yet, I got a new roommate yesterday. His name is Lee and he’s our new goalie.” I roll my eyes. Ug, is probably another egotistical cocky perverting maniac to deal with. I’ve met his other teammate, Big Red, a Scottish foul-mouth, that’s staying with Logan …

“I was thinking, maybe we could … “ Jackson gets rudely interrupted by a high-pitched outstretched girly scream and then some person stumbles frantically past Jackson into the room, shaky fingers trying numbly to close the front of his jeans. The twins get the same cloned graveled psyched-out fix on their mugs, but it’s nothing compared to the bedeviled gape on the new face in the room. I’m assuming this must be Lee.

“Ssssppider,” the boy stutters, still fiddling with his button. I blink my eyes a few times, just to make sure they’re working properly. This is not at all what I was expecting Jackson’s teammate to look like. He’s about the same size as Mel – female petite - dressed in an oversized T-shirt and baggy jeans stuck into long black combat boots, but it’s his face that’s knocking me for a six. I swear he looks around 16, his pretty profile has flawless skin and no trace of any facial hair; reminding me of the Asian boys in the K-dramas I love to watch.

Then he looks up, and his big hazel eyes grow into saucers when he sees Enrique. He does a double-take, swinging his head from one twin to another, like a tennis referee. Jackson comes to his senses first.

“What spider?” This seems to bring Lee back from his orbit around Earth and he finally manages to close his pants.

“In the bathroom … there’s a big spider in the bathroom.” I notice his hands are still shaking. Jackson walks down the hall to the guest bathroom and we all follow suit, meeting Logan with a cup of coffee halfway in the corridor. It’s the mood-cup I bought Enrique, and it’s blue, meaning Logan is quite relaxed. Then Ilkay appears shortly after. Seems the whole gang is in our house.

“What’s the racket about?” He looks expectantly at his brothers.

“Just a spider,” Jackson says, leaning back against the wall as if waiting for something to happen.

“I can’t believe you’re scared of a spider,” Logan looks at poor Lee who at least stopped shaking.

Lee pulls up his shoulders. “I have pretty bad arachnophobia.”

“Pissy!” Enrique scoffs at the newcomer.

“You kill it then!” Lee utters and I’m impressed with his boldness. Enrique bravely walks into the room. A few tense seconds pass in silence and then …

“Shit, it’s huge!” he screams, getting out of the room as fast as he can. “Yeah, so not gonna happen.”

“Maybe you should blow your vuvuzela at it … it could be a South-African spider, you never know,” I say softly earning myself a nasty look from Enrique and a snigger from Lee.

Logan hands the cup over to his brother with a roll of his eyes. He enters the doomed room and I peek valiantly around the corner, not fond of the eight-legged creatures myself. The youngest brother stands in the middle of the room, looking around to find the dreaded bug.

I notice something moving against the wall to his right and then he jumps up like a frightened cat and speed-walks backward out of the room.

“Nope, nope, nope … bring a gun or Raid or something.”

Ilkay exchanges a strange look with Jackson … then with Enrique … one I can’t unravel but it plants a chill in my bones. Jackson cast his eyes down as if he is embarrassed. These brothers sure are strange. The oldest brother enters the dreaded room. Surely he would succeed.

“Fucking hell,” Ilkay swears inside, running out, his face a shade paler. He quickly closes the door and leans against it, not looking all that well.

“Screw that! That’s one big ass spider!” he mumbles and Lee nods his head in agreement while keeping his distance.

Jackson pushes himself away from the wall and walks past his brother. I peek at him from afar, watching how he extends his hand toward the spider. He doesn’t seem faced at all, but then the spider suddenly runs across his hand and up the wall. He jerks as if being shocked by an electric current. The man stands frozen and turns a shade of white that would make a ghost envious.

He walks past us and disappears into the kitchen, clearly shaken. What was that all about? He didn’t seem scared of the arachnid … so what rattled him that much? Did the spider bite him?

“What you’re doing?” A small voice comes from behind us and we all turn our heads simultaneously to look at my little sister.

“We’re thinking how we can kill the huge-ass spider in the bathroom before he webs us,” Logan answers her.

“You guys are so funny,” she says pushing past us, “Stupid, but funny.” And the brothers snort in union.

Before I can prevent her from certain death, she walks up to the spider and lets it crawl onto her hands, holding her palms together. The thing is black and orange and hairy and rather large … but still no Aragon or even one of his kids.

Then she carries it past our frozen shocked corpses to her room. When she returns, we’re all still standing in the exact same position we were when she left.

“It’s done, you’re all safe now,” she laughs at us while shaking her bold head unbelievingly.

“Oh, and by the way, that was a Mexican Red-Knee Tarantula … it doesn’t spin a web, Logi,” she smiles angelically at the men who look dismayed; each of them is looking at some spot not occupied by another person at this moment. Leyla concocted a nickname, that’s an abbreviation of their names, for each of the boys.

“I think it must have been someone’s pet that got free … ‘cause you don’t get them in San Francisco. Anyway, it’s in a box in my room.” My sister’s always been this fond of animals … all animals. She wants to be a vet when she grows up. A sharp pain pings in my heart. I hope she survives to grow up to fulfill her dreams. She then looks at Enrique with pleading eyes, “Can we get a vivarium for it, Ricky? Pretty please? I can’t just let it go outside, it will die.”

Enrique nods quickly and starts drinking Logan’s coffee, still cupped in his hand – the cup now red, meaning love, or in this case, maybe embarrassment. So … the super Blackburn brothers got scared by a little spider. I wonder how that would go down their huge egos. But in their defense… that thing was pretty damn UGLY!

“Yeah … I guess that’s that,“ Logan attempts to move past his squeamish behavior, all of them looking rather uncomfortable about their yellow-belliedness. Ilkay just pulls a strange face and struts away. Something is off here. Why are they all acting so strange?

I look at Lee trying to keep his laughter in, and I think I might just like our new companion. He seems to be different than the rest of the guys.

“Let’s get some coffee ‘cause this could take a while,” I say, gesturing towards the kitchen with my head and we walk off, leaving the still-half-frozen guys behind. Lee looks out the window as if looking for someone and then his face brightens up.

“Eh, I’ll just go check if my roomie is okay,” he says quickly and rushes through the door, leaving me alone … slightly confused. I wonder if I should warn him that he moved in with a potential psychopath. And Lee seems like a little hothead himself … something tells me that this new cohabitation might just end up in murder.

PS – please note – no animals were harmed while writing this chapter.