CHAPTER 3: The Morning After

The first thing I felt was the sheets.

Too smooth. Too cool against my skin. Not mine.

My eyes snapped open to a ceiling I didn't recognize, white and high, with pale light bleeding through heavy curtains. My head throbbed in slow, sickening waves. My mouth tasted like vodka and regret.

Then the weight of an arm across my waist.

I didn't breathe. I couldn't.

It all came back at once. Not in pieces, not blurry the way I'd prayed it would be. Every second. His hands. His voice against my ear asking, again, if I was okay. The way I'd said yes, and meant it, and then gripped the sheets and held on.

He was my first.

A stranger whose name I didn't even know was my first.

I slid out from under his arm an inch at a time. The mattress dipped. He shifted in his sleep, made a low sound, and I froze so hard my heart hurt. When he settled, I let out a breath and swung my legs over the edge.

My dress was on the floor. My shoes were near the door, one upright, one on its side, like they'd been kicked off in a hurry. I stared at them and felt heat crawl up my face.

Get dressed. Just get dressed.

My fingers wouldn't work. The zipper kept slipping. I yanked it, missed, yanked again. A tremor ran through my hands, and I pressed them flat against my thighs to stop it.

"Hey."

The voice was rough with sleep.

I went rigid. Half zipped, hair a disaster, one strap sliding off my shoulder. I didn't turn around.

"Hey," he said again, closer now. The bed creaked. "You're leaving?"

"I have to go."

"It's barely seven."

"I know what time it is."

That came out sharper than I meant. I tugged the zipper up to my ribs and gave up on the rest. My eyes hunted the room for my purse. Nightstand. No. Chair. There.

"Look, are you okay?"

"Fine."

"You don't look fine."

"I said I'm fine."

Silence stretched behind me. I heard him exhale, heard the rustle of sheets. When I finally risked a glance over my shoulder, he was sitting up against the headboard, bare chested, hair tousled, watching me with that same steady look from the bar. In daylight, it was worse. He was so much more real.

I looked away.

"Listen..." he started, then stopped himself, frowning. "I don't actually know what to call you."

"You don't."

"Okay." He rubbed his jaw. "Okay. Let's just slow down for a second."

"I don't want to slow down."

"You're shaking."

"I'm cold."

"It's seventy degrees in here."

My eyes stung. I bent to grab my shoes, and my hair swung forward, and I hid behind it. "Please just let me leave."

"Nobody's stopping you." His tone was gentle. Too gentle. "But I'd like to know you're not about to spiral over this."

"Spiral?"

"I get it," he said. "Morning after. Second thoughts. It happens."

I snatched the second shoe off the carpet. My knuckles were white.

"It's fine," he went on, like he was being kind. "Honestly. You don't have to look so guilty."

My hand stopped halfway to my purse.

"It was only one night."

Everything inside me went cold, then hot.

Only.

That single word landed like a slap I hadn't seen coming. I turned around slowly. My throat was tight, my pulse loud in my ears.

"Only one night?" I said.

He blinked. "I just meant..."

"You don't even know what this meant to me."

It cracked in the middle. I hated that. I hated that my voice could betray me in front of him.

"What?" He sat forward. The easy calm slipped off his face. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

"That's not nothing."

"Last night I told you something." My fingers dug into the strap of my purse. "You remember? You looked at me like I'd just told you the moon was made of cheese."

His mouth opened. Closed. I watched it happen, the moment his eyes went to the bed, to the sheets, to the small dark stain he hadn't noticed until now.

His face changed completely.

"Oh," he said quietly. "Oh, God. I didn't..."

"Don't."

"I wasn't thinking. I thought..."

"I know what you thought."

"That's not what I..." He threw the covers back, stood, then seemed to realize he was naked and grabbed the nearest pillow, which was ridiculous. Under any other circumstances I'd have laughed. "Wait. Please. Just let me say something."

"There's nothing to say."

"There is. I was an idiot. I said it wrong."

"You said it exactly how you meant it." I pulled the door open. The hallway air was cool against my burning skin. "One night. That's all it was. You said it yourself."

"Hey. Come on. Give me two minutes."

"No."

"I don't even know your name."

"Good."

The word hung in the air between us. His eyes searched mine, dark and restless, and for one dangerous second I almost turned back. Almost. Something in his expression was too raw, too human, and I didn't have room for that. Not today.

I lifted my chin.

"Forget you ever met me," I said.

I walked out before he could answer. The door clicked shut behind me, soft, final.

The elevator took forever. I stood there in wrinkled satin and yesterday's mascara, my shoes hooked on two fingers, and a bellhop pretended not to see me. The doors opened. I stepped in and pressed the lobby button and stared at the floor numbers counting down.

Don't cry. Not here.

I made it to the street. The morning air smelled like exhaust and coffee. A taxi honked. People rushed past me in sneakers and business shoes, living completely normal lives.

I climbed into a cab and gave my address. My voice came out flat, like someone else's.

The ride home blurred. When I unlocked my apartment door, the silence swallowed me. Eric's hoodie was still draped over my desk chair. I stood there staring at it for a long time.

Then I picked it up, walked to the trash can, and dropped it in.

It didn't feel as good as I'd hoped.

I peeled off the dress. Stood under the shower until the water ran cold, until my skin turned pink, until I'd scrubbed off every trace of the hotel room, and still I could feel the ghost of his hands on my waist.

I wrapped a towel around myself and sat on the edge of the bed.

He said it was only one night.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I'd made it into something it wasn't. A drunk mistake. A rebound. A story I'd bury so deep I'd never have to tell it.

So why did my chest still ache?

My phone buzzed on the nightstand. I hadn't looked at it since the bar. Twenty three missed calls. Eleven from Eric. I swiped them away without reading. There were texts from Mia too, three of them, each more panicked than the last.

Where ARE you??

Call me right now.

Rose, please.

I'd call her. Later. When I could speak without shaking.

Then I saw a message from my boss, sent an hour ago.

I opened it, thumb hovering.

Be in the office at 9 a.m. The new CEO will be meeting the staff.