“A… Alex?” I gasp, twisting my head around uncomfortably so I can see him.
Alex is standing behind me, wearing a t-shirt and boxer shorts, his hair sticking out in every direction possible. The hissing sound, I now realize, is him trying to shush me, and it finally works, leaving me standing there with my jaw hanging open in disbelief.
“What are you doing in my room?” I ask at last. “Did we…? We didn’t…?”
“No.” Alex shakes his head. “Of course not. You were super drunk. I just put you to bed. And I’m not in your room; you’re in mine.”
He presses the switch on the wall behind him, and the lights come on — stinging my eyes, but making it instantly clear that the reason everything’s the wrong way around isn’t because someone’s been moving the furniture, it’s because this isn’t my room.
It’s his.
“Wait…”
I look down at myself, braced for the sight of my second-best set of underwear — or worse — and breathing a sigh of relief when I find myself wearing an oversized t-shirt which smells faintly of Alex’s cologne.
“Don’t worry, you put it on yourself,” he tells me, seeing the relief on my face. “I didn’t look. I mean, Iwantedto, obviously, but…”
“You were too much of a gentleman,” I finish for him, feeling stupid. “Thanks. And thanks for looking after me. I’m really sorry for…”
I wave my hands around vaguely, hoping that this will adequately convey to him all the things I’m currently sorry for, up to and including the fact that I didn’t realize how utterly, heart-breakingly lovely he was until it was too late to tell him without making even more of a fool of myself than I have already.
I’m not sure my weird hand gestures quite sum all of that up, really.
“Um, I should get back to my own room,” I say. “So I can leave you in peace and also get an early start on all of the ‘feeling mortified’ I’m going to be doing every time I think about this.”
I wave my hands again.
It would be great if you could stop doing that, Summer. Any time now would be good, thanks.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” says Alex. Hope rises in me like sunshine.
“You don’t want me to leave?” I ask, a little too quickly.
“Well, no,” he replies seriously. “I’m worried you might choke to death in your sleep. That’s why I brought you in here, rather than just making sure you got into your own room.”
“Oh. Right.” I swallow, wishing my mouth didn’t still taste like alcohol. And that I had never so much astouchedany alcohol in the first place. (And that I knew whether I was wearing underwear underneath this t-shirt, because I’ve just this second realized how short it is on me.)
“I’m absolutely fine, you know,” I tell him, tugging at the hem of the t-shirt. “I’m going to have the mother of all hangovers in themorning, obviously, but I’m not drunk anymore: just embarrassed. So you don’t have to look after me.”
“No, but I want to,” he says sweetly. “And I’d also just like to get some sleep, to be honest.”
I look at the super-king sized bed. It does look pretty inviting, to be fair. And, despite what I said to Alex, my head’s still spinning in a way that makes the thought of navigating my way back to my own room, and getting into the bed there, feel like a challenge I’m woefully unequipped for.
“Okay,” I say, allowing myself to collapse gratefully onto the bed. “I’m just going to lie here for a bit and rest my eyes. Then I promise I’ll go back to my own room.”
My eyelids flutter closed. I force them reluctantly open again, because it feels like bad manners to just fall asleep mid-conversation, and watch as Alex carefully folds himself back onto the sofa, his long legs hanging over the side at an angle that cannot possibly be comfortable.
“Hey,” I croak, knowing this is most likely going to be yet another thing I’ll have to apologize for in the morning, but too tired/drunk/stupid to care. “I’d offer to swap places with you, but I know you’re much too gallant to accept, so why don’t you just sleep in the bed? It’s definitely big enough for both of us.”
Alex hesitates.
“I promise to keep to my own side,” I say in a small voice. “I can barely keep my eyes open anyway, so I don’t think I’m capable of jumping you, even if I wanted to.”
Even if I wanted to?
What the hell did I say that for?
I open my mouth to try to make this statement make more sense — or at least not sound like I’m outright repulsed by him — but my mouth isn’t cooperating, and, in the meantime, Alex gets offthe couch, and walks around to the other side of the bed, where he carefully slides between the sheets as if he’s inserting himself into an envelope.
