I choked up and started to cry. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” I hiccoughed and another wave of nausea hit me. “Bathroom. Toilet. Help.”
He carried me to the guest bathroom and let me down gently to the floor. I lifted the toilet seat and hovered over it. But I didn’t throw up again. I had finally reached the bottom of the Keg Stands and Blow Jobs. I had emptied out the toxic alcohol from my body and was left with dehydration and overwhelming nausea.
And a headache.
I slumped back against the wall and sat with my legs outstretched, like I was hugging the toilet with them. It was a nice guest bathroom, designed by the expensive designer that Steve had hired. The wallpaper had raised, fuzzy green and blue flowers, and the faucet had gold handles shaped like birds. I would never have thought to design a bathroom like it. I would have painted the walls white and bought regular chrome faucet handles.
“I have no design skills,” I cried. My body’s last few drops of fluid leaked from my eyes and rolled down my face. “I like white walls. I like chrome. I don’t understand bird handles.”
“You’re a wreck.”
I wiped my nose with the back of my hand. “This is the first time you’re noticing that? Boy, nothing gets past you, Marine Boy. Oh my God. I’m going to throw up, again. Why did you make me drink?”
“Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
He left the bathroom, and I continued to study the wallpaper so I wouldn’t have to study my life. Also, the multicolored flowers helped with my nausea for some reason. I figured it was because they made me dizzy in the opposite direction that the drunk was making me dizzy, counteracting the dizziness. Kind of like a double negative of dizziness. A couple minutes later, Hudson came back in with a glass filled with a maroon-colored mystery liquid.
“My failsafe hangover cure,” he announced proudly. “First time I’ve ever made it at eleven o’clock in the morning.”
“I don’t have a hangover yet. I’m still drunk.”
“It’s all the same thing. Don’t you know that?”
“No. How do you know that? How do you know…everything? You’re a muscle-bound kid, but you talk like you’re Yoda or that blind Kung Fu guy or Oprah. How did you turn into Oprah?”
“I’m not a kid, Eliza. Drink up.” He handed me the hangover cure, curling my fingers around the glass.
“I don’t want it. It’ll make me sick.”
He crouched down. His eyes were steely blue, an impossibly beautiful color on an impossibly beautiful man. It wasn’t fair that he got more than his share of beauty when so many of us needed more. “Drink. It’ll make you better. I can’t leave until I know that you’re better. Do you want that on your head?”
“No. My head hurts enough already.”
“Drink.”
“But it’s gross.”
“It’s not gross. It’s going to make you feel better.”
I didn’t believe him. Gross was gross. But I couldn’t fight him on it. I couldn’t fight him on anything. He had muscles, and he was a Marine. He was trained to fight. He was born to fight. I was born for…well; I didn’t know what I was born for. I had never gotten that far in my life. Hudson was pushing the glass closer to my mouth, and he had a determined look on his face, like he was charging up San Juan Hill or was forcing down his millionth egg white omelet. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer. My only way out was to drop dead. The way I felt, I only had a seventy percent chance of doing that, so I decided to give in. Scarf down the liquid and resign myself to throwing it up right after.
“Fine,” I said.
“That’s my girl,” he said, and I caught him blush. It wasn’t my kind of head-to-toe blush. Just a faint tint, but for some reason, it made me happy and gave me just enough motivation to take the plunge and drink the nasty hangover cure.
And boy, was it nasty. It was thick, but not like the creamy Blow Job. This was thick in a gross vegetable way.
Dammit. The bastard had found all the vegetables I had bought from Delivery Happiness to distract from my junk food orders.
“Keep going,” Hudson ordered. “Don’t stop drinking until it’s all done.”
I gave him a dose of the evil eye, but he didn’t seem concerned that I was upset at being forced to drink a disgusting mashup of everything gross and healthy in my kitchen.
Finally, I drained the contents of the glass. Surprisingly, I didn’t retch.
“What did you do? Put Brussel sprouts in there?”
Hudson took the glass from me. “Yep. Feel that? It’s your body in shock that it consumed something without preservatives in it.”
