Standing there in Avery Caldwell’s room at almost two in the morning, listening to him snore as he lay sprawled in his expensive suit…
I had no idea what to do next.
CHAPTER 13
AVERY
Oh God. I feel like hammered shit.
My head. My stomach. My burning throat. Did I mention my head? Because holyshit, myhead.
And it couldn’t really be 6:30. I had to have messed up when I set my alarm, and now it was shrieking in the middle of the night for some reason. It wasn’t even daylight yet!
Wait, was itsupposedto be light yet? This was winter so…
“Goddammit,” I croaked, and I felt around until I found my stupid phone on the nightstand. The screen was blurry as hell, but I managed to find the button to turn off the alarm. Then I closed my eyes and let the silence soothe my head for a minute or two.
I needed to reset my alarm, though. I did have to be up at 6:30 if I wanted to get to breakfast on timeandget on the bus for the morning skate.
I fumbled with the phone again, and then squinted my aching eyes at the screen until the numbers came into focus.
6:31.
Are youkiddingme?
How the hell was it already time to get up? And how the hell was my room this dark?
I lay back and rubbed my throbbing forehead. Today was going to suck. I’d already been up to puke twice, and I wasn’t sure that was over yet. I had no idea how I was going to get food down my throat, never mind keep it there. Practice? Then play a game? Fuck me.
I wanted to just go back to sleep and stay that way until my hangover was gone. Besides, maybe if I fell asleep now, I could slip back into that dream. The one where, instead of Rachel releasing that distraught scream over and over, Peyton had been in here with me.
God, I wish that kiss had been real.
Clarity knifed its way through my miserable haze. I replayed that moment in my dream when I’d finally worked up the courage to kiss Peyton.
My dreams were vivid, but notthatvivid. I could have some pretty intense sexual dreams, but I’d never felt the softness of a guy’s lips or the scuff of his beard when I’d kissed him in a dream. Only…
Only in real life.
I stared up at the darkened ceiling as horror curdled alongside the nausea in my angry stomach. That was also when I realized I wasn’t naked or in gym shorts the way I usually slept. This shirt… these pants…
I’d lost my jacket and tie at some point, but this was the suit I’d been wearing last night. Wearing to the bar. Where I’d been drinking. And I didn’t remember leaving the bar to come back to my room. Except I very vaguelydidremember?—
Oh, fuuuck.
That kisshadbeen real, hadn’t it?
So had his startled expression, and he hadn’t beenstartled like someone who’d been pleasantly surprised by a kiss. In the moment I hadn’t understood a thing I’d read on his face, but now I could see—hell, I couldfeel—theWTF?and not in a good way.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I gritted out, rubbing a hand over my face as a third trip to heave in the bathroom threatened to happen. No, that kiss couldn’t have been real, though. Right? Because I distinctly remembered it happening in here. In my room. Why would Peyton be in my room?
Yeah. Why would he?
He hadn’t even been at the bar with me and the guys last night. Some of our teammates had come and gone, but Peyton hadn’t been there. I’d have noticed if he was, because Ialwaysnoticed when he was nearby.
So no, there was no way he’d wound up in my hotel room last night.
The fresh nausea steadily receded. I was working myself up over nothing. It was a dream. Period. I’d had a few drinks last night, passed out in my clothes, and then had a stupid dream about kissing Peyton and him clearly not being into it. Blame the booze. At least I hadn’t had that awful recuring nightmare again—mission accomplished.
