I swallowed a few times to be sure whatever remained in my stomach stayed put. Then I carefully got up, indulging in a groan when that made my head throb more.
A hot shower and a little too much ibuprofen helped. So did a bottle of water.
Hadn’t the cleaning staff lefttwobottles, though? Because I could’ve sworn there were two when I checked in, and I hadn’t touched either of them.
A moment later, I found the second bottle—empty in the trash.
No idea when I’d drunk that one, but okay.
I pulled on a pair of sweats and a hoodie, made sure I had my phone and keycard, and took my pounding head downstairs for breakfast. That weird-ass dream had mostly faded along with the worst of my headache, though it pecked at me a little, too. Mostly because I wished it had actually happened.
The part where Peyton and I kissed, anyway. Not the part where he’d pushed me away. That had sucked.
But if he kissed in real life the way he had in that dream?
Oh my God. Yes, please? Where do I sign up?
Then I walked into the hotel’s banquet hall for breakfast, and when my gaze landed on Peyton…
Ooh shiiit. Last nighthadn’tbeen a dream, had it?
Because that would explain why Peyton jerked his gaze away from mine and buried it in his breakfast. His breakfast, which he was barely picking at. It would explain the sudden color that rose in his face.
Well, this would be fun to sort out.
For the moment, there was nothing I could do or say. Not in front of our teammates. Instead, I did the best I could to act normal: I got some coffee, loaded my plate, and joined my usual group of guys.
My ass had barely hit the chair before Peyton got up.
“I need to go pack,” he muttered. “See you guys on the bus.”
He didn’t wait for a response. He bused his dishes, and then he was gone.
Well… shit.
“What was that all about?” Eminem asked.
“Hell if I know,” I lied as I dug into my food. “Were you telling stories about Baddy’s cooking again?”
“Hey!” A grape flew across the table and bounced off my forehead. The impact didn’t help my headache, but I laughed and played it as cool as I could.
“What?” I asked innocently. “If you told him about that time you tried to make lasagna, I don’t blame him for leaving.”
That had everyone at the table nodding and murmuring in agreement while Baddy crossed his arms and huffed. “Fuck you, Calds.”
I snickered. “But I’m not wrong.”
“Fuck. You.”
At least that pulled everyone’s focus away from Peyton’s sudden departure. Everyone except me, anyway. The chair he’d abandoned may as well have been a flickering fluorescent light for all I could ignore it. The only thing that kept me shoveling food into my face was the need to keep up appearances. I didn’t want anyone catching on that something was off between me and Peyton.
Especially if it was “off” the way I thought it was.
Christ, what had happened? I didn’t remember a goddamned thing except being in the bar and then dreaming—or not—that Peyton and I had been kissing.
It took so, so much work not to visibly cringe every time I thought about that, and I couldn’tstopthinking about it. When it had just been a wild dream, it had made me shiver because holy hell, I wanted that man.
Now that I knew it was real, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Was there any coming back from this? Was Peyton angry? Embarrassed? Reporting me to the team right the hell now for sexual harassment?
