You’d think a dying sloth wouldn’t move fast enough to operate heavy equipment, yet here we are.
I whimper as it pounds again.
My mouth tastes like rotten cranberries. My arm aches. There’s a crick in my neck.
And I’m still wearing last night’s dress.
I pry my glued eyelids open enough to verify I did, in fact, make it to my own apartment last night, though I didn’t make it to the bedroom.
Not that I’ve been sleeping in my bedroom even when I’m sober.
It’s easier to sleep in my recliner while I’m supposed to keep my arm immobilized.
The sloth pounds once more, and I realize it’s not a sloth jackhammering.
It’s someone knocking on my door.
I hit the button to make my recliner go back into its normal upright position with my brains sloshing around the whole time.
I’m never touching alcohol again.
Not for how it likely made me look in front of all of the Fireballs’ staff and board and owners last night, but for how it’s making me feel this morning.
I push on one ear to hold my head together. Pushing on both would be more effective, but that doesn’t work with the damn sling. I move around my simple gray couch adorned with all of the bright throw pillows that one of my sisters-in-law quilts for everyone she knows. My dress rustles too loudly. Sunlight streaks through the slats of the white wooden blinds, and I squint against the audacity of the sun shining so brightly today.
Whoever’s at the door isn’t giving up.
They knock again.
I can’t squint through the peephole—my eyes aren’t working well enough—so I fumble through unhooking the slider and fiddling with the tricky deadbolt, and I peer through the crack in the door.
And then I utter adammitthat’s too loud for my own ears.
Duncan quirks a half smile at me that has more audacity than the freaking sun.
He’s solo—no niece with him today. And he’s slouching, hands in his jeans pockets, plain maroon Thrusters polo hugging his pecs and biceps, chin tipped down, eyeing me like he’s half ready for me to tell him to pound sand, half ready to let his smile reach full smile status depending on what I say next. His broad shoulders and over-six-foot height make the hallway outside of my apartment feel smaller than it is.
And he’s so damn gorgeous my nipples ache.
Or possibly that’s my hangover.
“I like your pajamas,” he says.
My good hand grips the doorknob tighter as I remember he bid over a hundred thousand freaking dollars on me last night. “You didn’t bid enough to own me outright,” I blurt.
The man who seemed furious at my very existence a few days ago is now sucking in his five-o’clock-shadowed cheeks like that’ll stop him from laughing. “How much do you remember from last night?”
“Touch grass.”
He lets that full smile fly, and god help me, he’s using the dimples too. I hate his dimples. They’re fucking glorious.
“I’ve never been told to touch grass by a hungover raccoon in a prom dress.”
I’d flip him off, but he’d probably have something cheeky to say about that too.
And I’d probably laugh.
Just like I did when he would’ve said something like that to me back when we were secret-flinging.
