Well, fuck you very much!
With a furious growl, she grabbed the nearest pillow and buried her head beneath it, attempting to drown out the noise and, simultaneously, her spiraling thoughts. She wanted to scream into the pillow, thinking it might help release some of her pent-up anguish and frustration. Her already aching head kept her quiet.
Eventually, the futility of hiding became unbearable. It wasn’t helping anyway. She could still hear the music.
With a heavy sigh, she threw back the covers and climbed unsteadily out of bed, her limbs protesting every movement.
First order of business, toilet. Second order of business, toothbrush. Third order of business…maybe death.
She wobbled her way to the bathroom and only realized she’d failed to change out of her clothes and into her pajamas when she had to work the zipper on the fly of her jeans. She sat on the toilet with a groan and then closed her eyes when the room began to spin.
She kept her eyes closed while washing her hands and running a makeup wipe under her eyes where her mascara had smudged two black stripes that made her look like she was trying out for the NFL. And when she brushed her teeth—or, more specifically, her tongue—she found herself bent over the toilet depositing what was left of the night’s tomfoolery into the porcelain bowl.
She was shaking by the time she’d emptied her stomach. But when she straightened to make a second attempt at brushing her teeth, she was gratified to find the room no longer doing its best impression of a whirligig.
After popping two Tylenol, she made the return trip to bed while cursing the weakness of her limbs and the incessant throbbing of her head. She’d just pulled the covers back over her head in an attempt to block out the light when Fisher switched from “Love Story”to “You Belong with Me,” and she’d had enough.
Was he intentionally torturing her?
“Sonofabitch!” she hissed as she tossed back the covers and clambered out of bed. She was across the room, down the hall, and pounding on Fisher’s door six seconds later. Each time her fist made contact with his door felt like a cathartic release.
The music cut off immediately. A handful of heartbeats later, the door swung open and Eliza was momentarily struck my Fisher’s tousled hair and soft eyes. Memories of the handful of mornings she’d woken up to find him in bed beside her, looking just like this came crashing back and tried to soften her resolve.
Cue the butterflies.
Then she remembered the pain he’d caused her when he’d unceremoniously called it quits, and the hurt he’d been inflicting ever since by becoming the world’s biggest ball-bag. And she mentally pictured taking a BB gun and shooting the damn butterflies one by one.
With a glare she felt could have cut through steel, she demanded, “What the hell are you so happy about?”
He cocked his head. Humor tugged at the corners of his mouth. That mouth that was too pretty to look at. That mouth that she now knew was too talented for his own good.
She wanted to punch it.
She also wanted to kiss it.
But mostly punch it.
“Good mornin’ to ya, too, Liza.” His deep drawl was smoother and more melodical than his harmonica playing had been. And the fact he’d used her nickname made her knees wobble.
She staunchly firmed them up and continued to glare at him.
“What makes ya think I’m happy?” he asked, his tone far too cordial for her liking.
“Taylor Swift. You play Taylor when you’re happy,” she declared, hands on hips. “And you’re doubling down today, which means you must be doubly happy. But I can’t figure outwhythat should be because you just got back from a failed mission and your best friend is in a cast.”
He shrugged and stepped back to swing an arm wide. “Would ya like to come in? Or do ya prefer to keep havin’ this conversation in the hall?”
She blinked. They hadn’t stepped foot in each other’s rooms since the breakup—or whatever one called it when one person in a FWB scenario decided to end things.
Hesitantly, she crossed the threshold and turned to frown at him when he closed the door behind her.
“Take a seat.” He motioned to his bed. It was unmade. And a flurry of images of what the two of them had done atop those very sheets flipped through her mind.
She took a tentative step in that direction and then stopped. “You know what? I think I’d rather stand.”
She already felt vulnerable. She didn’t want him towering over her to exacerbate the situation.
“Suit yourself.” He breezed by her and sat on the edge of the bed.
