“Yeah.” I scrubbed a hand over my face. “We’re idiots.”
“Correction,” she said. “We are champions of bad decisions.”
I chuckled, turned around, and promptly forgot how language worked.
She’d gone full comfort. Soft black sleep shorts that barely covered her ass, one of my old red Vanguard shirts—her favorite one since Silverstone—the neckline slouching off one shoulder. Hair twisted into a messy knot on top of her head, a few wavy pieces escaping to frame her face. Bare feet and ring glittering bright and smug on her finger.
My fiancée, in my shirt, on our little private beach, looking like a hungover cherub that had learned all the worst swear words.
“I look like I’ve been hit by a train. You look like you invented hangovers and then made them couture,” I said fondly.
She grinned, then immediately winced and put a hand to her forehead. “Ow. Don’t make me laugh. My brain is… comment on dit… vibrating.”
“Pounding,” I supplied. “Your head is pounding.”
“Oui, that. I have the pound-head.”
I snorted. “You have a hangover.”
“Iama hangover,” she whined, slumping her shoulders tragically and dropping her head. “My blood is eighty percent wine, twenty percent pasta.”
“That’s… not inaccurate,” I admitted. “Come on, hangover incarnate. Let’s go see how many survivors we’ve got.”
We shuffled out of the room like pensioners, shoulders brushing with every step. The villa’s main room opened up ahead, the living room flowing into the kitchen flowing and dining area. The closer we got, the more it sounded like a very quiet war zone.
The smell of coffee hit us first, then. Marco’s voice drifted down the corridor in a harsh whisper. “I am begging you, macchina, please. Just one more pot. Don’t do this to me.”
“I swear to God, if you break that machine, I will send photos of your tattoos to your Nonna,” Ivy hissed back.
We rounded the corner into the kitchen and found all four of them already gathered, speaking in the hushed tones of people who knew loud noises were a hate crime.
Marco stood at the coffee machine, shirt rumpled, hair a disaster, staring at the coffee machine like it had personally wronged him. There were two used coffee filters next to each other on the counter and more grounds on the marble than in the bin. He had an ice pack tucked under one arm like a baby and was muttering in Italian at the machine between pulls.
Kimi leaned against the opposite counter, hip propped and arms crossed. His eyes were half-lidded, hair damp from a recent shower, expression mostly neutral except for the faint furrow in his brow that said his head was splitting.
Ivy sat at the island on a barstool with a blanket wrapped around her head, black hair poking out in frizzy tufts, mascara smudged under her eyes. A half-drunk glass of water and a mug of something dark and menacing sat in front of her.
Lucy occupied the stool beside her, both hands wrapped around a mug. The sleeves of an oversized hoodie were pulled down over her fingers. She looked like a hungover baby owl.
Four heads swiveled in our direction as we appeared.
“Did we wake you?” Marco whispered hoarsely. Then he glanced at the other three. “We agreed to be quiet and let the love birds sleep in.”
“We did not agree on anything,” Kimi said quietly. “You passed out on the sofa while trying to explain DRS to Lucy using breadsticks.”
Lucy blinked into her mug. “In my defense, I thought drag reduction system was something kinky,” she said. “I was very drunk and still thinking about the whole ‘sexcation rules’ thing. That entire conversation was a little blurry.”
I felt Aurélie’s laugh bubble up against my arm before she slapped a hand over her own mouth.
“Too loud,” Ivy groaned, massaging her temples. “No laughter before eleven.”
“It’s barely nine,” I pointed out, crossing to the counter. “You look like you licked the bottom of the bottle.”
“We did,” Marco muttered. “It was wasteful not to.”
Aurélie wove herself between them and slid onto the empty stool on Lucy’s other side, tugging at the hem of my T-shirt where it hit her bare thighs. “Bonjour, my little hangover club,” she croaked. “Everyone survived the night? No one drowned in the ocean or choked on their own vomit?”
“Wow,” Ivy said. “Such bedside manner. Ten out of ten.”
