Thayer grabbed my hand and lead my back toward the entrance. I felt something wet on my face, thinking that someone had spilled some of their drink on me. I didn't realize that it was because I was crying until we were back in the hallway.
My head flooded with emotions, and I started hiding my face in my free hand as I openly sobbed, not wanting the people trying to get into the club to see what an awful wreck I was.
I needed to forget and I just wanted to go home.
Chapter 6
My head was like lead,feeling the heaviest it had ever felt. It pounded relentlessly the next morning, like tiny men hellbent on torturing me were driving steel rods on either side of my temples. The pounding kept getting louder and louder, until I realized that the noise was coming from outside of my body. Someone was knocking on the front door of my apartment.
I hadn't made it to my bedroom when Thayer had helped me inside, refusing to help him help me to my bed, taking refuge on the couch. He'd grabbed my cosy comforter from my bedroom and then told me to sleep it off. Which was why I was so pissed off that someone was now beating down my door this early.
When the knocks shifted from unfocused to relentlessly purposeful, I muttered, “Fuck off” from underneath my enormous comforter as I stayed curled on the couch. Whoever it was kept knocking like a madman and I grunted in pain as I whipped the comforter open to free myself, struggling to walk toward the front door now that the all too-bright light from the windows was impairing my vision. I somehow made it to the door and ripped it open with closed eyes.
“What the fuck do you want?”
I heard a scoff as I reluctantly squinted my eyes open to see who it was. I softened when I realized it was Thayer. I rubbed my eyes and tried to absorb all I could. He had on a lopsided smile and was holding up a bag of what looked like Chinese takeout. His hands had been full, which I guess was an okay reason for him waking me up instead of using his key.
“Less ‘what the fuck do you want’ and more ‘thank you so much, Thayer’.”
“Fine, thank you so much, Thayer.” I said, waving him in after me.
I made my way back to the couch and sunk back into my comforter as Thayer sat in the chair next to the coffee table, unpacking the food he'd gotten for the both of us.
“How did you get Chinese so early?” I asked, pulling the comforter back over my eyes.
“Early?” Thayer laughed. “Bas, it's after four.”
“Oh God, okay.” I rubbed my head. Clearly I was a lot worse off than I thought I was.
“I figured you'd be in need of some TLC, also known as This Lovely Chinese, but I didn't think you'd be this far off.”
“Yeah, me either.”
I decided to leave the comfort of my blankets and sat up like a normal human being, reaching for the crab rangoons Thayer had placed on the table. I lazily bit into once, mewling at the perfect blend of sweet and savory.
“Ugh, I take back every horrible thing I've ever said to you.” I told him. “Thanks for getting this.”
“No problem.”
“Were you not horribly hungover this morning?”
“No, I was,” Thayer confirmed, using the provided plastic forks to lift his sesame chicken into his mouth. He took a second to savor the flavor before continuing. “I just was awake around noon and nursed myself into being a halfway decent person.” He chuckled.
“And now we're back to fuck off.” I sighed but gave him a smile as I kept nibbling on my crab rangoon.
“So...wanna tell me who the guy was you were all over last night?”
I froze mid-bite. Had Thayer seen me with Kroven? Obviously he'd seen something, but did he know that I'd been swapping spit with an Orb? What bothered me wasn't that I thought Thayer might not understand if he did know that it was Kroven that I'd been kissing. It was that I had been kissing an Orb and I found that absolutelyexhilarating. I'd gone through too many emotions in the past twenty-four hours. Kissing Kroven, though, had been such a whirlwind of pleasure and I definitely wanted it again.
But could I tell Thayer that? Would he accept me as someone who clearly enjoyed macking on Orbs? I wasn't sure I was ready to admit that to myself, let alone to him. So I played the fool.
“Guy?” I leaned forward and grabbed the other order of sesame chicken and a plastic fork. I combined the sauce covered chicken and rice together for a few seconds and looked up as he eyed me expectantly. “What guy?”
I shoveled some food in, grateful that I was getting some semblance of sustenance into my system, Thayer shaking his head prolifically.
“Oh, don't give me that, Bas, Isawyou.” I felt my skin crawling to get away from my bones while Thayer shook his head. “I mean, I didn't see who the guy was, but I saw some blond hair and you guys looked like you were going at it. So come on, spill.”
“He was cute and I was drunk, so I went for it.” All true, so I didn't have to outright lie to him. “There's nothing more to tell than that.” I winced at myself internally. Okay, that wasn'ttechnicallytrue, but I was really trying to spare him the gory details.
