“FUUUCK!” I shouted loud enough to be heard wherever she was.
Snagging my hoodie from the back of my desk chair, I stomped down the stairs. From the utter silence in the house, none of my roommates had returned from campus yet. Fine. I headed out to the driveway, tore out of my prime parking spot, and almost spun a cookie in the middle of the icy street. Cursing through gritted teeth, I righted my trajectory toward Stromboli’s. With any luck Johnson and Fitz would already be there. Maybe Finn too. If not, I’d call ’em all to haul their asses down there. A rager was coming on, and I didn’t want to party alone.
“Look what the cat dragged in.” Coach Larkin greeted me when I showed up at exactly six the next morning. Lifting started at six, which meant we had to be at the facility by at least 5:45 a.m. to dress out and warm up before he put us through our programs. By Coach’s standards I was late.
“Sorry, Coach.”
He wrinkled his nose. “Smells like you drove here directly from the bar.”
“Not quite, Coach.”
“Don’t try to sneak out after your last set.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Coach.”
His eyes narrowed at my sarcasm, but I was already hurting too much to have the stamina to worry about the additional pain coming my way for showing up late. From my perspective he was lucky to see my half-drunk, hungover ass at all.
“Thanks for leaving me your keys, asshole,” I said to Finn as I passed him on my way to the locker room. “Do you have any idea how hard it is to find an Uber early on a Friday morning?”
“Should have thought of that when you drove to the bar last night instead of calling one to drive you there,” he said with a shrug.
“Asshole.”
“Dumbass.”
Twin smirks lifted the corners of our mouths when Larkin called out, “This isn’t social hour, ladies.”
I headed into the locker room to change while Finn hustled into the weight room. With a groan I dragged yesterday’s hoodie and T-shirt over my head, shucked my jeans, and pulled a pair of workout shorts from my locker. A faint smell of sweaty jock wafted past my nostrils, and I sprinted to the head down the hall, barely making it before the last of the Jägermeister exited my body on the same path it took on its way in.
As I rinsed my mouth in the sink, I wondered whose brilliant idea it was to do Jägerbombs last night. Then I remembered. I was the genius who’d decided getting shit-faced on syrupy alcohol and energy drinks was a great plan.
At least when I joined Finn at our first station, I had nothing left in my stomach to heave while Coach exacted his punishments for my tardiness.
“Why didn’t you wake me when you left?” I asked as I positioned myself on the leg press.
“I tried. Pounded on your door and yelled. When you didn’t come down to grab breakfast, I ran back up and chanced walking in on something I shouldn’t see. But you were passed out face-down across your bed, so I missed out on that.” An unholy gleam lit his eyes, and I wanted to run my fist through his grin. “I bounced on your bed and shook your shoulder. You grunted you were awake, and I believed you.”
“Yet you made it to lift on time, and I’m going to spend thirty minutes on the track doing burpees and trying not to dry heave in front of Coach.”
“Supposedly, you’re a grown-ass man. Thought you could drag your own butt out of bed.”
I stood and moved to the side to let him have his turn.
“What the hell was that about last night, anyway?” he asked after I’d finished counting out his set. “I thought you and Piper were solid.”
“We are solid.”Ihope.
“You flunk a test or something?”
I snorted. “You wish.”
No way in hell was I losing our GPA competition. Especially not when I had a semester of drawing and design classes, every one of which I loved. Even this early in the semester, a 4.0 was in my sights.
“So what brought that on last night?”
“Couldn’t tell you. Just one of those nights, I guess.”
The pity radiating off him as he shook his head would have thoroughly pissed me off if I could have found the energy for it. Glancing away from Finn, I caught Callahan’s eye, and the concern I saw there irritated me enough to flip him the bird. I was down, but not out.
