No reply. If it was a ghost, it was a particularly shy one.
A ghost who liked memory foam on their queen-sized bed.
Jayne snorted and buried his nose in the thick, warm blankets and soft sheets he’d curled up in. A ghost. Yeah, right. “I’d just like to state, for the record, if you are a ghost and you can read minds, I’m sorry that I’m so skeptical. You’ll be pleased to know that this is probably the best apartment I’ve ever woken up in, and these sheets—”
What Jayne had been going to say was that the sheets smelled fantastic, which was true—when he’d buried his nose into them, it’d been like plunging face-first into a field of lavender and light, breezy cotton—but it wasn’t expected. The sheets should have smelled like dried sweat and sex.
What was going on?
Jayne reached an exploratory hand beneath the sheets and found that, while he’d been undressed, he’d only been stripped down to his underwear. The back wasn’t sticky with cum. Was it because he’d showered last night and dressed himself? The fine, iridescent body glitter that he’d packed onto his chest was mostly gone, although scintillating traces of it clung stubbornly to his skin.
There was only one way to find out.
Jayne closed his eyes to give himself some privacy, slid his hand beneath his boxer-briefs, and fingered himself. It didn’t feel like he’d been freshly fucked. Not only was he tight, but if his drunken ass had managed to clean himself out so thoroughly, Jayne would never shower sober again. The discovery led him to a question he didn’t have an answer for—who the hell brought a drunk-ass party boy home, gave him his own bed, and then left him untouched? Never in hislifehad Jayne woken up after a blackout night to an empty bed with no sign at all that he’d had sex.
There had to be a catch.
Jayne’s phone buzzed, putting a temporary end to his quandary. Jayne turned his head in the direction of the noise and found it plugged in, fully charged, on the bedside table.
Things were starting to get creepy.
Fully prepared for the new message to be something plucked straight from aSawmovie, Jayne snatched his phone from the charger and checked to see what he’d missed. A notification from one of Jayne’s friends, Gwynn, from the Single Dad chat waited for him.
Gwynn: Where are you?
Where was he? Jayne blinked hard several times, then opened his conversation with Gwynn and started to reply when he noticed the time.
It was almost ten in the morning.
“Oh, holy shit,” Jayne gasped. “Parker.”
In the mad scramble to get out of bed, Jayne managed to tangle himself in the blankets and almost collapsed in a pile on the floor. He plummeted to the ground face-first and barely managed to catch himself with his palms, then poured out of bed much like a snake shedding its sherpa-lined skin.
For whatever reason, his legs didn’t want to cooperate.
“The fuck is going on?” Jayne looked over his shoulder to make sure he hadn’t been amputated at the knee. Everything back there looked normal—two calves, two feet, ten toes. Drunk-Jayne hadn’t even tried to remove his white-to-blue-ombré glitter pedicure.
Too bad. Glitter was a bitch and a half to get off. Sober-Jayne would have appreciated the attempt.
But back to the matter at hand. Why weren’t his legs working?
A creepy doll with red eyes and spiral-painted cheeks would be wheeling itself out of the closet at any moment now.
Unless…
With all the grace of a beached seal, Jayne rolled onto his back, then sat up. Experimentally, he tented one leg, then the other. Both worked. He poked and prodded his patellae with his fingertips, found them to be normal, then examined both his posterior cruciate ligament and his anterior cruciate ligament. If either one of them was injured or otherwise nonfunctional, it would impact his mobility. As far as Jayne could tell, neither was injured.
Besides,he thought wryly,I’d have felt it if they were severed. My head is too clear to be under the influence of narcotics.
From the back of his knee, he worked downward, testing the sensitivity of his skin. By the time he’d worked his way to his toes, Jayne was fairly sure he’d discovered the truth: last night’s blackout hadn’t been caused by excessive partying—he’d been roofied.
“Fuck me, I guess.” Jayne tried to wiggle his toes. They moved sluggishly, if at all. At a glance, that ruled out GHB, which was the most common date-rape drug. Unless he’d been out partying until four in the morning, it would have worn off by now. Rohypnol, an imported benzo that could impair an individual for up to twelve hours, had to be to blame.
It was a damn good thing he was taking a taxi out of here. There was no way he was safe to drive.
Aware of his limitations, Jayne tucked his phone beneath the elastic of his underwear, then half-crab-walked, half-dragged himself to the dresser against the wall. From there, he took proper stock of his surroundings. Apart from the bed, there was a four-panel room divider over which had been hung his shirt and pants, and a modest but comfortable-looking armchair set up with a small table. On the table was a glass of water, a bottle of aspirin, and a fork and knife.
There was no plate, and nothing left out to eat.
