I should go to the kitchen.
I should grab blankets and hunker down in the unfinished guest room.
I should sit outside and sleep in the patio chair.
I should do anything, really, but instead, I sit outside with my back to the door of my bedroom and listen to Willa Stone’s muffled moan as she makes herself come in my bed.
And even though it goes against everything I know, even though I’ve spent years resisting Willa Stone’s pull, I somehow know deep in my gut that I am so totally fucked.
SEVENTEEN
WILLA
Before I even open my eyes the next morning, I know something is wrong by the way my head throbs. When I do crack an eye open, the bright sunshine hits my vision, sending a sharp flare of pain through my head, and I groan and slam them shut.
Well, that’s new.
Am I sick? I can’t remember the last time I was sick, but this feels almost like the flu I had four or five years ago. Is that what it is?
I almost settle on yes when, slowly and painfully, memories slip into my subconscious.
Getting ready with the girls.
Heading to the Mill and sticking to a soda until Leo showed up and told me once again how to act.
Taking shots with Hallie, Wren, and Nat to prove a point.
Taking more shots because I was having fun.
Slowly, I attempt to open my eyes once more, squinting into the sun and finding myself in an unfamiliar bedroom, in an unfamiliar bed.
I look down my body to see I’m also in an unfamiliar, oversized shirt, and my shorts are gone, leaving me in just my underwear.
Suddenly, a second set of far more embarrassing memories flies through my mind.
Arguing with Leo in the hallway, and he surprisingly backed down.
Dancing with him, him taking me home, and jumping into his bed.
I cringe when I remember asking him to sleep with me, but it melts away when I remember the warm press of his lips to my forehead and the heated look he gave me before he left.
You look good in my bed, Will.
That part was a drunken dream, right?
Right.
It had to have been.
Slowly, I shift and roll over in the bed, forcing myself to stand before scanning the room for my things. My shorts are in a pile on the floor, and vaguely, I remember taking them off and trying to remember if, when I did, Leo was still in the room, but deep down knowing the answer.
I am never drinking again.
I don’t care how annoyed I am or how convincing Hallie and Nat are.
Looking around the room, I spot my phone plugged into a charger on the nightstand, something I surely didn’t do, and I wonder just when Leo did. The light is blinking, and I squint at it. There are a slew of new messages, one from each of the girls, but I ignore those when I seetwoare from Jackie. My pulse begins to pound a tattoo in my chest as I tap on the screen, sure that some kind of photo or video of me drinking and dancing last night was leaked.
She’s going to kill me.
