Brody shifted his arm slightly under my head and rocked my brain inside my skull, making me groan out loud without thinking. Within a second, Brody moved completely – taking his arm out from under my head and sitting up so quickly it made the room spin again, then groaning himself.
“Oh, god,” he muttered out loud. “My head!”
“Same,” I said – or croaked, because that was the moment I found out that my throat was deathly dry.
“What the hell did we drink?” Brody asked. I noticed the careful line of space between us, all the way down the bed. We were no longer touching at all, and he hadn’t said anything about the fact we had been. He was sitting up while I stayed laying down. We were apart in all ways except for the mattress we shared.
Like he wanted to put as much distance between us as possible without doing the obvious thing of springing away and going back to his own bed.
“Whisky,” I said, choosing to answer his actual question and not the subtext. I lifted a hand and pointed it at him without moving the rest of my body, then pointed the same finger down at myself. “Stupid blue cocktails.”
“Right,” Brody said. I saw him run a hand back through his hair in the corner of my vision, then glance over and check the time. “We need juice.”
“Juice?” I repeated. That hadn’t been what I had expected to hear.
“Hangover cure,” he explained, swiping his phone from beside the bed. “Hold on. Let me see… right. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, sitting up as he stood – and immediately regretting it, holding a hand against the side of my head to try to steady it.
“Hangover cure,” he repeated as if that much was obvious. He sprang for the door, grabbed his leather jacket from the floor and shoved his feet into a pair of shoes, and then whirled out into the hallway like he couldn’t get away from me fast enough. He poked his head around the door for one last sentence before closing it behind him. “You can jump in the shower while I’m out.”
Was that a hint?
I lay back against the pillows and groaned, rubbing a hand over my forehead with my eyes closed. The morning sun was way too bright in here, and I felt like an idiot on top of the hangover.
If Brody was able to just get up and run out the door like that, he definitely wasn’t feeling as bad as I was.
I got up slowly, peeling myself off the bed and dragging myself over to the small bathroom. Thankfully, it had a separate locking door from the rest of the room, so I actually could follow Brody’s orders. Not that I was taking orders from him. It just felt like the right next step to take if I was going to tackle this day in any way.
I thought about what Keaton probably had in store for us today – no doubt a full schedule that in some way involved loud, physically active, or drink-based activities – and couldn’t hold back another groan of despair.
The hot water in the shower revitalized me a little, blasting away the external effects of last night at least. Under the water, I lost the sensation I had woken up with of Brody’s body against mine, pressing against my knee and my elbow, his arms around me. The more that impression faded, the less awkward I felt. It was just a couple of guys falling asleep next to each other and, like, doing what guys did in their sleep. Nothing more than that. And he probably didn’t even remember the kissing part.
Right?
I hit the switch to turn off the water, leaning against the cool tiles for a minute to catch my breath. Out in the room, I heard the sound of the door opening and closing; Brody was back from wherever he’d been. I reached out of the shower door and grabbed a towel, wrapping it around myself…
And then, surveying the bathroom, realized I hadn’t actually brought any clean clothes in here with me.
Damnit.
I was so bad at thinking when I was hungover.
I sighed heavily and hitched the towel tighter around my waist, making sure it wasn’t going to fall off. I glanced into the mirror, swiping my forearm across the foggy surface to clear it.
The image that looked back at me was still a little blurry, but I could see enough. The body in decent shape, the tattoos intended to draw attention away from the fact that I could have stood to do a bit more work in the gym, the long hair up in a second white towel. I took it off and let it shake loose over my shoulders even though it was wet. I didn’t need Brody ripping the shit out of me for wearing a head towel like a woman.
Plus, with my hair down I could hide the thing I was most insecure about.
My eyes.
I hated the fact that my eyes gave away who I was. Half-Korean, but only half. Without my eyes, I could pass as fully American. Without my eyes, I could avoid all the bullshit. The casual racism. The micro-aggressions. The guys who didn’t want me just because of where my Mom was from. Always feeling like I had one foot in two cultures but was never fully allowed to exist inside either of them.
I sighed and shook my hair forward more, covering the corners of my eyes. As soon as it was dry I could stick a beanie on my head and ram it down as far as possible. Until then…
I needed to get dressed.
I took a breath and opened the bathroom door, pretending not to notice or care that I was walking around half-naked in front of Brody for the second time in two days as I headed for my closet.
