ONE
The Regrettable Moment
Daylight breached a crack in the curtains, and Fitzwilliam (William to everyone but his father) Darcy recoiled, squinting like a vampire about to incinerate. He groaned in realization that someone was half-lying on his nude body. The dawning awareness ofwhodraped his nakedness made it all the more horrifying.
He closed his heavy eyes, then splayed a hand across his brow.
Misery. Vodka. Sex.
Nothing good ever came from a drunken hook up, let alone with a friend. He should know; his current shitty predicament in the not-so-morning-after with her leg draped across his hip warranted extreme self-repudiation. Never in a million years would the Darcy of old have stooped so low as to sleep with her, but his life wasn’t his life anymore. It and he were gross aberrations. Somewhere between being on top of the world and drowning in a bottle last night, he’d hit rock bottom. Beanz—her childhood nickname—was just a friend, a pal, a buddy, that’s it, nothing more. But now ... what the hell had he been thinking? For the last fourteen years of friendship never once had he considered sleeping with her, no matter how attractive a woman she’d matured into.
But last night? What the hell happened? He’d crossed a hard line.
If memory served, which had failed him more times than he could count in recent months, she showed up at his apartment crying because Wickham had cheated, and she dumped him. He vaguely recalled something along the lines of “I told you so,” rolling off his lips, but he couldn’t be sure. He had been in the middle of one of his usual pity parties, and the next thing he knew,shewas comfortinghimover a bottle of Stoli. Damn, did he cry at some point? The details needed to be flushed out, but not now. He’d have to think on it; a hair of the dog bourbon would help clear his mind until the second glass when his escape from reality and hounding memories of love lost started his descent into the void all over again.
He looked down at Beanz’s head on his chest. Her long, chestnut hair spread out in a bedraggled coat down his arm. From his position, she looked similar toher—the ex-girlfriend responsible for this mess. When drunk, in the dark, maybe the vodka made him think his friend was the one who had broken his heart three months ago.
He laid there, fearful of moving because if he woke her, he’d have to explain his unprecedented behavior and apologize for acting so out of character. Taking advantage of a woman’s vulnerable state inhisvulnerable state was not part of his credo, no matter his blood alcohol level.That’s Wickham’s M.O., certainly not mine. Had she initiated the intimacy? Was it intimate or just a quick, good lay? Was it quick or even good? Surely, he failed to launch; he was ten sheets to the wind last night!
He tried to erase the image of the woman who popped into his head—not the one in his bed—but the one who rocked his world. He hated that she was still the first thought of every day and the last of every night, present even during sex with someone else. Not even one hundred proof could drown her memory. She’d crept into his brain and heart so deep he feared—short of death—nothing could get rid of her! Definitely not time or distance.
Snippets of last night’s buddy romp crossed his mind’s cloudy eye: the way Beanz kissed, the taste of bitter vodka on her lips, the act itself. Grunts and breathy pants. He wasn’t sure if they were hers or his. They’d broken something. She cried out his name like a mantra, over and over. He remembered the bed spinning and the psychedelic purple and red city lights beyond the window of his twentieth-floor condo. He seemed to recall imagining it was his ex riding him like a bronco bull.
Hungover, his tired eyes scanned the bedroom. The lamp lay shattered on the hardwood floor, and a trail of clothes led out to the living room.
You’re a cretinous dick—an ugly, cretinous drunk!
Turning his head, which pounded like a heavy metal drumbeat, he eyed the two empty liquor bottles and the two condom wrappers. Twice? He didn’t think he had it in him with that amount of booze in him. The clock on the nightstand read one in the afternoon. He had successfully pissed away another lonely weekend in his miserable life, made all the more piss-poor by having compromised the remaining sliver of integrity he had left. Showing up at the office today was a moot point; his father would only read him the riot act, again. Staring at the ceiling, he watched the rotating fan. The bed spun; the room twisted. He put a foot on the floor, but it didn’t help stop the spinning. A wave of nausea washed over him, and he jumped from the bed, dislodging her from his person with her sudden drop onto the mattress.
“Wha ... don’t go, William,” Beanz moaned, rolling to her back.
He bolted through the broken glass on the floor to the bathroom, vomiting out his drink, memories, and heartbreak into the toilet.
Wiping his mouth, he gazed at his unrecognizable self in the mirror. Between droopy hoods and swollen bags, his bloodshot blue eyes looked gray. Even his puffy skin appeared ashen. He hadn’t shaved since, maybe, Thursday. What happened to Friday, Saturday, and Sunday? At twenty-six, he looked forty-six, and it only took four words, ninety-eight days ago, to bring him to this low point: “It’s over between us.” Done. Finished. The Breakup. He had shut down after that, ignoring her continued derision and accusations. As if any explanation could suffice.
His ex had blindsided and then eviscerated him. Never again, not even for the oneinhis bed, would he be conned into falling in love. He turned sideways, looking at his once-taut abs in the mirror, then patted the fat. Then he pinched a bloated cheek, pulled down an eye bag, and took stock of his losses: his looks, his body, his personality, his career, his family, his dignity, andher. Yes, his life was crap.
“Come back to bed,” Beanz moaned.
Gazing at his friend’s reflection in the mirror, he watched her stumble to the bathroom door. In the light of day, she looked nothing like his ex. Her tangled hair looked like a crazy mess, and mascara had smudged under her eyes. She even had a hickey on her left breast, but he didn’t recall giving it to her. Her pert nipples may be alluring, but the complete opposite of his ex’s delicious, fuller bust. How could he have confused the two? Beanz was just his friend, and no amount of money or logic could convince him that friends with sexual benefits benefited anyone with deep-seated emotions.
“Are you sick?” she asked.
“I’m fine.”
“Good Lord! Last night was amazing. Man, we should have done this years ago. I mean, I know it feels and sounds weird,but I always imagined you had the goods, butdamnyou brought the heat.”
He tightened his lips, then shook his head, not appreciating talk of “his goods” especially from a childhood friend! Not only was he mortified but he was sure that if his saintly mother ever caught wind of this, she’d be massively disappointed in him.
Dropping his forehead into his palm, he continued to shake his head.
“Well, I didn’t expect that response,” she teased.
“It’s the only one I have. You’ve got to be kidding me. We didn’t—tell me we didn’t do what I think we did.”
“Oh, that’s rich. You don’t remember, do you?” she asked.
“I think it’s better left that way,” he replied.
