“Okay. You wanna come home with me, then?”
He did a slow blink. Yes, the car was moving. So was his stomach, burrowing around inside his abdominal cavity like one of those underground animals. Gophers? Moles? What were those things called again?
“I’ll take that as a yes,” she said. “If not, speak now. Or forever hold your peace.”
His forehead got all crumply.What a weird thing to say, he decided, then congratulated himself on forming such a coherent thought. “I don’t care.”
“Okay, then.” Tansy laid a hand on his leg. “You can sleep it off at my house. My mom won’t be home. She never is.”
He glanced down. Her fingers looked wrong. Too short, a shade too pale, with bitten-down nails he didn’t recognize.
He wished for a different hand. He wished and wished, but it didn’t change, and that was the last thing he remembered, that wrong hand touching him, giving his leg a squeeze.
In the morning, Nick woke with a raging headache and a vicious gurgle in his belly.
He turned his head. Where the hell was he? Someplace with floral wallpaper, dark evergreen carpet, and a fake-wood ceiling fan with gold plastic trim. A pile of blankets straitjacketed him, making him prickle all over.
He pushed at the tangle. An arm flopped to the mattress, not his.
Oh, wait. Shit. Those weren’t blankets. That was a woman. A naked one.
He pinwheeled away, and... wait, why was he naked, too? Nope, better worry about that in a second. He scooted to the edge of the bed, found a diminutive plastic trash can, and vomited into it.
Not much came up. Just a few mouthfuls of eye-watering yellow bile. He retched again, his stomach roiling.
When he finished, he looked back. The woman was awake now, sitting up. The blanket pooled around her waist. She made no attempt to cover her nudity.
“Hi,” he croaked. Hot acid stung his tongue.
“Hey.”
“What... uh... What happened? Last night?”
She shrugged, her bare breasts swaying. They were large, much larger than Aubrey’s. “You came home with me. Then we fucked.”
He stared for an overlong moment. “We... No.”
She snorted. “Yeah. You don’t remember?”
He didn’t. Snippets paraded through his mind, cut-up flashes of last night. The bar. Walking, so much walking. A car rushing out of the darkness.
He shot glances in all directions, searching for evidence to refute her claim. But he was definitely naked. And in bed with this stranger. He grabbed the sheet to cover himself, not liking the way she watched him, like this was all somehow normal.
Oh, Jesus. Aubrey was going to kill him.
He winced. No, Aubreywasn’tgoing to kill him. Which was far, far worse. He twisted around and threw up into the trash can again.
His bed companion didn’t move. Didn’t rub his back or offer him anything, just waited for him to finish. When he looked back, she regarded him with mild blue eyes.
“You must feel like shit,” she said.
He waved away her assessment. “Did we use a condom? Last night?”
“Nope. You didn’t want to.”
He gritted his teeth. “Did I finish?”
“Oh, yeah. Loudly.”
