1
Lance
Azure Tides Resort
Santa Barbara Coast, California
The headache is the first thing I’ve become aware of.
That familiar throbbing behind my eyes only shows up after I’ve done something truly stupid with whiskey. I’ve had it enough times to know the difference between a respectable two-drink headache and a full-blown what-the-fuck-did-I-do headache. This one sits firmly in the second category, complete with the usual side order of amnesia and a strongly worded memo from my liver.
I keep my eyes closed and try to piece together where the hell I am from memory.
Trevor’s wedding. That much I remember. Our friend tying the knot yesterday on the beach at sunset, Becca in a dress that rendered him completely speechless for ten seconds—the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen the man do. The reception that followed, the dancing, the open bar I treated like an all-you-can-drink personal mission. My best buddy George stayed there with me most of the night, same as ever, with me running my mouth while he looked deeply unimpressed by everything comingout of it, which only encouraged me more. Becca’s cousins were out in force, one of them I found especially interesting at around ten o’clock. Plenty of flirting, more dancing, another round at the bar, and then—
Then nothing, just the usual soft blackout that rolls in whenever I go a little too far with the drinking.
I feel warm, too warm for a room that Azure Tides keeps at the temperature of a very tasteful refrigerator. I’m also not lying flat. I’m at an angle, propped against something solid that’s breathing.
I open my eyes.
The first thing I see is a chest. A very large, very bare chest. Brown skin. Dark hair. It rises and falls slowly while my face rides along with it. My cheek is smashed against a hard pectoral muscle. My arm is thrown across a ridged stomach. My legs are tangled with significantly larger legs.
I lift my head.
George is asleep, face turned slightly away from me, one arm slung around my back. He’s snoring just steadily enough that he’ll absolutely deny it later. His other arm is flung out across the bed, hand open as if he powered down mid-thought. His jaw hangs slack under a clean, neatly trimmed beard he clearly got shaped for his stepbrother’s wedding. His hair is a little longer than his old Navy days, not too long, just enough to look cool when it’s messy against the pillow.
He’s six-four, stacked with muscle. Typical. Sharp Hispanic features, strong jaw, the whole package. Basically engineered to make girls go full loco. It’s offensive, really.
The scar through his left brow had already been there the first time I met him in my college dorm lobby, when he showed up dropping food off for his stepbrother Trevor and invited me in for dinner with all his Chinese takeout. That was ten years ago. Somehow, I ended up best friends with the grumpiest asshole in the room and never looked back.
Right now, his hand is resting just above my bare ass like it belongs there—like it hadn’t moved all night.
I look down at myself. Yep. Bare ass confirmed.
I am completely, entirely, categorically naked, and the evidence of my morning wood is very much present, currently pressed against George’s also very naked hip with what can only be described as misplaced confidence.
My eyes go wide as I look across the room.
My bed is over to my right near the door, still made and tucked, with the pillow undisturbed. The little Azure Tides chocolate still sits on it like a smug little monument to the version of last night where I probably did something I wouldn’t be able to come back from.
I am not in my own fucking bed.
And judging by the golden light pouring through the huge gap in the curtains, it’s late enough in the morning that the Pacific is glittering out there with no respect for the gravity of my situation.
My eyes now flick to the floor. Our groomsmen suits are scattered everywhere, the room still wrecked from whatever last night turned into. My jacket hangs halfway off a chair. George’s dress shirt lies crumpled near the door. My pants are inside out in a heap by the nightstand. His belt is looped over the lamp like someone threw it there in a hurry. Our leather loafers are kicked off in opposite directions. Ties dangle off the edge of the dresser—you get the fucking picture.
I swallow hard and do what any reasonable person in my position would do. I perform a clinical self-assessment.
Does my head hurt? Yes. The worst hangover ever. Moving on.
Does my ass hurt? I pause and run the evaluation with appropriate medical detachment. I flex. I shift. I clench experimentally.
Nothing. No burn or soreness. No “I got absolutely railed last night” tenderness.
Well, that’s either very good news or extremely good news, depending on how you look at it.
I let out a slow breath that comes dangerously close to a wheeze. Okay, so I probably didn’t get fucked. Points to me for that, I guess, but then the next thought slams in.
