I winced. So much for sneaking out. “Good morning.” I walked over to the bed, each step reverberating up my body and rattling my brain. I sank down onto the bed, grateful not to have to move for a few seconds. Who was I kidding? I wouldn’t have been able to sneak out anyway because I was in no shape to drive.
“How are you feeling?”
I eyed Carson warily, waiting for the punchline. When none came, I answered honestly. “Not so good.”
“Sorry. I should have known better than to make you doubles.”
“I asked for them.”
“Yeah, but still, I shouldn’t have made them.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him about how it wasn’t his responsibility to be the Becca police. Wait. The Zizzo police. I appreciated having someone who wanted to look out for me, but sometimes it was simply tiring.
“I’m sorry I passed out,” I said.
“It’s okay. It happens to the best of us.” He paused. “Well, not me, but—”
I chucked a pillow at him then groaned as my head reminded me that quick motions weren’t a good idea. It was pointless anyway. He had easily deflected.
“Do you remember everything?” he asked.
“I think so.” I wasn’t a black-out kind of drunk. When my body was ready to cut me off, I simply fell asleep. It was actually kind of a nice failsafe. And though I sometimes wished I could puke, I’d never done that either.
“I don’t think anyone filmed your striptease on the back deck, but you might want to check social media just to be sure.”
My eyes widened. “What? That did not happen.”
He laughed. “Just checking.”
I picked at the comforter. “I’m sure I embarrassed myself enough without you embellishing.”
“What’s the last thing you remember?”
“Well, I went to the bathroom.” I tried to read him, but his expression was neutral. I crossed my fingers behind my back. “And that’s it, really. I guess you carried me up here?”
His eyes scanned my face. “That about sums it up.”
My heartbeat quickened. I hadn’t imagined the whole nipple thing. So why was he acting like it hadn’t happened? Oh shit. Had I crossed the line so badly that he wasn’t even going to tease me about it? Maybe it would have been better to fess up. But that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have while I felt like shit. I could always miraculously recover my memory later.
Carson stretched out, putting both hands behind his head. “What’s on tap for today?”
“Getting ready for the first day of classes tomorrow, I guess. And shit, I have a WIE board meeting later.”
“A wee board meeting? That shouldn’t take long, then.”
I shook my head at Carson’s corny pun. He never tired of making it despite the fact that it had never been funny. WIE stood for Women in Engineering, and I was president of the organization.
“I wish,” I said. “It’s the first one, so it might take a while.”
“Aren’t you in charge this year? That should mean you can make the meetings as short as you want them.”
“I can’t slack off just because I’m president. In fact, that’s a reason I shouldn’t slack off.” I believed in the mission of the organization, but at the moment, I was regretting getting talked into taking the role of president. I had been secretary for the past two years, and the quiet role in the background had suited me just fine. Regardless, I hadn’t planned on starting my tenure as president with a hangover.
“What time is your meeting?”
“Three.”
“Good. You can hang out until then.”
I looked down at the rumpled clothes I was still wearing from last night and wrinkled my nose. “I’m disgusting.”
Though Carson was also still wearing yesterday’s clothes, he didn’t look like he’d made out with a cheesecake. The amount of cheesecake on my shirt was impressive considering I’d only had one bite.
He sat up. “Get in the shower. I’ll make breakfast.”
I snorted. “Since when do you cook?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I’m an expert cereal-pourer, thank you very much.”
I shook my head. “My stomach can’t handle Lucky Charms.” The boy had a sweet tooth when it came to cereal, and I’d seen him polish off an entire box in one sitting.
“That’s not the only thing I have. I’ll make oatmeal. That should be bland enough.”
“If you say so.” I doubted I would be able to eat anything, though.
The hot water in his townhouse lasted a heck of a lot longer than in my apartment, and I planned to take full advantage. I stayed in the shower so long, I half expected Carson to come looking for me like he’d done when I’d fallen asleep in the bathroom last night. After wrapping myself in a towel, I peeked out into his bedroom to make sure he was downstairs. Then I rummaged through his drawers to find something to borrow. The only trouble was he was way bigger than me, so all of his clothes were huge. There was no way I was putting my dirty clothes on my clean body, though. I pulled on a T-shirt and a pair of athletic shorts then rolled the waist three times. It didn’t really matter if they fell off, though, because the shirt nearly came to my knees.
This was one of the nice things about hanging out with Carson—I had no problem stealing a toothbrush, using his fluffiest towel, and rifling through his stuff. It was comfortable. If he ever found out how I felt about him and things got weird, I had a lot to lose. I’d had this argument with myself countless times over the years every time I got the harebrained idea to confess my feelings—or apparently got so drunk that I fondled his nipples.
Carson was like family to me, especially now when our real families were hundreds of miles away. It would be foolish to jeopardize that.
In full stealth mode, I crept downstairs. The sound of my footsteps on the stairs was masked by the sound of ESPN, which was the soundtrack of Carson’s life. Just as I’d hoped, even though he had the TV on, he was in the kitchen.
Sorry, Carson, no ESPN today. I located the remote and quickly found the movie I wanted to rent. I only hesitated for a moment before shrugging and charging it to Carson’s account. I didn’t know how to switch to mine without screwing up all his settings. Besides, he wouldn’t care. His family had money, and he’d always been generous when it came to stuff like this.
“Hey, Ziz, breakfast is ready!” he called from the kitchen.
I padded in there, keeping one hand on the waistband of the shorts. Even though I’d said it wouldn’t matter if they fell down, I didn’t want to test that theory, especially since I was going commando. I’d met my embarrassment quota for the weekend.
Carson was spooning tan glop into two bowls. I’d never been a fan of oatmeal, but he was probably right in that it was good hangover food. If anyone would know about that, he would.
I took the bowl he offered. “Thanks.” Though I was tempted to add brown sugar to it, I refrained since that would defeat the purpose.
“Wait,” he said before I could return to the living room. He took a huge tumbler out of the cabinet and filled it with water. “Take this. And when you finish it, refill it. You gotta hydrate.”