I stood there while those champagne bubbles fizzed around inside me. He was a big man. He towered over me, and that was no mean feat. Mean feat. I repeated the words internally. That seemed wrong. Fean meat? No. What was that phrase again?
“Careful,” he said as I tried to make my limbs hold firm. “You don’t want to fall and hit your head. That would be a lot of paperwork.”
“In case I do injure myself, please tell the EMTs that I’m O positive.”
He turned me then, putting an arm around my waist and helping me toward a stall. “If that happens, I’m telling the EMTs to keep you away from any open flames. Because your spilled blood would ignite like a Roman candle right now.”
“Good idea. Now, I think I’m ready to vomit.”
That made him hurry and help me to a toilet. And as I crouched down, I realized that I hadn’t thought about Craig at all for the last five minutes.
I woke up in my grandparents’ living room the next morning with no recollection of how I’d gotten there or why I was wearing a costume. Jimmy Talon and Dame Judi Finch were singing loudly, and I let out a groan as I realized that my head was pounding and my mouth felt like it had been recently filled with soggy, vomit-covered marbles. I pushed myself up into a seated position and quickly saw that was a mistake. I rested my head against my hands and wondered why I’d never realized just how noisy the birds were. It was a background noise that I’d learned to tune out, apparently except when I had a crushing hangover.
Something was on my forehead. I reached up and grabbed a Post-it Note. I looked at it and saw my grandma’s handwriting. “Need to talk.”
I did not need to talk. I was twenty-six years old. I could stay out late on a school night and drink if I wanted to. She didn’t need to lecture me on the dangers of getting drunk. I was well aware of the chemical reaction and how my liver broke down alcohol into acetaldehyde and then into acetic acid and that I hadn’t been able to outdrink my body’s ability to break it down properly. Thus, drunk and hungover.
My head throbbed as I wished again that I could move out and get my own place. I could probably do it if I stopped buying used lab equipment.
Or if I had an actual job again.
Grabbing my purse from the floor, I started for the stairs, and the events of last night came rushing back so fast and so hard that I collapsed against the wall for a moment.
Craig. Engaged.
Me, drunk and crying and pouring out my heart to his brother, Marco. Every single embarrassing and dumb thing I’d done filled my brain, and I had to relive it for a few seconds, including Marco driving me home in his car as I ate fistfuls of french fries in the back seat while slurring out my address.
Good thing I never had to see him again.
I made it into the bathroom and dry heaved a few times, but nothing happened. I smelled so disgusting. It was a good thing I hadn’t slept closer to the birds or one of them might have gotten a contact high from all the fumes I was sure I’d been excreting.
I threw my purse on my bed and peeled off my dress. I started the shower, downed what was probably an alarming amount of acetaminophen, and then hopped into the shower and stayed there a long time.
When I got out, everything didn’t hurt quite as much as it had earlier that morning. I glanced at my alarm clock. It was already eleven thirty. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in for so long. I’d obviously needed it.
I changed into my comfiest pair of pajamas. Part of me thought that I should get on my laptop immediately and start looking for a new job, but I overruled my logical side and would spend the day wallowing in my mistakes and sadness and start the job hunt tomorrow.
The box on my bed was still there, and I decided I should do at least one productive thing. Like trying out Catalina’s face mask. My skin probably needed some rejuvenating.
I pulled out the mask, took off my glasses, and applied it. Hadn’t Catalina said something about the natural ingredients? Blueberry? I couldn’t smell it.
My stomach growled, and I wondered how it was possible to be both nauseous and hungry at the same time. I went over and opened my closet. I reached up on the shelf to grab the container of my secret stash of junk food. My grandma would lecture me about unhealthy eating and my grandpa would sneak some if they knew about it. I took a bag of Sun Chips and settled on my bed.
I heard the birds get riled up and my grandpa soothing them downstairs. He was home? I was very unaware of their daily schedules because I was usually at work. He was probably grabbing some lunch and might be administering some medicine. I wondered if he’d come upstairs. A minute or two passed, and he didn’t.
My cell phone was in my purse and I got it, plugging it into the charger next to my bed. There were a couple of texts from Catalina asking how things were going from last night. I owed her a phone call.
She picked up right away. “You’re not with Craig right now, are you?”
“What? No. I’m eating Sun Chips and trying out your face mask. By the way, I’m not really picking up blueberry as one of the ingredients.” Not by smell and not by sensation.
“Good note,” she said. “I’ll look at that later. So how did last night go?”
“Craig’s engaged.” There was no way of saying it other than to just come out with it. Thinking about the fact that Craig was engaged to another woman sent a lance of pain through me. It was like someone had yanked a tooth out of my mouth. It hurt and hurt, my jaw ached, and I kept probing the spot with my tongue like something should be there but wasn’t. Since I wasn’t keen on dwelling on that pain, I tried to change the subject. “I cried about it in a bathroom when I found out and, more importantly, I met Loch Ness GQ.”
“You did?” she said with a gasp, thankfully ignoring my information about Craig. I wasn’t really ready to discuss it yet. “What’s the elusive Nessie like?”
“His name is Marco and he was . . .” What was the right word? He was kind, funny, and helpful. “Nice. He let me vent and listened. Oh! And get this! He’s Craig’s brother.”
“What?” she shrieked, and it was so loud that I actually heard the birds downstairs call out. “They’re related? Not possible. The CEO is actually competent.”
I rolled my eyes. “Craig is competent. He’s good at his job or else he wouldn’t be in that position.”
“There’s a little something I like to call nepotism,” she said. “You should look into that.”
What was she implying? That Marco had given Craig a job?
“I can’t believe they’re brothers,” she continued on. “This has got switched at birth written all over it.”
“Same dad, different moms.” There was a knock at my door. “What?” I yelled, not wanting to get up.
The door opened, and a human-shaped blur I didn’t recognize walked into my room.
It was not my grandpa.
I had a moment of sheer panic while I reached over to my nightstand, fumbling with the contents in an attempt to retrieve my glasses. Catalina’s voice was in the background. “What’s going on?”
My fingers found the frames, and when I slammed my glasses onto my face, I saw that it was Marco Kimball.