Page 20 of Riding the Pine

White noise fills my ears as my heart speeds up so fast it might explode from exertion. Did he just say he l?—?

“You ready?” Vannah appears in the doorway whispering, an angel of mercy, or an angel of terrible timing, I’m not sure which.

I look back down to Scott who seems to have settled and is snoring softly. I wait just a beat longer before I nod to my bestie across the room and pry myself away from the bed of my friend, my brothers’ best friend, and the man who’s just told me he loves me.

And who I’ve loved since the first day I met him.

CHAPTER 10

Scott

Atroop of monkeys are playing with cymbals in my brain. My tongue feels vaguely furry and is stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I have no idea how I got to my room, never mind my bed.

Attempts to lift my head from my pillow are unsuccessful. The room spins like I’m on a ride at the fair, and there’s a throb escalating to a jack hammer in my temples and the base of my neck.

Did I wrestle with a bear last night?

After a few moments of swirling nausea in my stomach, I make it up to my elbows and force some deep breaths through my nose and out my mouth.

Memories start flickering back to me. Hockey house party. We most definitely had a house party here last night.

The blanket slides down my bare chest, and even that seems too loud. I wince, then look down at my chest. It really is bare. A peek under the sheets tells me I’m as naked as the day I was born, and a glance at the floor shows no pile of tangled clothes, no pools of vomit, and no sign of how I got into my bed.

My eyes widen as a possibility makes its way through the fog in my head. Did I strip off downstairs and make my way to my room this naked?

I groan, momentarily consider flopping my head back down onto the pillow but if I do that, I’ll stay there. As much as I’d like to spend the day unconscious and sleep off the zoo animals’ chaos inside my skull, I think there’s somewhere I need to be today, but I have no concept of anything other than the fact I need a drink.

Was past-Scott smart enough to bring a drink to bed? Unlikely. No matter how sensible the cure, I never seem with-it enough to actually action the damn thing.

Except when I scooch my butt up to sit straight, there’s one of the gym bottles from downstairs filled with water on the table next to a bottle of acetaminophen and a granola bar.

Thank you, past-Scott. He’s never been so well-intentioned before, and there’s no way my choppy stomach can handle a granola bar.

Popping the top off the bottle, I study it. It’s not mine, in fact, I think it’s Artemis’s bottle. Would drunken Scott have stolen Artemis’s water bottle and declared some passive aggressive war with his best friend?

I take a long drink of water, savoring the feeling as it cleanses my mouth of what feels like layers of cinnamon. Fireball? Fuck sake. Even Drunken-Scott should know that’s a bad choice.

I rake a hand through my matted hair. I’m going to need to have a chat with Drunken-Scott and make sure he makes better choices going forward. I can’t seem to remember bits of the last twelve hours, and if Coach finds out I was underage drinking last night, my ass would be on the bench. Or worse.

Frustrated at the gaps in my memories, I wash down two pills with some water, lean my head back on the headboard and close my eyes. Flashes of dancing on the coffee table, beer pong,and setting up a game of tic tac toe on the kitchen floor come to mind.

An hour later, I wake up, wolf the granola bar and take a shower to rinse off the filth and shame of last night.

By the time I’m ambling downstairs, the cramping in my stomach has abated, I’m at least a little more hydrated, and the drilling in my brain has eased off to a manageable tapping.

Not a bad job all things considered.

When I get to the bottom of the stairs, the twins are back, or maybe they never left. I take a moment to study their clothes and general appearance. They’ve both showered and changed, so either they went home and came back, or they stayed and are in someone else’s clothes.

It’s all far too much mental gymnastics for my brain, so I inch around the back of the couch and plonk myself between two of my favorite people with a heavy plop.

They look at me as I sink into the comfy cushion, and they give me a slow clap.

“He lives,” Apollo booms.

I dig him in the ribs with my elbow and shush him. “Can you just… not?” I press my finger and thumb into the space between the top of my nose and my eyebrows and rub. It doesn’t do much of anything, so I try massaging my temples.

“A little delicate today, are we?” Apollo’s voice is charged with amusement.

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