Page 35 of The Truth About Love

If only I could remember anything after the seven shots Freddy poured down my throat.

I crack open my eyelids, wincing instantly when the dappled morning light hits my retinas. Jesus. My head booms like a bitch. I try again, slower this time, so my eyes have a chance to adjust to the offensive brightness.

I’m not in my bedroom.

But the instinctual panic that rises at that realisation quickly ebbs away the moment I register where I am. Walls dotted with literary postcards, doors that open to a balcony I’ve sat on countless times and windows overlooking the sea. I should’ve realised sooner where I am from the smell of citrus and peaches in the air alone.

And then it hits me. If I’m in Summer-Raine’s bedroom, then she must have come to the party last night.

I know how uncomfortable she would have been to have seen all those people, to have realised that she’d arrived at a party and not just a chilled-out night talking with friends around a campfire. And I wasn’t even sober enough to help her deal with the situation.

But still, she showed up.

It’s hard not to read too much into that. I know that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. I know that she’s a flight risk with nomadic tendencies and a very real, but unnecessary fear of love. But does it mean that maybe she feels the way about me that I do about her?

Because isn’t that basically what love is?

Not wanting to do something but doing it anyway because you care more about the other person’s happiness than your own.

Is it possible that Summer-Raine might actuallyloveme?

The thought makes my heart thunder in my chest, so loud I’m surprised it doesn’t wake her. But I’m glad it doesn’t. Because for the very first time I’ve woken up beside her without having to run home to Mama in the middle of the night. So, I take the opportunity to study her.

She sleeps facing me, one hand tucked under her cheek, the other resting on my bare chest. Thick lashes rest atop her soft cheeks, fluttering like wings every time she takes a breath. Her hair is so golden, it practically glows in the dark and it fans around her head like a halo.

She’s the perfect sleeping angel.

She must feel my gaze on her, because she stirs and begins to wake up. I watch enchanted as her sleepy eyes blink away the remnants of her dreams and eventually focus on my face.

If she thinks I’m creepy for watching her sleep, nothing in her expression gives her away. She simply smiles at me. And it’s so bright, so goddamn beautiful, that I want to kneel at her feet and beg to see it every morning.

“Good morning, pretty girl.”

“Morning, quarterback.” She yawns, sitting up against the headboard, and stretches her arms in the air above her head. “How are you feeling?”

The thrill of waking up beside her had made me forget all about the hangover from hell and it instantly crashes back the moment I’m reminded of it. “Like shit, but better than I would’ve done if I’d woken up without you.”

I know what she’s going to say before she says it.

“What a line.”

“Not a line.”

She grins, the easiness of her smile mirroring my own.

“So,” I start, “how did I get back here last night?”

“You don’t remember?”

I shake my head.

“None of it?”

“No.”

Her face falls but she catches herself quickly, fixing a smile back on her face that isn’t even half as bright as it was a second ago.

God, I wish I could remember last night.

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