Page 5 of My Fearless Fake Fling

Two:

I woke up on Lennon’s couch, well into the next morning, after he’d plied me with more gin and tonics yesterday, so I wasn’t allowed to drive myself home.

That was my last memory.

The only reason I knew I woke on Lennon’s couch was because it wasn’t my couch and pictures of him with various people hung in frames on the walls around the room.

Somehow, I’d lost my pants during the night and my mouth tasted like unwashed butt.

And as I sat up, way too fast for the amount of alcohol I’d consumed last night, my head might have literally split open from my forehead to the base of my skull. At least it felt that way.

Shifting my feet to the floor, I rested my elbows to my knees, head in my hands, palms pressed to my eyes. Most times adding exterior pressure to counteract the internal pressure helped. Today it didn’t help.

Luckily, my stomach felt fine. A fact I was even more thankful for when I saw the ibuprofen and full bottle of water sitting on the coffee table across from where my head had laid.

I unscrewed the cap, took a long swig, and downed the pills. Then because I heard rustling around in the kitchen, I stood up. My blood pressure dropped suddenly, probably from my massive headache. I got dizzy and fell back, my bottom to the cushion again.

Hand to forehead, I tried to shake away the dizzy spell and stood once more, this time much slower, and managed to stay upright.

The T-shirt I had on, not the one I’d worn to the jump yesterday, fell to skim my thighs just below my bottom and crotch area. My lack of clothing had me feeling a bit exposed, but when I looked (slowly again, not wanting to chance another dizzy spell) around the room to locate them, it appeared my pants had up and walked away.

Okay, so he’d seen my undies? I could hide out here for no real reason. I mean, I put on a fresh pair every day. Or I could follow the smell of bacon and maple syrup wafting from the direction of the kitchen. I followed the bacon. Because everyone knew unless you physically couldn’t keep food down, bacon was really the only way to ease the stress of a hangover.

Lennon stood at the stove finishing the smoky, salty, meaty goodness. Puffy silver dollar pancakes topped with eggs and cheese waited for the bacon.

“Mornin’, glory.” He greeted me, using a spatula to expertly flip the perfectly crisped bacon onto a plate lined with a paper towel to drain.

This surprised me. The man didn’t much look like he spent any amount of time in the bacon section of the super market, unless you counted that ultra-low-fat turkey “bacon.” And let’s face it,ugh!No one counted turkey bacon.

I groaned. “You’re far too chipper for this time of morning.”

Then he laughed that beautiful laugh at me again. “It’s almost eleven.”

“My point.”

Finally looking up at me, Lennon jutted his chin in the direction of my water bottle. “Drink up. You don’t finish, you don’t get fed. And this is one of the breakfasts I’ve perfected. Trust me. You want this.”

Challenge accepted, seeing as my head hurt too much to argue. I lifted the bottle to my mouth and sucked down the entire rest of the water without coming up for air. I sucked so hard, the sides of the bottle collapsed in on themselves.

“Jesus,” he whispered. I looked up in time to see him swallow hard. What I saw in his eyes, well, I couldn’t describe it exactly. Except to say he looked surprised, dare I say, agoodsurprised.

Though I thought it safer to avoid his look and comment altogether. “Feed me,” I ordered.

He stared at my mouth one beat, two beats, three beats more before he honestly jolted, then began to finish the assembly of our—what turned out to be—pancake breakfast sandwiches and walked them out to the dining table.

I followed and sat at the place he left open for me. At the first bite, I could have sunghallelujah. When he’d said he could make them well, the man hadn’t been exaggerating.

Still chewing because I was that classy and don’t forget,hungover, I asked, “Where’d my pants go?”

Sandwich aside, he actually swallowed his bite beforeheanswered. “Wondered how long it would take you to ask. Your clothes are in the dryer. They should be done by now. Last night at the bar—”

“Did I puke?” I cut him off. Again, because I was a class act.

“Um… no.” A smirk played at the corners of his mouth. He wanted to laugh at whatever picture, memory, danced through his head. Good choice not to laugh because I had my fist balled to punch him. Delicious food or not, hungover me was not as friendly as she could be. Or in this case, should be, as Lennon just kept surprising me. He wasn’t the arrogant, impatient jump instructor I’d first met weeks ago.

“Then what’d I do?” I demanded snidely.

“You turned a mud slick into a slip-n-slide.”

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