Page 84 of Crazy Pucking Love
When you didn’t sleep very much, it took even longer to sleep off a hangover. Sometimes overdoing it with the alcohol helped me get some extra Zs, but at about three a.m., I sobered up enough to wake up with Megan on my mind.
I’d nearly called, but I worried I’d wake her up, and then I wouldn’t be there to hold her in my arms and cuddle with her until she fell asleep. She and I seemed to take turns. One night she’d rub my back until I drifted off; the next, I’d be the one to draw circles across her skin until her eyes closed and her breathing slowed.
Eventually I fell back asleep, but I felt even worse now than I had at three a.m. I stumbled into the kitchen and blinked at the bright light that seared a sharp spike of pain through my brain.
“Hey, man,” Ryder said, slapping me on the back and sounding annoyingly chipper. “Wanna hit the weights?”
“Bro, I want you to stop shouting.”
He laughed. “Do you even remember the end of last night?”
I searched through my memories, blips of almost leaving, only to get talked into game after game of flip cup. Everything got pretty fuzzy from there. “Do I want to?”
“Probably not.”
“Did you make any progress with Lindsay?”
That put a dent in his chipperness, but it was less satisfying than I hoped. “I looked up partway through the first game and she was gone.”
“I told you she hates the team and hockey players in general. There are a dozen other chicks lining up to take their shot at you. Maybe you should focus on them.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to take advice on women fromyou.”
I frowned and reached into the freezer for the waffles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, man. Let’s just go to the gym.” He put the box of waffles I’d just gotten out back in the freezer. “You’ll ralph if you eat those right now.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to ralph regardless. Now give me back the damn waffles.”
“Fifteen minutes and we’re going.”
Jeez, what crawled up his ass?
Whitney and Hudson wandered in, him in just his boxers and her in one of his huge T-shirts. The smile on Whitney’s face faded when she saw me.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you even remember last night?”
Pushing my fingers to my temples didn’t do much for my still-pounding headache. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“You were pretty drunk, man,” Hudson said. “Like me at the beginning of last semester. Is everything okay?”
“Did you and Megan breakup or something?” Whitney asked.
“Can’t breakup if you’re not together,” I said.
“Oh. Is that how you’re justifying it?”
Lead filled my gut. “Justifying what?”
“You almost left with Misty.”
I shook my head. “No way. I told her at the beginning of the night I wasn’t interested.”
“Apparently the memo’s stronger when you don’t do shots with her.”
I took a step toward Whitney, dread rising. “I was doing shots with her? Did I… Did I do anything else?”
