My head pounded so hard that my vision blurred. I crawled out from under Clive and into the bathroom, all indigo and white tile and gold-trimmed fixings (it was, at least, the prettiest place in which I had ever felt like refried death). My makeup had relocated to all the wrong spots on my face, my breath smelled like my downward spiral, and my hair stood up as if I’d been dragged through a hedge. I heard footsteps and lurched to lock the door, then curled up on the cool floor to try to pull myself together. I recalled a bottle of bubbly on Davinia’s father’s jet, and some limoncello, among other liquid sins, at a nightclub in Montmartre—which unearthed a memory of meeting that random couple, whom Clive then invited for a nightcap at the Hotel Unpronounceable Frenchy Thing. I saw hazy images of strip blackjack, and being goaded into betting a kiss when I lost my last euros, and the other two whooping as Clive collected on that bet. That’s where the reel in my head snapped and stopped. But what more did I need to see? I had been telling myself so vehemently that pretending to enjoy the wild life would somehow magically turn me back into the Old Bex, who only ever had vigorously noncommittal fun and never gave anyone her heart to break. But sprawled there naked on the floor with a mottled memory of the night before, I had to accept that this was the opposite of fun. It was dangerous, and it was exhausting.
So I threw up. Four times. I hurled with the might of someone hoping to purge everything, not just her stomach, and then did a swish of the complimentary mouthwash and put on the hotel robe. With a shaky hand and a deep breath—but not too deep; even my lungs were pissed at me—I steeled myself and opened the door. Clive had put on his boxers and was lying on the bed, clutching the last intact thing from the minibar to his forehead: an aluminum can of lemonade that had to be, at best, lukewarm. Our guests were nowhere to be seen.
“Why did we drink so much?” he whispered.
“Did we have sex last night?”
Clive lifted up the can, a picture of surprise. “You don’t remember?” He plonked the can back into his forehead. “Well. That is not flattering.”
“I know we kissed.” I closed my eyes. I had a flash of myself removing his pants, of us lying on the bed, of me laughing wildly. “Oh, man. Maybe I do remember.”
“It was not,” Clive said with a wince, “our finest hour.”
I kicked debris off the other double bed and crawled between its cool sheets, where I should have been all along.
“What is wrong with us? You have a girlfriend! And I have…” My voice trailed off. “Issues,” I finished. “I got spooked and totally lost control. I’m so sorry.”
Clive slowly righted himself. “We both did it, not just you,” he said. “Two old friends got too drunk, emotions ran high, we blew off some steam. It doesn’t mean anything.”
He paused to pick a long brown strand of hair off his chest. “So, no need to tell Davinia. And without doubt I won’t tell Nick,” he added.
“He has Ceres. He wouldn’t care.” I sighed at my bruised tone. “It turns out I’m not dealing with this very well.”
“Bex,” Clive said patiently, “no one thought you were dealing with this very well.”
I put my hands over my face. “I need to go home.”
“It’s five thirty in the morning,” Clive said.
“Then I need to call Lacey.”
“And I need grease,” Clive said. “Let’s order breakfast. What do you want?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Pancakes. Eggs. Sausages. Everything.”
I angled myself sideways and scrabbled at the mess on the floor. I found my underwear, a hair band, ten pounds, a torn condom wrapper that was a huge relief, and my passport, and then finally my cell jammed into the rear pocket of my foot pants. Lacey’s phone barely rang.
“Why are you calling at this hour?” Freddie’s voice asked.
“Why are you answering my sister’s cell?”
Across the room, Clive looked up from the room service menu.
“It’s not what you think,” Freddie said. “Actually it’s—what? No, Lacey, I’m not going to lie. We’re all safe, Bex, but we’re awake, because…well, there’s been an incident with Nick.”
Chapter Three
Given the choice, I would’ve liked my first post-breakup conversation with Nick to have included really good hair—a little Shakespeare in Love, a little Gisele—and a preternatural amount of self-possession. Instead, I’d scraped my unwashed locks into a bun, scrubbed off as much makeup as the hotel washcloth would take, and picked up discount mascara and lip gloss at the Chunnel terminal. It wasn’t a bad patch job, but I was still green around the edges, on the whole more Zombie Apocalypse Survivor than the beguiling heroine of my own movie.
Freddie had shared only the barest details: Nick had almost decked a paparazzo outside a club, Gaz stepped in front of his fist, and then he popped Nick in the face in return.
“What the hell is the matter with them?” I had squawked.
“Well, we only talked for a second, but…stop it, Lacey, she’s going to find out eventually,” Freddie said irritably. “Er, so it sounds like the photographer said something rather offensive about you.”
I clapped a hand over my mouth. “Nick, you idiot,” I whispered. “Where is he, Fred?”
“This might not be the best time,” he warned.
I rubbed my temples. “Yeah, I’m done hearing that phrase from your family,” I said. “I’ll find him, but it’d be a lot faster if you just told me.”
In the end, it was also faster to take the Eurostar than wait for a Luxe Airlines flight. Clive had been a prince himself, of a sort, dashing down to the hotel gift shop and getting me a cotton shift that might have been intended as a nightgown, but which passed faintly for a casual dress. (Nothing would scream walk of shame to Nick louder than the same pair of foot pants I’d been wearing when I ran away from him.) It wasn’t until our taxi dropped me at the Gare du Nord that I even looked Clive in the eye again. My hangover was hitting me in waves, as was a deep embarrassment.
“Clive,” I said softly.
“Don’t mention it,” he said.
“I’m serious, I never meant—”