Rock All Night

70




When I awoke the next morning, I wondered if maybe my brain was broken.

All my thoughts were fuzzy and disjointed. My head throbbed. Things seemed slightly unreal and hyper-real at the same time.

Hangover time, mushroom style.

Derek was still asleep, lying naked in the sheets.

Mmmm… nice view. But I felt so messed up that I couldn’t properly enjoy it.

I got up and took a shower, trying to will the hot water to wash away my blahs.

No such luck.

I remembered having sex without the condom, and freaked out a little bit. I was on birth control, so there was no chance that I was pregnant – but I was a little worried about other things.

I thought back to what he had told me:

I get tested now, once a month. And I’m totally clean, by the way.

I hoped we were on Day 3 of the month rather than Day 29.

F*ck it… there’s nothing you can do now, so quit worrying about it.

I got dressed and threw on a little makeup, then went back to the bedroom.

Derek looked up sleepily from the tousled sheets. “Hey.”

“Hey, you,” I said, and gave him a kiss. “I’m going to go next door and get some breakfast with Killian and Ryan.”

“Mmmm… okay…” he murmured, and settled back into dreamland.

Outside the guys’ cabin, I could hear Killian plinking on the unplugged electric guitar – and the tunes were once again melodic and pretty. No more horror movie soundtrack.

I knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

I entered to find Ryan sitting down, fully dressed, at the small kitchen table. The box of banana nut muffins we’d bought the previous day was open in front of him, with a couple missing.

“Morning,” he said. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah… although I didn’t wake up so well…”

Killian was slumped in a faded, overstuffed chair, wearing exactly what he had been the night before. His guitar was in his lap, and a doobie hung between his lips.

“Oh my gosh, did you even sleep?” I asked him as I sat down.

“Of course I did, luv.”

“Otherwise I would have gone and slept out in the desert,” Ryan said.

“You could have come over to our cabin,” I said, biting into one of the muffins.

Ryan didn’t say anything.

Neither did Killian.

They just sort of exchanged a little glance.

“What?” I asked.

And then I remembered exactly what I’d been up to last night.

And for how long.

My face went beet-red in two seconds.

“I think I’m going to go now and crawl into a hole somewhere and die of embarrassment,” I muttered as I stood back up.

“Sit dowwwwn,” Ryan grinned as he caught my arm and pulled me back to my seat.

“Oh my God… oh my God…” I whimpered, and buried my face in my hands.

“You’re lucky about one thing,” Killian said.

“What’s that?” I asked, my face still in my hands.

“It’s a good thing Riley wasn’t here, or you’d never hear the end of it.”

“She probably would have tried to break into your cabin,” Ryan said, stifling a laugh.

“Like a bitch in heat,” Killian agreed.

“Killian!” I shouted, both mortified and shocked.

“What? I meant Riley, not you.”

I gave him a sidelong look, then winced at Ryan. “…was it that bad?”

He scrunched up his face. “Naaah.”

Killian wasn’t as diplomatic. “You were louder than the coyotes, luv.”

“Oh GOD,” I moaned, and buried my face in my hands again.

“Sounded a lot like that, actually – just more repetitive,” Killian observed.

I threw my half-eaten pastry at him.

“Hey! Hey! Mind the guitar!” he complained as the muffin exploded into a dozen crumbling pieces off his head. “And the joint!”

Ryan just laughed his ass off.