Page 32 of Winning Her

She blinked. “Well, what happened was this. I had a bit of water before I left, and the taxi let me off a block away from my place.”

Immediately, I sat up, eyes wide with worry. “Did something happen?”

Laura giggled again, waving a hand at me. “Don’t worry so much, silly. I can look after myself, don’t you know. But I did stop by somewhere to have a bite to eat, just some pasta with some really good sauce. Then I had more water, and I walked the rest of the way back to my apartment in the chilly night air. I was pretty much sobered up by the time I got home.”

I sighed, slumping back into my side of the couch. “Then I guess I should have gone with you last night. It would have been the best-case scenario for me.”

So much better than what did happen. Well, maybe not better, but it would have been the best thing to happen. Not that I could regret what happened between Trent and me completely. I just needed to avoid him now and act like nothing had happened in the first place.

“Did something happen?” Laura asked, sitting up suddenly now and frowning at me. “I wanted to talk to you this morning, see how you were, but I was running a bit late for my shift, and I didn’t have the time to come see you all day. Was your hangover this morning really bad?”

I grimaced. “You have no idea, Laura. It was terrible.” Even if it wasn’t necessarily the hangover, but waking up somewhere unexpected, and having thoughts that were more like dreams that would never come true, no matter how much I wished. “I’m not drinking wine for some time after last night.”

“Did you replace the wine bottles already?”

I nodded. I’d found some time in the middle of the day to make an order for the exact same bottles to be brought in. They’d cost just as much as I’d feared, an extra cost added on top of the delivery. At least it was one less thing for me to worry about, and anyway, I saved most of my salary since my parents didn’t need it. Most of my costs were only food and a few clothes and shoes a month, so there was a nice cushion in my bank account.

“Yeah, I don’t think anybody noticed they were missing anyway. We don’t break out the wine for that many occasions, do we?”

Laura tilted her head slightly to the side. “Then why is there so much of it just lying around?”

I shrugged. “Wine doesn’t have an expiration date, remember? No one’s gonna care how long it’s lying around. Most of the bottles in storage I’ve never even tasted in all the time I’ve been working here.”

“Me either,” she admitted. She’d already been at the hotel when I was transferred, so she’d been there longer than me. “Oh! You called me down for something. Did you want to do something else again tonight?”

I slowly nodded. “Actually, yeah. Nothing to do with alcohol,” I said quickly. “Dealing with a hangover is annoying, it’s also why I rarely drink at all. But I was thinking, I could maybe come over to your place tonight for a sleepover? I’ll cook,” I added.

Her eyes lit up at that last bit. “If you’ll cook for me, I don’t mind taking you home with me. You’d be the most useful thing I ever dragged back to my house.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered, giving her a wide-eyed look, full of teasing censure. “Just how many guys do you drag to your home then, huh?”

She giggled. “I don’t drag them, they come willingly. And I’ve been too busy with work to bring anyone home anyway, so don’t be so freaked out, I was just kidding. Do you want to stop by your apartment and get something to wear for tomorrow?”

I shrugged. “There’s not much I need. I can just get back early and go change before my shift, so it’s not like it matters.”

“What if someone sees you? And they think you’re doing the whole walk of shame thing, coming home after a one-night stand.”

I winced at her words because that was exactly what had happened to me this morning. Only it wasn’t such a trip from Trent’s room to mine, and I was lucky that it was so early in the morning because I didn’t run into anybody. I wasn’t going to be repeating it anyway. I just wasn’t that kind of girl.

“Can we not talk about that?” I grumbled, getting up from the seat and grabbing her arm to drag her up to me. “Let’s head out now. We don’t want to be too late.”

“It’s still early, though!”

I arched an eyebrow at her. “It’s already dark out, it’s just earlier than when you’d left last night. But I thought getting a walk in might be good. We can walk a bit before taking a taxi.”

“Or, we could just walk all the way to my place?”

I winced at that idea. She lived several blocks away and the hotel was big enough to take up two or so blocks. There was no way I would survive a walk that long. Walking from the hotel to the mansion was so much shorter, and it was still quite a walk.

“Let’s just find a taxi on the street. If we don’t see one, we’ll call for one.”

Laura laughed at me, and she went to quickly change out of her uniform. Once she was in her street clothes, we headed out through the staff exit, then headed for the street. Laura must have noticed I wasn’t acting quite like myself, but she was nice enough not to say anything about it.

We weren’t walking for five minutes when a taxi stopped at the curb beside us, the driver honking the horn to catch our attention. Laura teased about walking some more, but I grabbed her hand and dragged her inside with me. She gave the address, and when he dropped us off, I handed him the cash.

“Have you ever been to my place, anyway?” she asked as we made our way up the stairs. Her apartment building was old and didn’t have a working elevator.

“Um… I think there was this one time last year? After a staff party, when you were drunk and I brought you back. I ended up staying, but I left before you woke up the next morning.”