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My head had never felt so heavy. Nor my eyelids.
*
Goddamn noise.
I pulled the duvet higher up and wished that the incessant ringing would fucking stop.
“Hello?”
No. No hellos. Only goodbyes. Let me sleep.
Oh God, the headache. That was it. I wasn’t moving another inch. No moving whatsoever.
“Yeah, no, of course—right. Yeah, no worries at all. We’ll be down soon.”
Nope. I wasn’t going anywhere. I’d evidently inhaled an entire bar last night, so I was gonna stay here.
“Shit. Jake, wake up. I got us a late checkout, but we managed to sleep through that too. Our flight’s in two hours.”
I groaned in sheer agony. Too. Much. Information. At. Once. Where were we? Right, Vegas. Birthday party. Slideshow on flat-screens. Cake. Food. All the booze. God, so much booze.
I was thirty now.
Thirty hurt.
“Buddy, I’m serious. We gotta go.”
“Jesus Christ!” I bitched. I pushed away the duvet and sat up, and fucking kill me now. “Ow.” Oh, my poor head. It hurt so much my eyes actually welled up. Wait, was I naked? Why was I naked?
I squinted over at Roe just as he stepped into a pair of jeans, and the sight of his bare ass shot a whole bunch of images—fuck, no, memories…into my skull. Oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Him sitting on my lap in the club, the touching, going…into the bathroom? I…what? No. Yes. First upstairs at the club, then down here…
We showered together.
We hooked up.
He sucked me off on the balcony.
I fingered the fuck out of his ass.
Oh God. Oh hell.
“Jake,” he reminded me impatiently. “I gotta run downstairs and settle the bill. Can you meet me in the lobby?”
“Uh…yeah.” I nodded and scrubbed my hands over my face. “Give me—give me two minutes.”
Oh my God.
I didn’t know what was the most unforgettable—what we’d done or how hardcore I’d gotten off on it. On him. On the two of us together.
Roe was gone in seconds, after throwing on a T-shirt and stuffing the rest of his shit into his bag.
I groaned and rubbed at my temples. What had we done? What was running through his mind? What would happen now? We couldn’t fuck up our friendship. I needed that more than air.
Panic rose quickly within me, as did nausea, and my to-do list wrote itself. I rushed into the bathroom and threw up, causing my head to hurt even more. Kill me, kill me, kill me. I was never drinking again—a shitty lie I’d told myself so many times. So, fine. I wasn’t gonna go there. But one thing was clear. I wasn’t drinking for a while. Because it was all coming back to me. How I’d reasoned with myself last night. How I’d justified hooking up with my best friend because I was fucking hammered. And when I was three sheets to the wind, I didn’t hear my mother condemn my actions.
“We’re never gonna talk about this again, my darling. We keep quiet. You forget what you saw. He’s a sick, sick man who will burn in hell. And you don’t want that for yourself. You don’t want to burn, do you?”
“I’m sorry, Mama.”
I pulled myself up and pushed through. I splashed cold water on my face, I brushed my teeth, and I chased down two painkillers with more water.
Get through the day. Go home.
I knew my mother was wrong. She was dead wrong. I refused to let her bigotry get to me. But this was a lot. Roe and I hadn’t merely shared a hesitant kiss and then stayed up all night to talk about it. Maybe that was a thing? Maybe it should be? Instead, we’d gotten so drunk that… Whatever. We’d gone far.
I couldn’t take the headache. At this rate, I’d throw up in the cab too.
I went through the motions and got dressed in a hurry—jeans, tee, ball cap, definitely my shades. The light from outside was killing me. Then I grabbed my belongings, stuffed them into my duffel, and walked out.
I was fairly certain I’d forgotten the garment bag and the tie, but fuck it. I’d packed the suit, my camera that I’d barely used, and my essentials. I patted my pockets to make sure—yeah, wallet, phone, keys.
I checked my watch in the elevator, and it took me a second to get used to the new sight. The watch Roe had given me.
Deep breaths.
We had to be okay.
I…I wasn’t gay, was I? But…last night hadn’t been a random fluke. It’d been a drunken awakening, emphasis on awakening. Also emphasis on drunken.
Was it possible to acknowledge you’d made a huge fucking mistake while not regretting a damn thing?
Maybe I did regret it but hadn’t come that far in my processing yet. God, I needed to sleep away the whole fucking day.
*
What happened in Las Vegas stayed in Las Vegas?
Un-fucking-likely.
The ride to the airport was quiet. I was nursing my headache with a complimentary coffee from the hotel, and Roe was nervously checking the time. Once we arrived at the airport, getting through security was all I could handle. Too many people talking too loudly, walking too fast—and fucking honestly, sir, you didn’t know you couldn’t get through security with a case of beer? Back of the line, moron.
