Fate is a fighter

Chapter 8 - hangovers

My head was absolutely killing me when I woke up the next morning. What the fuck happened? I remember doing a lot of shots, dancing awfully, and... fuck, Jordan carried me home. Well, I remember falling asleep on him, I have no idea what happened after that. I pulled the covers off, noticing that I was still in my dress from last night. I quickly unzipped it and threw it on my chair designated to being covered in clothes, and stripped naked. I jumped into the shower and felt the warm water pouring down my face and body. It was refreshing.

After washing my hair, I stuck my hair up in a hair towel, and left the room. I dried myself quickly, because I was in a rush to get some food in my stomach, and just threw on a cami top and some joggers. I towel-dried my hair a bit, and then brushed through it, before heading out into the main room.

Chaos. Yesterday's chaos when I arrived in from work was at least a decorated chaos, this chaos was dirty. There was crap everywhere; drinks bottles, cups, straws, pillows were thrown in different places. It was a mess. A fucking mess. At least there were three of us to clean it up, but I was not about to start doing that now.

As I walked further into the room, I noticed a big lump on the sofa, covered in a blanket. Well, I guess someone stayed the night. I didn't want to wake them up, so I just put some bread in the toaster, and stuck the kettle on; I needed a damned coffee. "Morning," I heard a gruff voice say behind me. Of course. Why didn't I guess? The lump was Jordan Shaw. Jordan fucking Shaw.

"Hi, toast?" I asked.

"I'll sort it out," he smiled, walking over to the kitchen, standing next to me.

"Tea?"

"Coffee please," he answered. I stuck a teabag in my mug, and some coffee in his mug, and then poured the boiling water into the two mugs from the kettle.

"Do you have it the same as you used to?" I asked, remembering the million times I made him coffee in the morning when we were dating.

"Exactly the same," he smiled. I grabbed the green milk from the fridge, and poured in a splash of milk into his coffee, and a bit more milk into my tea. Meanwhile, he had taken the toast out, knowing the exact way I like my toast, and handed me a slice, keeping one for himself. I leant against the island of the kitchen, and he leant against the cabinets opposite me, and we ate and drank in a half awkward, half calm, silence.

"How is your head feeling?" he asked me after a few minutes.

"It hurts," I admitted sheepishly.

"You said I smelt nice."

"You carried me home."

"You were out like a light as soon as you rested your head on my shoulders. I just tucked you into bed and left you."

"Thank you," I smiled at him.

"Don't mention it. I don't think that puny guy could've done it," he chuckled. Ah yes, cocky Jordan is back. I kinda missed him.

"Oh him, I forgot his name. He did this though," I held up my hand, showing the two plasters that were on it.

"He fucking hurt you," angry Jordan was out now, "I swear I'll fucking kill him."

"No, no," I put my hand on his shoulder before he went on a little rampage, "he put the plasters on, I cut my hand trying to cut a lime." Jordan burst out laughing, which made the coffee he had just sipped go up his nose, which made me burst out laughing too.

"You always were a shit cook," he joked.

"Oi!" I hit him in the arm, "I'm a great cook."

"It's good we didn't go for coffee this morning," he said, looking at me over the top of his coffee cup, before taking another sip.

"I told you I'd be hungover."

After a few minutes of just general chat, we decided that instead of going out for coffee, we would just stay here and catch up for a bit. We moved over to the sofa, getting a couple of cushions off the floor and putting them back on the sofa, before sitting opposite eachother, but facing sideways on the same sofa, so that each of our backs were against the armrest of the sofa. We talked and talked about everything really. He asked me a lot about university, and how I found it, and my job. I told him some of the funny first date stories that I had, which made him laugh, a lot. "Noah and Tabs always did love to meddle in your life," he laughed. "I have to say though, I'm glad none of them worked out." He was smirking at me, actually smirking. I extended my leg and gave him a little kick, which only made him laugh more.

I then asked him about his life, and what he had been doing for the last four years. He told me once he went to Manchester his professional career started gaining momentum, and loads of people wanted to see his fights and bought tickets to see him. He told me he hated the attention though, and that the paparazzi was probably the most annoying thing ever, which I could definitely understand why. He also hated getting swarmed by people, especially when he was just trying to hang out with friends. He moved to Birmingham after a year ish in Manchester and stayed there for about a year and a half, and then he moved to London, where he said his career is really and properly kicking off now, and a lot of people and brands want to work with him, which is pretty cool.

"I know you want to ask about my love life," he winked at me.

"I don't care about your love life Jordan," I lied to him.

"Liar." He caught me out on it. "I haven't had a girlfriend since, but a man has needs, I've obviously slept with people." Fair enough. He hasn't had a girlfriend since? Wow. I always knew that he would go back to his player ways. Back in high school, before he got with me, he slept around a lot, but only really used girls for sex. In all fairness to him, the girls he slept with, he explicitly told that he only wanted to have sex with them, nothing more, but of course many of them got their hopes up for something more, and they got so jealous of other girls with Jordan, believe me, I was on the other end of their jealousy a lot. "Soo, apart from a few awful first dates, what about boyfriends?" he asked me. "I know it's none of my business though, I'm just curious, you don't have to answer."

"I've had three boyfriends since," I answered him, "all worse than the first, you can ask Tabs or Noah for the details. They lasted max a couple of weeks."

After a couple of moments of a slightly weird silence, I finally plucked up the courage to ask him about Hazel, all those years ago. "I thought I was never going to get you back, I was sad, I was heartbroken, and she just turned up at my door. I guess she kind of preyed on the fact that I was sad, but it wasn't all her, I obviously let it happen... it was a huge mistake. I just wished I had waited a couple of hours, who knows where we would be now. We could be like Edward or Erin."

"But you were going to Manchester anyway, I was in Cambridge. Even Birmingham is far from Cambridge... We maybe could've got back together, but we might not have been able to deal with the distance. Yeah, we didn't end on the best note, but who knows, we could've ended things a lot messier."

"I guess you're right. I'm glad we bumped into eachother, I guess it was fate," he smiled over to me.

"Who knows."

Just as we were moving onto a random conversation, and laughing at eachother, in stumbles Grace from Tabs' room, followed by the girl Tabs was making out with, and then Tabs. Tabs looked at me as if to say 'don't-ask-a-single-question-right-now'. I laughed quietly to myself and nodded my head so slightly no one noticed. "I better take Grace home. It was nice to catch up Avery," Jordan said to me, standing up, and leaning over, planting a soft kiss on my forehead.

"See you around. Bye Grace!" Just like that, Grace, Jordan and the other random girl left, and Tabs plonked herself down on the sofa next to me, with a cup of tea in her hand. 

***

1458 words

04/01/2021