I woke up in the morning by a pillow being thrown on my ass. Always a pleasant way to wake up. I was laying on the floor of a room I didn't quite recognize. I groaned slightly as I tried to get up. Apparently, I'm a little too old to be sleeping on the ground, but that wasn't the only reason why I was sore. The long night of sex I had with a complete stranger was what did that.
I was never really a sleep-around, kind of a guy. In high school, I had a pretty solid girlfriend, and then in college, I had a few relationships but I had never had a one-night stand before tonight, which might be a little sad coming from a thirty-eight-year-old man. Starting the one-night stand lifestyle now sort of sounds like the beginning of a mid-life crisis.
"This is-" I started, trying to make conversation with the woman with whom I had spent the night.
"Humiliating on so many levels. You have to go." She winced. That's just a great thing to hear after a night of sex with someone.
"Why don't you come down here and we can pick up where we left off?" I smirked. If I was going into a mid-life crisis, might as well go full swing, am I right?
"You have to go- I'm late. Which isn't what you want to be on your first day of work. So... you have to go." She said. Damn. This chick really was shooting straight tequila and had a one-night stand with a stranger the night before her first day of work. She definitely had a certain spunk to her. Addison had spunk. But we aren't thinking about Addison. Addison is far from our thoughts. Far far far. The woman threw me my clothes and I quickly got on my underwear and pants in an effort to make this slightly less awkward.
"So you actually live here?" I asked as I looked around the room. It looked like it hadn't been lived in for decades.
"Yes. No. Kind of." She answered. A very helpful answer.
"It's nice. Dusty. Odd. But nice. So how do you kind of live here?" I asked.
"I moved here two weeks ago from Boston. It's my mother's house. Was my mother's house. I'm selling it." She answered. Ah. Another avoider of traumatic events.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"For what?" She asked confusedly.
"You said 'was'" I answered.
"My mother's not dead. She's- Look we don't have to do the thing."
"Oh- we can do anything you want." I flirted.
"The thing. Exchange details, pretend we care-" I smiled at her. She was cold in such an endearing way. "Look- I'm going to go shower and you won't be here when I get back. So goodbye..." She trailed off as we both realized we didn't know each other's names. Classy Derek. Really classy.
"Derek," I said holding out my hand, trying not to laugh at the situation.
"Derek." She repeated. "Meredith." She grabbed my hand and shook it.
"Nice to meet you," I said.
"Bye Derek." She turned around and ran up the stairs in embarrassment. I liked her.
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Later that day, I was making an effort to talk to a few of my coworkers in the lobby of the hospital. I'm a friendly enough guy but lord, can I not stand these people. I made a joke then looked down at my papers trying to figure out a way to get out of the conversation. But when I looked up, I saw her. I guess my luck was turning around because there was the gorgeous spunky girl from this morning. We made eye contact, she froze, then practically ran away. What did she think I was going to do, chase her?
