Truce

Twenty Seven // Two Birds With One Stone

Twenty Seven // Two Birds With One Stone

Jacob

It felt like the devil had fetched the toolbox from the shed to hammer nails into my head. The devil was playing with other parts of me too; tearing up my throat with blades to make it feel like I was dying of thirst, spinning my head around and around without it moving at all, and pressing just hard enough into my stomach to cause waves of nausea to roll over me.

But after a minute of regaining my consciousness, only the splitting headache remained.

Hung over was a sequence of words I hadn't the opportunity to use for far too long, yet it wasn't long enough. I squeezed my eyes shut as if it would help me sort through the hazy remnants of last night, so that maybe I could put them together and figure out what the fuck happened.

One thing was for sure; I wasn't the only one who'd drank like a fish.

I squinted at the light as my eyes opened, attempting once, twice, three times to look around the room before it came into focus. I seemed to be in better shape than the rest of them.

Zavier was hanging over one side of the couch in his boxers and nothing else, drool running down his chin and his hair pointing in all angles.

Annaliese was on the mattress beside the couch, on her side but faced away from me with the drool from her boyfriend dangerously close to her ear.

Parker and Landon were next to each other on the extended part of the couch, Landon with one sock astray and Parker with her makeup completely smudged.

Hayden was nowhere to be seen, and Kaia's warm body was in my arms. For the second morning in a row, I had woken up to the girl I could fall for a hundred times over and not get tired of it, except this morning she smelt of alcohol and with a faint tinge of strawberries.

There was nothing I wanted to do more than sink back down to the inflatable mattress and hold Kaia in my arms until she woke, but I felt like I should go find Hayden.

I managed to detangle myself from Kaia and leave her sleeping, taking a deep breath when I'd stood. The nausea and dizziness had passed and thankfully, I could make it to the kitchen where I found Hayden sitting.

He was on one of the bar stools across the counter, looking down at his phone with a tired grin. Lucky bastard wasn't hung over, but we must have kept him up.

"You're texting your girl, aren't you?" I asked, taking a stool opposite him. I nearly missed and ended up on my ass, but saved myself by gripping the counter. Hayden didn't pay attention to my slip, too busy trying to conceal his smile.

"Maybe."

"I'm confused," I admitted, upon last night's revelation of the budding relationship. "I was so sure it was Parker."

"Parker?" He breathed a laugh. "If it was Parker I probably wouldn't be keeping it a secret."

"Does anyone know?"

He sighed. "They do now."

"Am I ever going to know?"

"I actually wanted to talk to you about that."

The way he was looking at me made me feel like I should be worried, like I should be dreading what was coming.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Another sigh.

"Do I get to meet her?"

"If you promise not to flip the fuck out."