Hello, Privet! #1: Hello/Привет

Chapter 44

SOPHIE

When I wake up, the sunlight is bright and it's hurting my eyes. I squint and raise an arm to shade my eyes and blink, pulling the blanket around me.

Sometime last night, I had curled up in a fetal position, clutching the blanket around me.

I'm alone.

And I'm naked.

I wrap the duvet around me and gather my clothes and tiptoe into the bedroom.

Where's Anton?

I check the bathroom, but there's no one there.

Maybe he's downstairs?

I get dressed quickly, noticing that my right sleeve is torn, and then make my way out in the hall, barefoot. Other people, a couple of girls, are also stumbling out of the other bedrooms, disheveled, in various states of undress. Maybe I look just like them.

And at that moment, I suddenly feel like something is very wrong.

I force myself to continue the walk downstairs, trying to act like I do this all the time and that I'm not worried at all. I find myself outside the kitchen. Someone is in there, cooking.

It's Liam. I don't want him to see me like this, but it's too late. He turns around and smiles at me, holding a pan of fried eggs, which he is now transferring to a plate.

"Hello, Sophie," he calls out cheerfully.

I have no choice but to go to the kitchen. "Hi," I say.

"Would you like breakfast?"

"No, thank you."

"I make great eggs," Liam says. "Mind you, they're the only things I know how to make. But a man should have one good thing he can make, I think."

"Right..." I say.

"Please, have a seat." Liam picks up a plate of toast and places it on the table before me. "There's toast, and there's jam, and we have coffee, or tea, if you prefer that."

We are interrupted by a girl wearing a tank top and just panties walking into the kitchen who goes straight to the cupboard. She gets a couple of coffee cups. She's followed by another girl, and then the drummer of The Renegades, Jace Morgan. He smiles at me blearily.

"Hello there..." he says.

"Don't even think about it," Liam tells him, and Jace holds up his hands, chuckling. He leaves with the two women, his arms around their shoulders.

A young woman in a floral maxi dress comes in through the door from the pool.

"Please excuse the debauchery," she says in a British accent. Her blond hair is braided and her wrists are covered with bangles. She is very tanned. She kisses Liam on the cheek. I try not to stare, but it's Shannon Muller. She's diminutive in person and just slightly taller than I am.

Liam puts down the pan back on the stove and wipes his hands on his apron. "Have you met Sophie?"

Shannon brightens at once and takes a good look at me and then kisses me on the cheek, the same way Liam did last night. "Sophie! Anton brought you at last," she says. "I'm Shannon."

I nod, still somewhat dazed. Shannon's very friendly like her husband. "I was wondering where he is, actually."

Shannon stares at me and then turns to Liam, then back at me. "What?"