In 27 Days (Watty Award Winner 2012)

Chapter 14.

My phone was blaring some annoying ringtone at some ungodly hour in the morning, waking me up out of a seemingly blissful sleep. I let out a groan and rolled over, slapping my hand around on the nightstand until I found my cell phone. It took me a second to figure out how to answer the stupid call before putting the phone to my ear and grunting as a hello.

 "Get your ass out of bed, woman."

"Excuse me?" I sighed, fighting back a yawn.

 It took me half a second to realize that I happened to be talking to someone I didn't even know. 

"Uh, who is this?" I demanded, suddenly very awake as I sat upright. 

 "Who do you think this is, genius?"

Oh, hell. I recognized that familiar snarky voice. Of course it had to be Archer calling me. I should've known. It wasn't as if I'd been talking to anyone else recently. 

 "Archer?" I said, a hand at my forehead. "Why are you calling me? And hey - more importantly, how did you get my number?"

 "My mother gave it to me," Archer said, like it should've been obvious. "Now get over here."

"Over where?" I yawned, flopping backwards onto my mountain of pillows. "You woke me up to give me orders?" 

 "Hadley." Archer's voice sounded amused, something I'd definitely never heard there before. "It's almost one in the afternoon, and we're having dinner at four. Did you forget you were invited, or did you decide that you're too good to meet my family?"

 Shit. That's right. 

I started babbling out a string of obscenities as I tossed myself out of bed, landing on the floor, before dragging myself up and rushing to the bathroom. 

 "I am so sorry, Archer," I babbled like an idiot. "I'll be over there as soon as I can, I didn't mean to - " 

 "Jesus, Hadley, will you shut up? Get over here and let's leave it that."

 "Oh...okay," I sighed, gnawing on my lip. "If you're sure."

"Stop apologizing!"

 That's the last thing Archer snapped before the line went dead.

I glared at my phone before I threw it on the bed. Damn cell phones. 

 Okay, so I didn't mean to oversleep and show up late to Thanksgiving dinner with the Moraleses. Not only was that completely embarrassing, but Archer also happened to be pissed off because of it. 

 Well, Archer happened to be pissed off about a lot of things, so there was really no point in worrying about that one. 

 I probably could've spent a good few more minutes contemplating the workings of the universe like that, but I was already late as it was, so I figured I might as well get moving. 

 I padded my way into the bathroom and yanked on the shower faucet, stripping my pajamas off before stepping in the shower. 

 I showered as quickly as possible, washing my hair with my favorite smelling shampoo and scrubbing myself down with my cherry blossom body wash, before yanking off the faucet and wrapping myself up in a fluffy towel to sprint out of the bathroom to the closet. 

 Of course I was going to spend a few minutes standing in front of the row of clothes in my closet, wondering what I should wear to Thanksgiving dinner tonight. 

 This rarely happened, so I was completely baffled as to why I happened to be freaking out in a surprisingly teenager girl move. A moment later, I chalked it up to Archer's fault.