The Bridesmaid [MaiChard AU]

The Morning After

Maine
She wakes up feeling suffocated and finds herself wrapped up like a cocoon in a thick blanket.

With eyes still closed, she lays her arm to her right and realizes these sheets are too soft to be hers. With furrowed brows, eyes tightly shut and an aching head, she reaches over the bedside table for her phone but finds none. Still woozy, she shakes her head off before opening her eyes. She sits up too quickly, gritting her teeth as her head hits the headboard and almost screams in panic when she peeks under her covers: she’s wearing nothing but her lingerie: her black lace undergarments.

“Oh sh-” She grabs a pillow and screams into it, hoping it is thick enough to muffle her shriek. “Oh my god! Please self, tell me you didn’t do anything stupid last night. Please, please. What did you do?! Bakit ito lang suot mo?!”

She holds her breath as she feels something stir somewhere inside the room. She quietly tiptoes out of bed, wrapping the heavy duvet around her body and finds a half-naked man sleeping on the couch.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no! Shit, shit! Nicomaine! Ano tong pinasok mo?!” She whispers to herself and groans.

She frantically searches for her phone and finds it under a pillow, dead and useless. Everyone must already be worried looking for her. Next, she looks for her clothes. In her haste, her elbow accidentally nudges the glass of water sitting on the bedside table that it shatters against the carpeted floor and together with her loud cuss, the man on the couch jolts awake.

Slowly opening his eyes and finding her, he smiles radiantly, making her weak in the knees. “Good morning.” He greets in a low voice that she must admit is too sexy at nine am on a Sunday. She is startled that she drops her phone and the hand clasping the blanket around her body, giving him a full view of her almost-naked body.

She doesn’t know how to respond, battling between thanking him for not leaving her sleeping on the couch in the lobby by herself (that much she remembered) or being angry at him because he is probably the one who took her clothes off last night but before she can decide, she hears him clear his throat.

“Uhm, miss. Yung ano mo...Uhm.” He points to her general direction, trying not to stare, his eyes looking anywhere but her. He blushes from his chest up to the tips of his ears.

She furrows her brows in confusion. “What?!”

“Yung blanket kasi!”

“Oh my gaaa!” She hurriedly picks up the blanket from the floor and wraps her body with it. “Ah!” She hisses in pain before sucking her thumb.

“Oh, anong nangyari?” He immediately closes the gap between them in two quick strides, careful not to step on the shards of glass on the floor. He gently takes her wrist to survey her wound.

“Wait lang, wag kang gagalaw.” He commands and scoops her with one arm around her waist and the other, behind her knee.

“What the--! What are you doing? Put me down!” She screams, hitting her fists against his chest.

“Wait lang kasi. Huy! Wag kang malikot baka mabitawan kita!”  He warns as he carries her back to the bed.

She stills and looks up at him, suddenly conscious of how close they are and blushing at his proximity, her face just an inch away from his chest, her nostrils filled with his manly scent and suddenly aware that he’s only wearing a pair of Iron Man boxer shorts.

From where she is at, she notices how prominent his long dark lashes are against his fair skin, how she thought of running a finger along his chiseled jaw and probably get a cut, or how tense yet muscled his shoulders are as he carries her as if she’s she weighs nothing.

***
RJ
He realizes a little too late that he is half-naked, carrying a beautiful, doe-eyed stranger (who is almost as naked as he is, by the way). And oh dear woman, please stop squirming. Susmaryosep!

He is, in fact very aware of her, how her cheeks turned crimson when he lifted her off the floor, how his fingers press against smooth supple skin of her thigh just a few inches above her knee as he carries her to the bed, or how if he so much as glance a few more inches lower and he’ll have a peek of the delicate black lace covering her bosom, peeping out of the duvet she haphazardly wrapped around herself earlier.

He clears his throat and tries to speak, hoping to dispel the awkwardness in the room after he lays her down on the bed. “I’ll call the front desk for a first aid kit and have them send someone to clean this up. Breakfast?”

“B-breakfast? Yes. Coffee. I need lots of coffee.” She squeaks.

“Coffee then.”

He expects screaming, cursing and probably lampshade throwing when he wakes up but instead here he is sitting across from her, watching her eat breakfast with gusto, wearing one of his spare white shirts about two sizes too big for her.  

Ang ganda pa din. He tried to gingerly remove as much makeup on her face as he could with wet wipes last night. Fresh faced, and makeup free, hair tied in a messy bun, she is as stunning as she was when he first saw her stomping her feet at the hotel hallway. With his shirt on hers, she’s even sexier than when she was wearing that peach bridesmaid dress.

His ears turns bright red as he remembers that gown and how he painstakingly took it off her body last night. He didn’t have to but she threw up on her dress while he was trying to open his hotel room with his keycard and carrying her in his arms at the same time so, to his reluctance, he did.

So he did what any gentleman would do: peel the stained gown off her limp body. It was by far, the longest five minutes of his life. It was torture. He craned his neck the whole time he was undressing her, trying his best to keep his eyes on her face. Then he saw a hint of her lace lingerie that he almost lost it. He cursed under his breath.

Tangina, Richard. Paano kung may boyfriend to? Or worse, paano kung may asawa to? Gulo tong pinasok mo. Pero gaman namang iwan ko syang magisa sa lobby? Baka lalo pa syang mapahamak.

Lord naman, gentleman naman po ako pero grabe naman kayo saken. Lalake lang din naman po ako.

He would have put a shirt on her but he couldn’t anymore. He felt he'd burst if he so much as touched her so he covered her instead with a thick blanket right up to her neck so he wouldn’t have to see anything more than he should.

He took a very cold shower after that.

📷 Maine Mendoza FB