A Hotter Touch, A Better F... Than Any Girl You'll Ever Meet

Chapter 5

Lately waking up was something I wasn't comfortable doing. And for some reason it never seemed to happen in my own bed. Alright, so it was only the second morning in a row, but still...

It was barely light outside, but I was awoken by a wave of alcohol-induced nausea, so I shot out of the bed and ran around as quietly as I could in search of a bathroom. I managed to find one, emptied my stomach and went back into the girl's - what was her name again? - bedroom to put on the clothes I'd scattered over the floor as quietly as I could before more or less sneaking back out of the alien apartment.

The buzz still hadn't worn off completely but I did manage to find my Sidekick and call the cab-company Brent had put in my speed-dial. I had to walk a few hundred feet to find out the name of the street I was on and I was relieved to find that while the combined ass-ache and bruised tailbone still hurt it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been the day before. At the reminder of the pain, though, I found the bag from the pharmacy in the pocket of my hoodie and popped another two pills dry before getting out my cigarettes and lighting one while waiting for the taxi.

Sadly I was sober enough to think, which was less than pleasant. Nothing I'd done the night before had helped me recover whatever it was I'd lost. No amount of alcohol or sex could give it back to me. It just helped me forget for a few hours. Had it been worth that? A few hours of freedom? A part of me protested, but the desperate side of me kept insisting that until I found a way to fully understand my situation; what I'd lost and how I'd get it back, this solution was good. Even if the chick whose name I still couldn't remember hadn't been all that good and didn't look nearly as pretty when I woke up as she'd appeared the previous night. But when do they ever?

******

"Ryan! Ryan! You need to get up! We have sound check in an hour!"

I groaned and buried my face even deeper into the pillow at the sound of Spencer's insistent yelling. Just that simple movement made my head hurt like shit. It was pretty much clear to me that the previous night had earned me a hangover from hell and I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but after a moment or two the seriousness of Spencer's words got to me.

And so I forced myself out from underneath the warm covers where I'd collapsed, still wearing the clothes with the bits of puke and alcoholic tint from the night before as soon as I came back to the apartment. With another groan I decided to eat another two pills and finally comtemplated stripping out of the disgusting clothes for a shower. In the end I decided that the clothes needed the shower as much as I did and trudged into the bathroom, emptied my pockets on the counter, turned on the shower and stepped in, still fully dressed.

The logic you can expect from someone too hung over to think, huh?

Half-way through the shower I got rid of the clothes to start working with the soap. But in the end, like the day before, I ended up exiting the shower feeling just as dirty as I had before entering.

I dried myself with a towel and went back into my room to find the appropriate clothes. Boxers, off-white shirt, brown vest, another pair of pinstriped dress pants, brown tie, snakeskin shoes and the Oliver Twist hat. It took quite long to put it on, mostly because my backside still annoyed me slightly and because me head was all fuzzy, but after putting it all on I trudged back into the bathroom, changed the band-aid and started working with first the lotion Brent had gotten me at the pharmacy, then concealer. The black eye was glaringly obvious and I needed to tone it down as much as I in any way could. It didn't exactly conceal completely, but it made the swelling and color less striking and the rest was camouflaged more or less by the shadow of the hat.

"Ryan!" I heard Spencer yell again.

"I'm up!" I yelled back annoyedly, lighting up a cig even as I exited my room.