After You

chapter eleven

My head pounds and my vision is blurry when I wake up Saturday morning. Every time I open my eyes they water, and I'm sure it has everything to do with the sun streaming in through the window and not my killer hangover. I don't even remember what time I got home, let alone what time we left Josie's Bar. I don't even remember making it home.

I throw my arm over my eyes and turn my face into the sofa cushions. I don't even remember deciding to sleep on the sofa.

I'm awake now, unfortunately. I can't go back to sleep, no matter how much I toss and turn and keep my eyes shut. When my blanket falls off and I can't seem to find it again, I decide to get up.

Reaching over the chasm to the coffee table, I search for the TV remote, then find the Netflix button because I know which it is off by heart. I only crack open an eye to see what I should watch, and settle on John Wick because I've seen it so many times that I don't have to focus properly.

I lie on the sofa for a time, seeing but unseeing the TV as I try not to move and jiggle my headache. I only move to get myself a glass of water and an aspirin, and when I lie back down, Liv appears, looking a little worse for wear but better than me all the same.

"How you doing, champ?" she asks, a somewhat smug smile on her lips.

I give her the finger as she bypasses me to get to the kitchen. She simply laughs.

"Teach you to try and drink Shelby under the table," she says.

"Piss off."

Liv moves to and fro around the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards which only proves to aggravate my entire being. But when the scent of oil, then bacon and eggs hits my nostrils, my headache all but clears up.

Liv glances over her shoulder at me. "Are you going to be nice to me now?" she asks.

"I love you so much," I say. "You are the best person in the whole wide world and I don't know what I'd ever do without you."

"Just what I thought," Liv replies, smiling. Then she says, smile fading slightly and tone becoming serious, "Are you going to be able to sober up enough for tonight?"

"Only if you want me to," I say, because I really don't want to go tonight anyway. But she is my best friend, and I'm not going to bail on her when I've agreed to something. Plus, if I recall correctly, we don't have to stay long. And she'll buy me pizza.

"One hundred percent," Liv says over the sound of sizzling bacon. "Dyl isn't even sure if he's going to make it anymore, so I need you way more than I did before."

I lie back into the sofa and groan, loud and long. "I thought it was his friend," I say.

"Well, he's my friend too now," says Liv. I watch her over the top of the TV and the kitchen counter as she ties her hair from her face. "Anyway, we'll stay a couple of hours, make an excuse for why we can't stay, then go home and get pizza. They just need to see my face, that's all."

"What does this guy do again?" I ask.

"He's right up your alley," says Liv. "Real estate agent."

"Oh that's going be a great conversation when I meet him," I say sarcastically. "I love meeting competitors."

Liv laughs. "I doubt his job has anything to do with yours," she says. "He makes a lot of money."

Which means he works for, or owns a company that sells more expensive properties than my work does. His company probably isn't a boutique like Holt & Castle.

"Way to knock me down a peg."

"Your peg was low to begin with."

"True."

She serves up the bacon and eggs on a plate, pushing it across the counter so that it sits just behind the TV. I stagger to my feet, take the plate graciously, and accept the knife and fork that Liv hands me. She takes a seat on the sofa beside me with her own plate, and we spend the next hour or so watching John Wick.