Unlikely ✓

One: Parties Suck... Literally

POV: Nathan Westmore

When I woke up I wasn't feeling all that great.  It was like someone was hitting the back of my head repeatedly with a jackhammer or something just as equally painful.

Then as if that wasn't sign enough that something was horribly wrong, I made the mistake of opening my eyes and feeling the extent of my first and hopefully last hangover. 

The bright light from the sun was not helping me today as it normally did.  It just made me feel even worse when the bright rays of sunshine met my eyes.

The first thing I noticed was not the light temporary blinding me, no.  Instead, it was my clothes—or lack of clothes to be more specific.  I was half-naked in what seemed to be a clawfoot bathtub, the part that was concerning—despite the whole ordeal—was that I wasn't alone.

There was a rather warm body—that I was apparently using as a real-life body pillow.  The stranger was also lacking the same amount of clothes that I was, which made it even weirder that laying on him didn't seem all that weird to me.

The normality of it all was what made me snap awake and out of the fog that seemed to cloud my head.

There's nothing normal about this! 

I wanted to scream to myself as if it would change the past several hours or help me in any way.  I took a moment to breathe, freaking out wouldn't get me anywhere.  I studied the guy for a moment, not recognizing him at all.  I wasn't sure if that made it better or worse that they were a total stranger.

I did, however, take notice of the marks that trailed up the guy's neck and down his collarbone.  There were even a few that trailed lower, I forced my eyes not to follow them.

The guy had rich brown hair that kinda reminded me of roasted coffee beans.  His skin was pale with light freckles scattered across his sleeping face.  It almost looked as if he tried to keep a grumpy expression while he slept, but instead, he ended up looking like a peaceful kitten.

With that thought, my mind was back to how I should be freaking out some more—like most anyone would when waking up not knowing where they were.

This wasn't me!

I didn't drink or wake up laying nearly naked on strangers.  I barely went to bed past eleven without feeling guilty.  Thoughts ran around in my head as if it were a game of football and the loudest of the thoughts was the one with the ball as the rest of the thoughts and worries I had chased after it with no structure or form whatsoever.

Did I give him those marks or did he come like that?

Did we do anything?

I'd remember if we did, right?

I didn't have much memory of the night before and what I did remember was a mess and blur.  I knew that my friends had dragged me to the party—something I would have never done on my own.

Parties just were not something I was known for—and I was very much content with that part of myself.  Reasons like now, for example.  Waking up confused and with a stranger was not on my list of things I wanted to do.

I knew I didn't have much time to get out of the bathroom unnoticed.  It would be just a matter of time until the guy woke up and knowing my luck, it would be sooner rather than later.  I did my best to carefully climb out of the chipping clawfoot tub, the one I had somehow slept comfortably in the night before.

As I looked around I noticed the spray-painted walls, chipping tiles, and the layers of grime and dust only a house that had been abandoned for a long while had to offer.