The Bangover Read online

  “I don’t think that was his problem. I think it was…other stuff,” she says vaguely. “But thank you.”

  “No thanks needed. Facts are facts.”

  She hums, a little too dubiously. But before I can insist she own her awesome, she says, “I’ve dated a few guys since it ended, but nothing serious, and none of them got further than a goodnight kiss. No matter how hard I try, I can’t get into anyone around here.”

  Now I’m grateful for the darkness hiding my shock. “Wow. So you mean…”

  “I haven’t had sex in nine months.”

  “Damn,” I mutter. “And you’re still alive?”

  Kirby and I have only ever been friends—she’s been in a relationship with one tragically pale douchebag or another since we met in our freshman year of high school—but we’re close friends. We talk about everything, including our healthy sex drives, the ones that can apparently be overwhelming and/or irritating to people who don’t enjoy banging as much as we do.

  I’m dreading the month of celibacy it will take to get these songs written like a prison sentence. But a year of genital isolation?

  The thought alone makes my cock play the world’s tiniest violin.

  “Yeah, I’m still alive,” Kirby says, taking a swig and swiping her hand across her lips. “But just barely.”

  “Is it because you’re still hung up on Peter?” I ask, trying to keep my distaste for Mr. Puce from my voice.

  “No. I’m over him, I really am,” she says. “It’s more that I feel lost, unsure what comes next. I just know I don’t want to settle for meh, and meh is all that’s left around here. All the good guys are already coupled up and starting to make babies. I have to flip the script, find a new dating pool before my vagina shrivels up and blows away.”

  I shudder. “Yeah, don’t let that happen. Twenty-nine’s way too young to lose your vagina. So where are you moving?”

  “I don’t know. But somewhere. Soon. I’m taking a week off to binge watch all the TV I missed while I was on deadline and debate the options. Then I’m going.”

  “I’m taking a week off, too,” I say. “But I was thinking of heading somewhere less family friendly. Like Atlantic City.”

  Kirby makes a gagging sound.

  “I know, I know.” I laugh. “But I can’t go to Vegas unsupervised. You-know-who lives there, and you know what happened the last time.”

  “How could I forget?” she huffs. “I can’t believe you married She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Thank God for annulments.”

  “Amen,” I agree soberly. “And thank God for friends who mock your evil exes in their books.”

  “Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental,” Kirby says, but there’s a grin in her voice. “But you’re welcome. Some people deserve to be turned into evil vampire clowns. And the answer is yes, by the way.”

  “The answer to what?” I pause with the flask an inch from my lips, wondering if I’m drunker than I think I am, ’cause I don’t remember asking a question.

  “Yes, I will go to Vegas with you.” Her face is illuminated in the glow of her cell as she taps at the screen. “I’ll message my assistant in California. She’ll still be awake, and she’ll get us a hotel and two tickets on an affordable flight.”

  If this were anyone but Kirby, I’d ask if she was joking, but I know her better than that. Kirby is never spontaneous. Until she is, and then, watch out, because she’s the kind of crazy that will lead to just about anything.

  It’s one of the reasons I love her so damned much.

  On impulse, I lean in, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Tell her first class all the way. I’m paying.”

  Kirby’s lips quirk as her eyes dart back and forth between the phone and me, making it clear I threw her with the kiss. “Shut up. You are not. We’ll share, and we’ll go coach. Only assholes fly first class.”

  “Well, I’m an asshole, and I can’t fly coach without getting mobbed by fans,” I say, kissing her cheek again, just for the fun of seeing her flustered. “First class.”

  “Coach. You can wear a hat. And stop kissing me, weirdo.”

  “Why? Because you like it so much?” I tease, squeezing her thigh above the knee where her skirt ends, making her twitch and slap my fingers away with one hand as she hits send on her text with the other.

  “Yes, you ass-wipe. I haven’t been touched below the neck in nine months. My skin is starving. If you’re not careful, you’re going to make me want things I shouldn’t.”

  The confession hits me and—zot!—I’m ice. I’m locked in carbonite. I’m thinking I’ll spend my days as a gobsmacked objet d’art, when Kirby laughs and says, “Gotcha.”

  I suck in a breath and choke on whiskey fumes. “Shit, you had me. I thought you were serious.”

  “Of course not,” she says, shutting off her phone and sticking it in her jacket pocket. “But now that I think about it…”

  I narrow my eyes her way, heart zooming again, wishing she hadn’t plunged us back into the dark. I can almost always get a read on Kirby’s face, but without the visual clues, her dry delivery fools me every time. “But now that you think about what? Don’t fuck with me again, Larry. I’m drunk. And fragile.”

  She hesitates. “Fragile in what sense?”

  “Um, in the writer’s block sense? I’ve got an entire album’s worth of songs due in a month? I only have one written. Any of this ringing a bell?”

  “Of course it is. But you’re not hung up on a girl right now, right?” she asks. “There’s nothing romantic going on in your life?”

  “Hell, no. I mean, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named is still cyberstalking me, even though it’s been four months since we accidentally had sex again.”

  “I still can’t believe you did that. You were doing so well, and then you had to go and fall off the wagon, dick first.”

  “Well, that’s why it’s called accidental sex, Kirbs. Because it’s accidental,” I say, bristling even though I know she’s right. “So that’s a shit show. And then Kayla is writing a tell-all book about last summer in Barcelona, and Rhiannon texts me constantly. But I can’t block her because she’s threatened to set fire to the vintage Red Sox jersey I left at her place, so I have to play nice until I get it back.” I sigh. “Yeah. So romance is pretty dead to me.”

  “Poor lamb.”

  “I am a poor lamb.” I drag a hand through my too-shaggy-even-for-a-rock-star hair. “Feel sorry for me and make it easy for me to understand you.” I cast a pointed glance up at the porch. “Where the fuck is Shep, anyway? He always calls his mom at midnight. Do you think he went out front instead?”

  “No, he’ll come out here. It’s too loud by the road. And it’s still a few minutes until midnight, which gives us just enough time to figure this out.”

  “Figure what out?”

  “Figure out if we’re going to Vegas as friends or…kissing friends.”

  Before I can call her bluff and remind her that a double “gotcha” is as off-limits as a double sip, her lips are on mine, soft, cool, and tasting of smoky-sweet whiskey. And for a moment, there’s nothing but shock—sharp and head-clearing—and then electricity floods through me, lighting me up like the spots that drenched the stage tonight.

  Damn, my girl’s a good kisser.

  A phenomenal kisser—assured, skilled, and a little dirty, like she’s fucking my mouth with her tongue, giving me a taste of what it would be like to be inside her.

  It’s exactly the kind of kissing I like. And then some.

  “You’re delicious,” she whispers against my lips, making me even hotter, harder.

  Shit. I’ve got a hard-on for Kirby, and though it isn’t the first time—she’s sexy as hell, and I’ve known her since I was too young to have much control over what got me hard—it’s still a tricky situation. But she’s the one who wanted to add kissing into the mix, and—fuck it—I want her on me. Now.

  “Closer,” I growl as I reach for her. “I want you closer.”
>
  “Yes,” she agrees, breath hot on my lips. And then she’s straddling me, and my hands are smoothing up her soft thighs beneath her skirt, and I know it should feel weird—this is Kirby, for God’s sake—but it doesn’t. It feels hot and good.

  And…safe.

  I know Kirby. I trust Kirby. She’s not going to go crazy or clingy on me, and she’d never let something as trivial as seeing each other naked get in the way of our friendship.

  We are forever. Rock solid.

  So when she says, “I vote kissing friends,” I answer, “Hell, yes, woman. I’m going to break your dry spell like spring on the Serengeti.”

  She laughs, kissing me harder as she says, “You’ll taste the rains down in Africa?”

  “Oh, I will definitely taste the rains, Larry. Just let me at ’em.”

  Kirby giggles—actually giggles, like a normal girl—before covering my mouth with her hand and announcing in a too-loud whisper, “Shh, I think someone’s on the porch.”

  “Someone is definitely on the porch,” Shep’s deep voice rumbles from overhead. “And someone isn’t stupid enough to get pranked by you two assholes again. Come inside and quit being weird. Bridget’s making crab dip.”

  “Oooo, crab dip. I love crab dip,” Kirby says as the door closes overhead, signaling Shep has left the building. Or returned to the building, rather.

  I am definitely drunk, but not too drunk to make decisions, and I know better than to question Kirby’s judgment while she’s inebriated. The last time I did that, she challenged me to a field sobriety test, which she passed with flying colors while I couldn’t find my nose with my finger with my eyes closed.

  “Should we eat crab dip and then pack?” she asks. “Or pack and then crab dip?”

  I start to speak, but the sound is muffled. Kirby pulls her hands away with another giggle.

  “I’d rather eat your pussy, please,” I say. “Then pack. Crab dip optional.”

  She covers my mouth again with a scandalized gasp. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t like crab dip,” I mumble into her cold little hands, loving that she’s still straddling me, rocking her hips against mine in an absent-minded way that gives me a clue how desperate she is to scratch that itch.

  And I am getting equally desperate to oblige her.

  “No, I mean the pussy talk,” she whispers. “You just jumped straight to it. No warning, no verbal foreplay of any kind.”

  “So you want me to tell you how I’m going to lick your tits first? Bite your nipples and—”

  Giggling harder, she orders, “Stop. Save it for Vegas, dude. And for real, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. We don’t tell anyone about this, okay? Not even Shep and Bridget. This is our secret.”

  I hold up a hand in a solemn swear before circling her wrists and drawing her fingers away from my face. “Deal. But just so you know, what happens on my tongue also stays on my tongue. I don’t eat pussy and tell. You can trust me, Larry. And I seriously don’t know if I can wait for Vegas, I am so fucking turned on right now.”

  “Yeah,” she whispers, rough and sexy. “I can tell.” And then she rocks her hips, slowly, deliberately against my cock and says, “Hmmm…yes. That’ll do, pig.”

  “Babe?” I ask with a disgusted shake of my head. “Seriously? You’re on my cock, and you’re quoting Babe?” She giggle-snorts in response, making me laugh as I slap her ass and say, “Get drunk; you’re home, Larry.”

  “I am not. I am of sound body and mind, and I know what I want.” She rolls off me onto the hard-packed earth beneath the porch. “Crab dip. Cat carrier. Suitcase. That order.”

  “Cat carrier?”

  “Murder’s coming, too.”

  My lips part to argue that we do not need a villainous overlord of a cat on our fuck-buddy safari, but Kirby cuts me off with a snap of her fingers and a firm, “Not up for debate. Let’s move, Donovan. Move, move, move like you’ve never moved before!”

  “I’m going to move you like you’ve never been moved before,” I grumble under my breath, standing to follow her out from under the steps.

  “Oh, I hope so, Col,” she says with a happy sigh. “I really do.”

  “Me, too,” I agree, a smile stretching wide across my face.

  Damn, this is going to be fun—the perfect way to get the last of the fucking out of my system before I straighten up, fly right, and crank out a bunch of beautiful music.

  But until then, Kirby and I are going to have a fucking blast.

  Literally.

  Chapter Two

  Kirby

  I wake up with no feeling in my right arm, my face smashed into an unfamiliar pillow, a case of cottonmouth any stuffed animal would be proud of, and the disturbing realization that I can’t remember where I am or how I got here.

  I can’t remember, but I instantly know Colin is involved.

  I am not a rock star.

  I do not do rock-star things like stay up all night burning old love letters or go skinny-dipping in the ocean at midnight or drink so much whiskey after a show that building a pack of vampire snowmen in the town square at three a.m. sounds like a good idea. But under the influence of too much Colin Donovan, I have done all of these things and more.

  And apparently, our latest case of shared insanity has landed me on a plane. There’s no mistaking the lingering smell of jet fuel or the dull roar of the engines churning away on either side of this soaring death pellet.

  I crack open my lids, and yes—there’s the overhead bin, dull gray and sad in the dim light of the darkened cabin. But instead of the usual packed sardine tin of people on either side of me, there’s only a fully-reclined seat arranged head-to-toe with mine, a quaint swiveling bedside table, and gray plastic walls that grant this little cubby-for-two almost complete privacy.

  There is, however, no sign of Colin.

  But I wouldn’t put it past him to talk me into buying a first-class ticket to somewhere and then drop me off at the airport before skipping off to do more exciting things. He knows I hate planes. I hate them so much that I usually have to be drunk, drugged, or both to force myself down the Jetway and into my assigned seat. But I’ve never booked a trip while under the influence. I make travel plans, arrange my life accordingly, and then I pop a Xanax like a civilized person twenty minutes before boarding.

  This impulsive gallivanting is unacceptable. I don’t usually do impulsive, not even in my work. I’m a plotter, not a seat-of-my-pants wordsmith. I know exactly how the vampire clowns became vampire clowns and who they’re going to kill—and why—before I type a single word. And if I deviate from my outline, I feel anxious, unsettled, unmoored until I find my way back to the path and tie up any loose ends I’ve created.

  I like the path.

  I like knowing what’s coming next.

  I like waking up in my own bed with my own pillow and all my memories of the night before.

  I like all of that…until I snap, decide I don’t like it anymore, and do something fucking crazy. The last time I snapped, I moved to a yurt in Tibet for a month. The time before that I went cage-diving with sharks. And before that, I bought a bed and breakfast at a repo auction, without even seeing the inside. All of those things turned out okay in the end—I learned to meditate in Tibet, conquered my fear of sharks, and set my sister up as proprietor of a profitable business with only a few bumps along the way renovation-wise.

  But I’m just waiting for the day when I do something impulsive that doesn’t have a happy ending. And perhaps today is that day.

  I have no idea what inspired me to drink such an inadvisable amount of whiskey. But as I reach for the water bottle on the table beside me, grateful my hangover doesn’t appear to be too vicious, I vow never to do it again.

  No more whiskey, no more pranks with Colin, no more…

  “Pranks,” I mutter as I twist off the cap and gulp down every drop of brain-restoring liquid. I remember hiding out under the back porch at my place for what seemed like
forever, waiting for Shep to come outside so we could prank him. I remember Colin having an existential crisis about his inability to write songs, and then I remember…

  I remember…

  “Oh no. No, no.” I sink farther down in my chair, tugging my blanket up to my chin to hide my flaming cheeks seconds before a shadow appears at the entrance to the swanky first-class cubby.

  A shadow cast by the long, lanky, yet surprisingly well-muscled body of my best friend. A body I am well acquainted with seeing as I had my hands all over him last night. All over his chest, his biceps, his abs, his ass… The same lovely ass that moves across my field of vision as he climbs quietly over me to settle in his seat, clearly thinking I’m still asleep.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and fight to keep my breath slow and even, but I’m a horrible actress, and Colin has superhero-like senses and reflexes. If he weren’t a rock star, he could be a ninja assassin or a cat burglar or something more wholesome that involves a similar skill set, but which I can’t think of at the moment because my mind is not naturally inclined to weave wholesome stories and because I am dying of shame.

  Dying—my heart stuttering to a stop and my stomach turning to stone as Colin grabs a fistful of my blanket and tugs it down to reveal my face. “Hey there, sunshine,” he says with a grin. “How you feeling this morning?”

  I shake my head and tug the blanket back up.

  “That good, huh?” He chuckles and pulls it back down. “Don’t hide. Talk to me. How much do you remember?”

  “Nothing,” I lie, leaping at my one chance at salvation. “Nothing between going out to hide under the porch and waking up a few minutes ago. What happened? How did we get here?”

  Colin’s full lips purse, and his brown-and-amber-flecked eyes narrow. “Yeah? That’s all?” He brushes a thoughtful thumb back and forth along the line of his jaw, the pad making a soft shushing sound as it disturbs his morning whiskers. He’s rocking a seven-a.m. shadow that makes him look even more like a naughty rock star, but if memory serves, this time it isn’t Colin who can’t be trusted.