I shouldn’t, but I’m going to. I’ll add Hana to the list of things I’ve touched and made dirty.
Skip.
We’re back in the big top, but this time I’m in the ring rather than the stands and the tent has mostly emptied out. Outside the sky has that not-dark, not-quite-light quality it gets when dawn and regrets are coming fast. The bourbon is long gone. The ringmaster looks at me, and my beautiful girl giggles. I don’t remember how we got here, but it was my idea. I’m pretty sure I remember that.
“It’s your turn.”
So I say it. “I do.”
Skip.
Skip.
...
CHAPTER ONE
WE’RE A NO GO
Liam
MY EYES ARE CLOSED, but the morning sun turns my vision red. My bones—along with my head and my morning wood—decide this is the perfect moment to start aching like a motherfucker. It’s my first clue that I did it again. I bite the inside of my cheek while I take stock.
I end up in places I shouldn’t when I drink.
I also do things I shouldn’t. Admittedly on purpose, to make myself feel bad, but still.
Mentally, I review what I know, which turns out to be absolutely nothing.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
See? I recognize the panic. It’s what I deserve. I don’t know what I did last night because I was out of control. Blackout drunk like my asshole dad when he’d finally come home after weeks or months away and then get into it with my mother.
Mission thoroughly accomplished.
Picking my way along the road of last night’s memories yields nothing helpful. The memories’ disappearance correlates with the decreasing level in my bourbon bottle. I’d been drunk. I’d partied. I’d...
Done something.
No.
Someone.
This last guess is cheating because I’m not alone in the bed. My arms clutch a curvy, naked body close. The last thing I want is company. And particularly not the female kind. Mornings after come with more expectations than Christmas does presents.
I disappoint when it comes to relationships. My sexual repertoire doesn’t include explanations, apologies, commitments or anything other than straight-up dirty sex. It works better for all parties involved if I put out and then get out before expectations are engendered. I turn my face into the hair of my sleepover companion. She smells clean and sweet, like fruit and something herbal.
I like it.
I need to figure out who I screwed. Then I’ll reach out to my lawyer and he’ll draft an NDA with the appropriate legal names and financial incentives. I spend a moment trying to blind guess who my companion is but last night is fuzzy, the details blurred other than some truly spectacular sex, and even that is more highlights reel than full-length documentary. I’ll have to ask. Or at least open my eyes. I’ve seen too many acquaintances burned badly to let a random hookup escape without signing. If I intend to start sleeping with random unknown girls on a regular basis, I should institute a name tag policy. Hello, My Name Is... stickers to make everything easier. The benefits of being the party host.
“Liam?” My naked sleepover buddy shifts in my arms—why am I spooning her?—and murmurs my name. The sound is feminine, husky and not entirely awake, although she sounds like she’s getting there. She has the voice of a phone sex operator and both my dick and my brain decide that maybe we’re not dying after all. This may have something to do with the way her backside cushions my front as she stretches. I press my mouth against her throat and discover she tastes as good as she sounds.
As my brain isn’t entirely online yet, however, all that comes out of my mouth is an uninspired, “Right here, sweetheart.”
I’ll make it up to her with my tongue.
I swear.
My mystery guest responds with more garbled phone-sex syllables, clearly not averse to maintaining her side of the conversation, but the angry buzz of my phone drowns out her follow-up remark. I slap an arm in the approximate direction of the noise but come up empty. The buzz rapidly escalates to the volume of a horde of murder hornets. When I give up and crack an eye for a visual, I see strawberry-blond hair and the morning sun bouncing off a sea of crisp white cotton Frette that’s devoured my phone.
We’re in my bed.
I brought her upstairs, whoever she is.
I’m twenty-eight. I’m rich and single, and my external packaging is generally acknowledged to be A-plus. I like dirty sex and I refuse to pretend I’m doing anything but fucking. Romance is not something I offer, so getting out of this will cost me.
My companion fishes my phone out from underneath a pillow and helpfully dangles it behind her. “Here. Answer before whoever it is has an aneurysm.”
Slim, sun-kissed, with three freckles perfectly aligned like the stars in Orion’s belt, her arm is toned yet feminine. Do I know this arm and its owner? Eh. I could just roll her over and check. Sit up and know. But since that feels like reading the last chapter of a mystery novel first, I settle for taking the phone. She’s got great hands. Her nails are short and shapely, but completely without polish.
Which all seems unimportant compared to the enormous rock of a diamond nestled against a platinum band. My heartbeat picks up. Is she married? That’s a new low, even for me. I’d tell drunk me that he needs to acquire some standards, but he’s shameless.
Trying not to think about what I can’t remember—it’s counterproductive—I scroll through Leda’s messages, the ones that shouldn’t be blowing up my phone because I should have blocked my ex-girlfriend the moment I confirmed her duplicity three months ago:
I hate u.
U shouldn’t have ended things.
We were good together.
Fuck u.
Don’t be stupid.
U don’t get to replace me.
I’ll tell.
U know u miss me.
Fucking hell.
I roll over, away from Mystery Girl, my thumb hovering over the button that will block Leda. I deserve this for being stupid, for thinking words would work instead of numbers. Still, Leda’s growing impatience means she’ll eventually do something that even I can’t fix with a really big check.
There’s good news mixed in with the bad, though. My lab manager has shared more pictures of my baby Mars rover. The first mission won’t carry people or I’d sign up today, if only to get away from Leda and the shitstorm she’s generated. A planetary landing is still too risky as Mars lacks the ozone layer that keeps us comparatively safe here on Earth. Until we figure out how to deal with that, lethal doses of solar ultraviolet radiation would hit any astronaut who landed on Mars.