If it was Peter, then nothing bad would have happened.
She had no idea why she was naked, but it couldn’t be any sort of nightmare scenario, not if Peter had been with her.
He’d never let her be hurt. He’d never let her be too stupid.
There was something large and loose on her finger, so she twirled it unconsciously, trying to make her mind work the way it was supposed to.
On that thought, the door to the hotel room opened, and she grabbed for the covers to pull them back up to her shoulders.
Peter walked in, wearing his gray trousers from last night and a white T-shirt. He held two large cups of coffee.
He smiled at her when he saw she was awake and sitting up in the bed. His smile was strangely sweet, almost tentative. “Good morning.” He looked so adorably self-conscious she couldn’t help but smile back.
“Hi.” She reached for the coffee as he approached, and had to catch the covers with one of her hands as they started to slide down again.
He sat down on the edge of the bed beside her, his eyes searching her face in an unusually intense way. “How do you feel?”
She took a long sip of coffee, the heat and strong flavor hitting her with an immediate sensation of pleasure.
No clarity, though. She still couldn’t pierce the dark cloud in her mind.
“Not too good,” she replied at last. “My head is killing me.”
“We had a lot to drink last night.”
She suddenly saw an image of herself, lying to Peter about how much she’d drunk with the other girls, before they’d met up with the guys. Of course, she’d had a lot to drink.
She’d had way too much to drink. No wonder last night was a blur.
She cleared her throat and took another sip of coffee. “What happ—how did I get here?”
Peter’s gray eyes had been soft as they rested on her face, but now his gaze, his whole body stiffened slightly. “You don’t remember?”
She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything. I’m sorry. I remember hanging out with Veronica and Heidi, and then I vaguely remember Gus and Heidi getting married. But I can’t remember anything else. Why am I in this room? Why am I naked? I didn’t do…” Her breath hitched in another flare of fear. “I didn’t do anything stupid, did I?”
Very slowly, Peter reached over to set his coffee on the nightstand. “You don’t remember what happened last night?”
“No. I just told you. I did something stupid and embarrassing, didn’t I?” She cringed, thinking about the possibilities. Maybe she’d stripped naked in a bar. Maybe she’d been making moves on random men.
Maybe she’d come on to Peter.
That thought was the worst. Surely she wouldn’t have done something so wrong, so crazy.
“You only had a few drinks,” he said, a strange texture to his voice. It sounded tense. Too tense for everything to be all right. “I tried to keep count so you wouldn’t overdo it. You were…buzzed, but you weren’t completely wasted.”
She glanced away, letting her loose, messy hair hide her face. “I had at least three with the other girls. I don’t remember how many I had afterwards. I’ve never really drank before.”
He gasped. “You said you only had one.”
“I know.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so mortified. She’d always been responsible. A very un-silly person. She wasn’t someone who ever did anything like this. “I…I didn’t tell you the truth.”
“Why not?” He was sounding more and more upset.
“I don’t know. I’m sorry. I don’t know. But I obviously had way too much to drink. Please tell me what I did. It wasn’t too…too bad, was it?”
Peter didn’t answer.
He didn’t answer for so long that she finally peeked out at him from behind her hair. He was staring down at the floor, something tight and conflicted frozen on his face. She couldn’t tell exactly what emotions he was feeling, but he was obviously upset.
She was getting so scared that her breath came out in fast, thick pants. She hid behind her hair again, wondering if she even wanted to hear what she’d done in her drunken stupor last night.
How could she have been so incredibly stupid? She’d always been a good girl—so good she was probably boring. Deanna and Rose had always gotten around more than she had, but they had never done anything like this.
Only her. Stupid, stupid Kelly.
“Kelly,” Peter said, whatever had been freezing him the minute before dispelling. He reached out to push her hair back from her face and tilt her head up so he could see her. “You’re saying you didn’t want to…want to…” He had his face under control now, but something deep was going on in his eyes, something that made everything worse.