There is no light blinding me like I expect, like there was the one time I got drunk with my brother to care for me when I passed out. I woke naked and wet, apparently having taken my clothes off, and spilling the water Simon had brought me.
That was not even close to this level of hell.
I wince and open the other eye, letting the consequences hit me with a baseball bat of pain. A sound escapes my chapped lips as I glance around the dimly lit space. It isn’t my house.
I live at college.
But this isn’t my room. I don’t know where I am. It takes a second to remember we went out. The room is small, not a bedroom and not a sitting room. I’m on a couch in what looks like an office or den. I wipe my pasted hair from my forehead and make an attempt at standing.
At first I think it’s me just sweating, detoxing from the shots, but then I realize it’s the heat from the vent in the ceiling above me. I’m in a stranger’s house, and they have the heat cranked during the worst dehydration I have ever faced.
On shaking legs and a tense stomach, I push myself up, trying to piece together the last details, but they’re the hazy ones. I recall the bar, the shots, the dancing, but the rest is gone.
Voices come from the cracked door opposite the windows.
Angie?
Where’s Angie? Is that her?
The voice sounds deeper. I stagger to the frame, peeking through the cracked door, hoping to catch the talking again, but it’s a laugh I hear. I think it’s Angie’s so I step out into the hallway where there’s light and a smell—bacon. It calls to me, dragging me down the hallway on my stiff limbs.
I round the corner of the hall, feeling instantly better when I hear her laugh again, certain it is Angie. Her flash of red hair brings an attempt at a smile to my lips. “Angie?”
She spins, wincing when she sees me. “Ash, darling, you look hideous.” She looks back at the guy standing next to the stove. His dark-blond hair reminds me of someone, but I’m not sure of whom until he turns. Then it all comes back. He’s the guy from the alley. He smiles, shaking his head. “You poor thing. Here!” He hands me a glass of orange juice as he stirs it.
I give Angie a look but she nods, so I take the glass and lift the glass to my nose and fight the urge to be sick. From the feeling in my mouth I have to assume I have already been sick, several times.
Not smelling or even thinking, I lift it to my lips and drink as much as I can of the sweet juice. It stings a little on the way down, but eventually the gulping becomes less forced and more desperate. I lower the glass, gasping a little, and pass it back. “Thank you.”
“Derek.”
Angie waggles her brows. “Professor Derek, actually.”
My eyes widen, but he chuckles like she’s lying, or it’s just a title and he’s not really one of my professors about to have me kicked out of school for—for—for things I don’t remember.
“It’s just Derek.” His green eyes and tanned skin are a perfect contrast to his dark-blond hair and wide smile. His lips are a little crooked, lopsided. When he smiles I see he has vampiric fang with just one of his canines. The oversized look of it makes his lip stick out a bit there. Something that encourages me to stare and daydream about sucking his lip or dragging it slowly in my teeth.
I cringe, looking away. He’s got something about him that makes my insides twinge in a good way, but just a little. I’m too hungover to feel anything else.
Angie giggles, giving me a look that would suggest she might have read every inappropriate thought I’d just had. My cheeks blush as his eyes lower, but I can tell he saw. The way the corners of his lips play with a grin that he won’t let himself commit to makes the blush darken. I can feel it spreading across my face, and I don’t even know why. Beyond being caught thinking lewd thoughts, I’ve committed no crime.
Angie gives him a wry grin. “You owe your night to Professor Derek. He saved us in the alley.” Her eyes find their way back to me. She winks and excuses herself. “Be back in a moment.” She exits the room, leaving me leaning on the counter, praying I don’t fall over from exhaustion and dehydration. Not that I would mind being carried by him, though I suspect I have been already.
It’s his turn to blush. “You don’t owe me. I didn’t save you. I just didn’t want you to be alone. Angela was also incredibly drunk, and it was either the hospital or here.”
I flinch.
“You weren’t that bad, just sick.” His hands lift with his eyes, defending me, but I can see the exhaustion all over his face. He’s stayed up watching me, worried I would die on his spare-room bed. The thought of him in the room doesn’t even bother me; the fact he’s a teacher does, though. I almost heave again, hating myself, and Angie just a little. “I swear, you were just throwing up so much, I didn’t want you to choke and die. It’s no bother. We’ve all been there.”