Healed (17 page)

Tipping my head back, I let the liquor slide down my throat, burning on its way down.

Nick winced and dropped his glass to the bar. “I should have known you’d pick Crown Royal.”

“He’s got a whiskey fetish, what did you expect?” Josh said with a laugh.

“True. I’ve been trying to break his habit for years,” Matt said, leaning forward to grab a beer. “What do you guys want?”

I looked over the choices. “I’ll have a Heineken.”

“Do you have Sam Adams?” Nick asked.

Matt pulled both bottles from the fridge and opened them before handing them over.

Taking a nice long sip, I began to relax into the seat. The girls would have fun—Emily would make sure of that. Now it was our turn.

“Where are we heading first?”

“I figured we’d make it simple,” Josh said. “One bar, but they have live music, pool tables, and dancing. We can cover all of our bases in one place and don’t have to keep getting back in the car and waste half the night driving.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

Nick didn’t answer right away. He was staring off into space.

“Nick,” Josh said, startling him out of his daydream.

“What?”

“Are you okay with the plan?”

“Sure. Whatever works.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still worried about strippers,” I said.

“What? No, that’s fine. I was thinking about something else.” Nick took a swig of his beer and slipped back into the daydream.

“What’s up with him?” Josh whispered to me.

“Morgan,” I whispered back.

“Ahh.” I knew Josh didn’t need any more information. At this point, we’d all been there. “How’s work?”

“It’s good. I really like the firm. They give us both much more opportunity to do things on our own than we’d get anywhere else. What about you?”

“Good. I’m learning a lot more than I did in school. I think a lot of it is hands-on. I will say it is weird to be at work all day while Lauren’s home.”

“How are things with Lauren?”

He took a sip of his beer. “They’re really good. She finished the whole season pitching, so that was a great start. I think everything that happened made us stronger. I can’t imagine life without her.”

I slapped him on the back. “That’s great, man. I’m happy for you.” Josh and Lauren deserved some happiness after everything they’d gone through.

It wasn’t much longer before we reached the place Josh had picked. As soon as we stepped out of the car, we could hear the music coming from inside. Thankfully, the music they were playing was stuff that I liked.

Walking through the doors, it was hard to miss the giant, circular bar that sat in the middle of the room, with the stage and dance floor to the left and pool tables to the right. Behind the bar were a ton of high-top tables that we could pull together. Wasting no time, we walked around the bar and commandeered a corner where we could sit, drink, and have a good time.

After a few hours, and a number of drinks, I knew I was in deep shit. I wasn’t seeing two of anyone yet, but the liquor was no longer burning as it slid down my throat.

“Who wants another round?” the waitress asked as she cleaned the empty bottles from the table. Everyone raised their hands.

“Can you add a round of tequila shots?” Josh asked. He was already swaying on his stool. Then again, that might have been me.

Like we’d done with every other shot of alcohol throughout the night, as we shot back the liquor we toasted Caleb and Angie. We drank until the early hours of the morning. How we got ourselves in the car and home, I’ll never know, but we did. I was surprised I remembered my own name. Nick and I barely spoke as we dragged ourselves up the stairs. Once I finally reached the bedroom, after ping-ponging my way down the hall, I noticed that the bed was empty.

Emily must still be at the bar.

I managed to pull my shoes, jeans, and shirt off before crashing face-first into my pillow.

The bed moved. My stomach churned. It was like a person with seasickness being out in the middle of a rough ocean. The sound of footsteps racing down the hall and the slamming of the bathroom door made me crack my one eye open. I wasn’t brave enough to try both, or to open them all the way, but I didn’t need to see to know that someone was puking. Slowly turning my head, I looked at the spot next to me.

It was empty.

Listening harder, I belatedly realized that it was Emily throwing up what sounded like everything she’d eaten for the last week. Everything hurt but I was going to try and get up to help her.

By the time I’d lifted my head off of the pillow and the room had stopped spinning, the door opened and there stood a very haggard-looking Emily. Besides the one time she’d had the flu, I’d never seen her look so pale. Pale may not have even been the right description, since her face had a slightly green tint to it.

“You look about as bad as I feel,” I muttered. If I’d been sober, I never would have said something like that to Emily. But I was too tired, too hungover, and too sick to care at the moment. The painkillers I’d taken before going to bed had made no impact—some indication of exactly how drunk I was. Normally that, and a full glass of water, was enough to keep the pounding in my head at bay.

“I’d kick your ass, but I think that would hurt too much. I can tell you that you’re no beauty pageant contestant yourself.”

Emily slowly crawled back on the bed, probably wanting to stay still so as not to jostle her stomach any further. It was good for me because I wasn’t sure how much movement my body could handle. Purely by the fact that I’d beaten her home, I knew she would be hurting—there was no way she could have stayed out that late and not have a shit-ton to drink herself.

“What time did you get home?” I whispered, afraid of the sound.

She groaned. “A little after four. What about you?”

“About three-thirty. Do you know what time it is?” Without my contacts or glasses there was no way I’d be able to tell the time.

That was one thing I had remembered when I got home was to take my contact lenses out so they wouldn’t destroy my eyes.

“I think it’s around seven, or at least that’s what the alarm clock looked like a few minutes ago.”

“It’s way too early for us to be awake. Let’s go back to sleep and see if we don’t feel like dying when we get up later.”

“Sounds good to me.”

I closed my eyes and let sleep take me once again.

When I woke up again a few hours later the pounding in my head was still there, but my stomach didn’t feel like it was going to let loose on me. The soft snores next to me made it very clear that Emily was still sleeping. Getting up slowly so I didn’t disturb her, I grabbed some clean clothes and tiptoed out of the bedroom, shutting the door behind me. I needed Advil, caffeine, and food—in that order.

The apartment was silent, but I could see Nick’s door open, a line of clothes trailing from his bedroom to the bathroom. Stifling a chuckle, I shook my head and picked up the clothes. My guess was that he was having a pretty rough day at work.

After a quick shower, a glass of water, and some Advil, things were a bit better. The one thing I knew about Emily and hangovers was that she was going to want something greasy later when she got up. That, and I was starving.

I didn’t bother with my contacts—my eyes were dry enough as it was—and just put on my glasses. With my phone in hand, I left the apartment in search of burgers. It was a little before noon, so I decided to text Nick and see if he wanted anything while I was out. The reply was instant, he wanted food and coffee.

First, I stopped by the local coffee shop and grabbed two black coffees for myself and Nick, and a hazelnut latte for Emily. Then I made a quick run to the local burger place and got each of us a burger and fries. Emily would bitch about the calories but we could work it off together later.

When I pulled up outside the research center where Nick worked as a chemist, I realized that the few extra hours of sleep I’d had had helped to control some of the hangover. As he stood with his back to the wall, his head tipped back, I could see Nick hadn’t been so lucky. He looked like death warmed over, the dark, heavy bags under his eyes the most prominent feature on his face.

“Hey, man, what are you doing outside? It’s hot as hell.” I walked up and handed him the coffee first. He gripped the cup like it was his lifeline.

“Smell of the chemicals.”

“I guess changing majors wasn’t the best ideas on days like today.”

He shook his head and groaned. “No, I still love what I do. How often do I have days like this anyway?”

Nick had been in the engineering program with Caleb and I up until the end of sophomore year. After he’d finished the chemistry requirement, he decided that was a better fit for him and switched.

“Almost never, but I did tell you to take today off.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He waved his hand dismissively. “Did you bring me food?”

I handed him the bag and watched as he opened and took a nice long inhale. “Oh, the greasiness.”

I chuckled. “You’re as bad as Em with hangover food.”

“Yeah. I knew I adored her for a reason,” he said, digging into the bag.

Looking down at my watch, I saw it was getting late. Emily would be getting up soon. I gave Nick a quick pat on the back. “All right, I’m out of here. I see you when you get home.”

He swallowed the bite of burger that was in his mouth. “You mean when I drag my ass home and crawl into bed.”

“That’s exactly what I meant.”

He held up the burger. “Thanks for the food.”

“No problem. Have fun at work.”

When I got back to the apartment, the shower down the hall was running. Instead of going into the bathroom like parts of my body wanted me to, I put all the food onto plates and brought them out into the living room. While my head no longer felt like woodpeckers were trying to drill through my skull, I still didn’t feel all that great. I grabbed the TV remote and flopped back onto the couch.

A few minutes later the water shut off. Flipping through the channels, I found a movie to watch. Emily walked into the living room. She was still pale, but the green tint to her skin was gone.

“Thank God. You got coffee.”

“I got you a burger and fries too. Come sit down and eat.”

She dropped down on the couch next to me. “Fast food and caffeine. You’re so good to me.”

“I do my best. Did you guys have fun last night?”

She took a large swig of her coffee. “Ahh . . . that’s good. The parts I can remember, yes. Caleb’s parent’s sent a limo so none of us had to drive.”

“They sent one here too. It was pretty awesome.”

“Yeah, except I ended up drinking way more than I planned because I didn’t have to worry about how I was getting home.”

“How much did you have to drink?”

“Enough that a few parts of the night are fuzzy. What about you? Did you guys have a good time?”

“Shit, I haven’t drunk that much in a while.”

“I figured. It’s been a while since I’ve seen you in glasses during the day.”

“True. I don’t think my eyes could handle contacts at this point. By the way, Nick was throwing a fit about Morgan going with you guys.”

“Dumbass,” she mumbled around a mouthful of food.

“Tried to tell him that.” I picked up my burger and started to eat.

“Doesn’t he get that he can’t dictate what she does every hour of every day?”

“Again, tried to tell him that. Then he was whining about no strippers,” I said between bites.

Her head whipped in my direction, her eyes narrowed. “Tell me you didn’t.”

“What? No, we told him to get over it. We spent the whole night at the bar. You don’t think I learned my lesson?” I scoffed.

She patted me on the cheek. “Of course you did. What are we watching?”

“Whatever you want.”

She focused on the TV. “Oh, I like this movie. It’ll work.”

We finished eating and I got up to clear the plates, before settling down with Emily on the couch again. Even though we were fighting hangovers, it was still nice to spend the day curled up together. We watched a few movies, slowly feeling better and better, but I knew it would still take a good night’s sleep to feel one hundred percent. We heard from Caleb and Angie throughout the day—apparently they were in the same shape we were—but they were making sure everyone was ready for the next day.

Eventually, Nick stumbled in the door from work and we ordered pizza for dinner. He didn’t last long, barely making it through the meal. As soon as we finished, he was off to bed. We stayed up for a few more hours just chilling on the couch. It felt good to be a bum all day. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d done that.

Emily stood up and stretched, showing off her toned stomach. “I’m going to bed. There’s so much to do tomorrow.”

“I’m coming with you. I need to sleep off the last of this crap.” Following her down the hall, neither of us wasted much time crawling into bed, and as soon as my head hit the pillow I was sound asleep.

When I woke the next morning Emily was already gone. I knew they had early appointments to get ready for the wedding. That was the best part about being a guy. All I had to do was shower, shave, and get dressed. Nick was already up.

“You look a thousand times better than yesterday.”

“Thanks, dickhead. At least I don’t feel like dying anymore. I thought those chemicals were going to kill me yesterday.”

I walked into the kitchen and took a seat.

“I made coffee, do you want some?” Nick asked.

“Yeah, thanks.”

He handed me a mug and sat down across from me. “What time do you have to be there today?”

“I have a few hours before I have to leave.”

“I have to pick Morgan up, since Lauren’s with Angie.”

“Don’t make it sound like such a chore.” I took a sip of my coffee.

“It isn’t. I was just saying . . . never mind. Whatever.”

I laughed. “Now you have your panties all in a twist.”

“Shut up, asshole.”

We sat in silence for a few minutes before returning to our conversation. It was always the same with us. We’d bust each other’s balls, then go back to whatever we were talking about. It was the best part about having Nick as a best friend. We both had the same sense of humor, and knew each other well enough to know when to not take the other one seriously.