Better Off This Way

I woke up the next morning with a start. Why was it so fucking in my room? More importantly, why was I naked and why did a sleeping boy have his bare arm around me?

The realizations came pouring in, which were not doing a lot to help with my throbbing headache. The reason I was so hot was simple enough to explain- I always got feverish as hell when I was hungover. My other questions didn’t have quite as clear of an explanation.

I rolled over out of said boy’s embrace onto my stomach and leaned on my hand. I remembered everything up to getting home last nigh. I knew I had kissed a boy at the show last night. That at least solved the mystery of who was in my bed. What was his name again? Brad. No, Ben. Brian? BRIAN.

Judging by the clothes strewn all over my bedroom floor and how sore my lower body was, I didn’t have to convince myself twice that Brian and I had had sex.

I sighed, pulling myself up and getting out of bed. I shuffled into the bathroom adjoining my room.

Pulling my hair up into a ponytail revealed a pair of hickeys- one each of side of my neck.

“Oh that’s cute,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes.

Looking back over my shoulder into my room, I saw Brian had rolled over onto his back and was snoring quietly.

I felt myself smiling. This kid intrigued me, as much as I regretted what had drunkenly happened last night.

I decided to shower quickly. The warm water felt good on my skin and I inhaled the fresh sent of my soap as I scrubbed myself clean.

Humming to myself, I hopped out of the shower, drying off slowly. I towel dried my hair, tossing it over my shoulders and wrapping the towel around my body.

I walked back into my room where a now awake Brian, who had pulled back on his white v-neck and boxers, greeted me and was leaning back on the frame of my bed.

His eyes looked me over, and I instantly felt self conscious in my towel.

“Hey,” he said, dropping his eyes, sensing the awkwardness I felt.

“Hey yourself,” I responded quickly before hurrying over to my closet to grab a blue pocket v-neck and a pair of jean shorts.

I turned back around, still clutching my towel to my body tightly, to see Brian’s trademark smirk.

“Cute hickeys klutz,” he said, chuckling.

“Oh yeah, I’ve been meaning to thank you for those,” I said, running over to my bed, jumping on top of Brian, aiming to punch him with my right hand.

To my shock, I had forgotten my right hand was the only thing that was holding my towel to my body. It slipped off and I found myself naked, straddling Brian.

His eyes widened as he got a face full of my boobs. Grinning, he sat up, pulling me to him. He stared into my eyes for a brief moment before kissing me softly.

Brian pulled back abruptly when I didn’t kiss back. “Sorry Lindsey,” he said, “I can’t help myself. You’re beautiful.”

I could feel myself blushing. “Me? Nah,” I shrugged. “I am impressed you remembered my name though,” I teased before leaning in to kiss him, this time with passion.

Our kiss deepened, and Brian rolled me over onto my back, climbing on top of me.

He leaned down to kiss me once again, and our tongues fought for control.

I pulled away suddenly. Brian looked down with a look of concern. “What’s wrong,” he asked.

“Nothing,” I said, an idea forming in my head. I stretched my neck up to kiss him yet again, pulling his shirt over his head as he raised his arms.

I pulled away just as he started to kiss me faster and buried my lips on the side of his neck, sucking as hard as I could.

“Just returning the favor,” I laughed, pulling away from his neck, after kissing his collarbones.

“Oh, now you’re gonna get it,” Brian teased, slipping out of his boxers.

Forty-five minutes later, I found myself in the same position I had found myself in only a mere hour and a half before: hot and naked with a boy’s bare arm over my back. This time, I remembered everything, because I had been sober.

I had never been so exhausted from sex in my entire life. Granted, Jordan and I had only had sex a couple of times back in New York before I left, and none of the times had been that great for me, personally.

Despite that, and the sex Brian and I had just had coupled with the sex we had had the night before, my body was so sore I didn’t think I would be able to move, let alone walk for days.

I took several deep breaths before exhaling and letting out a “Wow.”

“Damn klutz,” Brian said, reaching over to tousle my hair softly, “that was pretty fucking good.”

“It was decent,” I said jokingly. I leaned over to kiss him before getting up to finally put on the clothes I had gotten out of my closet earlier.

Brian stood up as well, and we both dressed in silence. We each took our turns in the bathroom. I brushed my teeth, splashed some cool water on my face and put on a little makeup, mostly attempting to apply cover up to my neck to cover to massive hickeys from earlier, which were now joined by a third.

Despite my best attempts, the two hickeys on the left side of my neck refused to go away altogether.

Deciding that since my mother wasn’t due back for another day or two, and that the only person I knew or somewhat cared about in Phoenix was the one who had done the damage on my neck, I left the hickeys noticeable on my neck, although I pulled my hair into a side ponytail in a slight attempt to hide them.

“So, it’s a rule in my band that if you sleep next to a girl, you have to buy her breakfast,” Brian said. “Although, there is a girl in our band, so I guess for her the rule is reversed.”

I had forgotten he was in a band.

‘There’s a girl in your band,” I questioned, as we headed down the stairs to the main entryway, finding the shows we had so quickly kicked off the night before.

“Yeah, Jess, she’s the drummer,” Brian explained.

“That’s kind of badass,” I admitted. “And what do you play?”

“Oh me? I sing,” Brian smirked.

I laughed out loud. “I really should have known,” I chuckled before bending down to pick up my car keys that were laying on the floor.
“I’ll just assume that’s a compliment,” Brian said, and we both laughed as we walked out the front door. I locked it behind us before turning to face an empty driveway.

“Fuck. We took a cab here last night, didn’t we,” I asked, growing slightly irritated.

“Now that you mention it,” Brian said, rubbing the back of his head and squinting his eyes in the sunlight, “that does sound familiar.”

“So both of our cars are still at that bar, and judging by the state of my wallet, I spent 60 bucks on a 10 minute cab ride last night. Great, looks like we’re walking,” I snapped.

“Hey now, unlike you, I actually have more than one friend in Arizona. I’m sure my buddy John can pick us up. He lives pretty close to here,” Brian said, dialing a number on his Blackberry.

“John,” I heard Brian say as I walked back to my front porch and sank onto to the step.

“Hey man, so long story short, me and this girl are stranded at her house without a car and would really appreciate a ride. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Brian talked quickly, laughing loudly ever so often.

Great, that’s just excellent, I pouted. The first impression Brian’s friends would have of me is that I was a drunken whore who slept with guys- twice- within 24 hours of meeting them.

From my perch, I checked Brian out. He was attractive; I would give him that. He definitely wasn’t the brown haired, brown-eyed guy I usually drooled over, but he had a part of him that really intrigued me. I bit my lip hard, pondering the current situation I had gotten myself into.

“Hey Linds- what’s your address,” Brian yelled across the yard.

I called my address back at him and Brian hung up the phone before coming over to sit on the step beside me.

“John said he’ll be here in about 10 minutes,” he said.

We sat in an awkward silence and we both stood up a little too quickly when a black SUV of some sort pulled into my driveway.

“That’s our queue,” Brian said, standing up and stretching before strutting over to the passenger side door of the car and getting in.

I followed, getting into the back seat of the car, right behind the driver, who I assumed to be John.

“Hi, I’m John, the brown haired boy with oversized indie glasses said, smiling at me, before backing down the driveway.

“Lindsey,” I said with a shy smile.

His eyes looked me over, and they widened as they passed over my neck.

I blushed slightly and tugged at my ponytail, to hide the damage.

“Damn Dales,” whistled John as he motioned to his own neck.

“Why are you surprised Brian has such a big mouth,” I snapped. Surprisingly, John and Brian found this hilarious.

“Where to,” John questioned. Brian gave him directions to the bar. Brian and John talked the whole way to the bar, mostly about the band, which I assumed John was part of. I was relieved to not be included in the conversation.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw my Jeep still parked out front as we pulled up.

“Thanks man, appreciate it,” Brian said, slapping John’s back as he climbed out of the car.

A quiet “thanks” was all I could manage before also climbing out of the car.

“Nice meeting you, Lindsey,” John smiled at me before turning to talk to Brian. “Dude, band practice Monday at Josh’s right?”

“Yeah, I’ll be there,” Brian said, leaning into the car, shaking John’s hand before John pulled out the parking lot, waving at me as he did so.

I waved half heartedly as John pulled out of the parking lot and drove away.

“So,” Brian said, grinning at me, “about that breakfast.”

“Uh, I-I-I’m not really that hungry. I really should get going,” I said. Part of me desperately wanted to go, but seeing as we couldn’t hold a conversation for the 10 minutes spent waiting for John on my front porch, I didn’t see how sitting in a crowded restaurant would change things. I figured this would be the first and last time I would see Brian anyway. I didn’t want to get my hopes up for anything just to see them shot down.

“Well, you have to take a rain check. I might get kicked out of my band if they found out we slept together and didn’t even go to Denny’s,” he said, sounding slightly disappointed.

“Deal,” I agreed, yawning. “Well, nice meeting you,” I said awkwardly, turning to walk to my car.

“Wait, you,” Brian said, grabbing my shoulder. “I don’t even have your number,” he said, laughing.

“Oh, right,” I said, forgetting for a moment we had only met less than a day ago. I gave him my number as he typed it into his phone, before starting to walk away.

“Don’t you want mine,” Brian called after me.

“I’ll wait for you to text me,” I called back, despite the slight crush I was developing. That way, if I never heard from him again, I would never be tempted to text or call him. I could just forget that the night of June 2nd never happened.

“Hard to get. I like it,” Brian said, walking toward me. He embraced me in a hug that I held for just a second too long.

“Bye Brian. Nice to meet you,” I said, this time walking away for good.

“The pleasure was all mine,” Brian yelled back before walking across the street to his own red car.