Almost Easy

Liz’s POV

My head ached as I sat up in bed, I winced a little at the whirring noise deep inside my skull. I looked beside me where I expected Danny to be laying, equally as dead as I was, but to my surprise his side of the bed was made up and his body gone. I ran my hands down my face and looked on my nightstand as something caught my eye. I smirked, a glass of water, ibuprofen, and a shot glass. I took the shot and shivered, whisky. I quickly popped a few pills and downed them with water, still shaking off the taste of a very familiar scent.

I climbed out of bed and wrapped myself in a robe, shuffling to the smell of coffee coming from the kitchen, “Oh you’re alive. I was coming to check on you in a few minutes.” Danny winked and leaned across the counter to kiss my cheek, “You puked four times last night so I’m going to avoid your mouth until you bleach it.”

“Love you too.” I laughed, “That shot was worse than the headache.”

It took a moment for the words to sink in to Danny’s mind and the realization of his mistake resonated while wiping the cheeky smirk off his face, “Ah shit, Lizzy I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine I should have noticed the smell before hand, or the color.” I brushed it off, the scent of whisky brought back pretty vivid memories of years ago and I tended to steer clear of them.

“Well, I forgot… I didn’t expect you and Martha to get that wild last night after the bowling trip.” He laughed.

We had dropped Colton off at Danny’s parents last night after bowling and went over to the Newcombs for some drinks. Martha and I may have started blasting some old school rap and getting far too drunk.

“That’s why I don’t do social media,” I laughed a little, “Because back in the day that would have been everywhere. I’m glad they’re not too into posting everything.” I mumbled and decided to take a quick scroll of Facebook to make sure none of last nights events made it online, “Safe. Good. What time did you tell your mom we were picking up Colty?”

“After one, I didn’t think you’d be functioning any time sooner than that.” Danny smirked at me and handed me a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs he had been finishing preparing, “We can get some alone time in before picking him up.”

I giggled at the eyebrow wiggle and shook my head, “I think I need a date with the jacuzzi and a gallon of water. Hate to rain on your parade darling. I think…” I glanced down at a stray clump of hair by my neck, “I think that’s puke. Oh good.”

“Go soak yourself, nasty woman. I’ll be right out here when you’re done.” Danny smiled and waved me towards the bathroom.

In the background of my mind I could hear the TV turn on to the morning news and Danny settling in on the couch with his coffee and breakfast. I wandered into the bathroom and turned the tub water on, running my fingers underneath until it was comfortably warm, I grabbed some soaking salts from the large glass jar on the edge of the tub and scattered then all in the water, inhaling the light lavender scent as it mixed with the steam saturating the air. I stood and stripped from last night’s underwear and slinked into the water, sighing heavily at the warm water beginning to peel off the hangover instantly. I grabbed my phone from the pocket of my robe after I had fully submerged myself in the potion of water. I opened up Facebook and scrolled around for a little before resorting to my email. But was further distracted by a phone call coming in from Martha.

“Hey Martha.” I played with some of the foam on top of the water.

“Oh good you’re alive! Dylan said you left wrecked last night, Danny was even a little shocked.” She chuckled, “But he was equally as shocked when I woke up today so that says a lot.”

“Good I’m glad I’m not the only closet drunk mom.” I laughed and poured some body wash over myself, “Tell me I wasn’t a horrific embarrassment to myself.” I silently prayed to myself.

“You only busted out a few dance moves from back in the day as you put it. That’s actually what I was calling about-“

“Oh good did I get offensive? I’m so sorry-“

“No way! Actually I was going to say it was refreshing to have another cool mom to hang out with! How would you feel about being part of our mom crew?”

“What do you mean? Like part of your mom group parties and stuff? Those emails I usually ignore? I mean I don’t ignore them.” I joked playfully, “What does this group entail? Nothing sketchy I assume?”

“Well we all have families to come home to so unfortunately no sketchy activities. We are however in the middle of planning a mom’s trip to Vegas though if you’d be interested, over winter break.”

My mind seized up at the offer and totally blacked out the rest of what she was saying, “I uh, I don’t really do Vegas-“

“That’s not what drunk Liz said last night.” I could hear the smirk in her voice and my hand hit my forehead, why Liz why!? “Well I assume, you said you used to party back in your prime. It’s just me and two other mom’s from the school who have kids Meri and Colts age. It would be so much fun. You really should come.”

I hesitated and but the inside of my lip, it was five years, there was no way this one small trip could fuck that up, I deserved to have some fun… Coming from the woman who just got married in Mexico, “Y’know. Why not, right? I’ll run it by Danny and see what he thinks, email me the info and stuff. I have to get back to this bath and soak if the vomit from last night, then I have to pick up Colton… But yeah send me the stuff, that does sound fun.”

Martha squeaked on the other end of the phone, “Ugh, that was a bad decision. Ok cool! I’ll send that info over! Can’t wait to have you with us Liz. Have a good recovery day, see you at drop off tomorrow.”

“Ok see you tomorrow.” I hung up and put my phone on silent and on the floor, I let my body sink down beneath the water and exhaled the air from my lungs, the bubbles exploding above my head at the surface of the water. Vegas. Vegas with a group of women who didn’t know an ounce of truth about my life before Colton started school.

I surfaced and let the water drag my hair backwards, I ran my hands down my face and gasped a breath of air in. For fucks sake they thought Colton was Danny’s. I closed my eyes right and lathered shampoo into my hair. The web I was weaving was starting to stick to my legs and I could feel it pulling me down to whatever was lurking beneath the surface of this seemingly perfect life.

The urge to scream was reaching up my neck and hanging on to that little dangling punching back in my throat, I stifled it down and finished washing my hair and cleaned up and washed off. I drained the tub and toweled of, grabbing a towel to wrap my body in before moving my robe and last night’s underwear to the dirty clothes basket. I meandered my way out to the bedroom and grabbed one of Danny’s shirts and pulled it on with clean underwear then shuffled to the living room and took up residence beside Danny. I pulled his arm over my body and snuggled into his side, breathing heavily in the scent of his body wash from his shirt prior to me waking up. The scent of our detergent mixing and complimenting perfectly, instinctively his fingers rubbed a pattern on my skin, pressing a kiss to the top of my head I let out a sigh.

“I love you Elizabeth.”

“I love you the most Daniel, thank you.” I whispered and zoned out on the television show playing out on the screen.