I bite through the pain and sit up halfway, squinting through the brightness. I’m on a bed. It’s not mine. There’s a dude sitting in a chair across from it, and from the sound of the air pushing out from his lips, he’s dead asleep. No idea who the fuck that is.
I roll back over, racked with discomfort. How much did I drink last night? I try to remember what went down, but the last thing that comes to mind is my kid brother’s let-down face when I told him I wasn’t up for playing catch or backyard bases with him. “Why?” Rudy griped in that whiny voice of his, but I was already heading back inside to fetch another beer.
I feel a pang of regret suddenly. I shouldn’t keep putting him off. Rudy’s a freshman at Morris High now, and he’s likely having a hard enough time without his older bro being a prick on top of it.
Having eleven years between your only other sibling and spending the first half of his formative years on the other end of the state playing baseball isn’t very conducive to having a close and brotherly relationship. We might as well both be an only-child. He’s probably seen more of me on TV than in real life.
That might be an exaggeration. The painful part is that I have to wonder if it is an exaggeration.
Do I have a broken rib, or is it totally normal to feel searing pain every time I take a breath?
I try to sit up again, this time using my hand to prop myself up. The bed is so damned cushy, my hand sinks into it, making the effort that much harder. I blink several times, forcing my eyes to adjust to the brightness, before turning back to give the other dude in the room a second looksee.
He’s still asleep, his legs thrown over one arm of the chair. He is hugging himself with his face turned slightly away, half-buried in the back cushion. He snores softly, every breath that escapes his lips turning into a hiss.
In a delayed flash, recognition gut-punches me.
I blink several more times. My vision clears. I sit up all the way despite the pain and lean forward, staring at him, scrutinizing the side of his face that I can see—just to be sure.
It is him. Ryan fucking Caulfield.
I don’t question how I got here. I don’t ask how the hell he found me—or where, or why. My first and only priority is to get the hell out of here before he wakes up.
As quietly as I can manage, I bring my legs over the edge of the bed. My socked feet land on a blue and white blanket bunched up on the floor for some reason. Slowly, I ease off the bed, then search around for my shoes, which I find on the floor in front of Ryan’s chair. When I bend over to grab them, pain cuts through me like a fucking broadsword, and I double over and let out a groan, falling against the side of the bed again.
I hear him shift in the chair behind me, and then his sleepy, groggy voice fills the room. “S-Stefan?”
I clench my eyes shut, half in pain, half in frustration. I don’t know how I expected to get out of here without making a sound, but clearly I’ve failed, and now I have to endure this awkward confrontation on top of the agony currently racking my body.
“Stefan …?” he tries again.
I get myself to a seated position on the edge of the bed, my shoes at my feet. My back is still half-facing him. “Yeah.”
“You alright?”
I snort. “Do I look alright to you?”
Shit. Why do I gotta go and act like a dick before we’ve even had a chance to greet each other? I’m such a shithead, I can’t even bear to show him my face, apparently.
He hesitates before answering. “No. You … You don’t. And you didn’t last night, either.”
I feel my blood run cold. I turn my head slightly, still keeping my back mostly to him. “What the hell happened to me last night, anyway?”
“You … were at Beebee’s. Well, you were drunk at Beebee’s, to be more accurate. And you got into a fight with a freakin’ beast, and then they all threw you out.”
I blink at the dresser ahead of me. None of that sounds the least bit familiar. I literally consider whether he’s making this all up and dicking with me.
“I … found you by the dumpster,” he adds.
“Dumpster?”
“And then I helped you up and … brought you here.”
I lift my gaze to the wall where a framed picture of our Little League team hangs, which catches me by surprise. What the hell does he have that hanging there for? I’m too far away to pick out our faces, kneeling around the coach as we are in it. Next to that, I see a framed diploma. Just above that, his college diploma. Squinting at it, I realize it’s actually his master’s.