TKO: Total Knock Out (TKO 1)

“Who the hell else would be calling from my phone?” More giggling as I slide my body down the brick wall until my ass rests firmly on the ground.

“Are you drunk?” he asks, his voice laced with concern.

“If I am, will you arrest me? I’ve been a bad, bad girl.” More giggles. I almost drop the phone.

“Raegan.”

“Say my name one more time.”

“Rae, tell me where you are. Please tell me you aren’t driving.” Oh no, I must be in trouble because he called me Rae. My slave name. Okay, no more drinking tonight.

“I’m at Joe’s. What’s it matter to you whether I drive or not?”

“I’m coming to get you.” The call ended abruptly and I caught myself staring at the screen willing his voice to appear again.

Within a few minutes, his truck pulls up to the curb and once again I throw my head back laughing. I try to keep myself from looking like a complete idiot, but it’s impossible. I try to stand but my legs are like jello. James helps me up, not once complaining about the fact that his ex-girlfriend called him because she was plastered. He helps me stumble into the cab of his truck, then shuts the door.

“Where is Adryian? She joining the party?”

“She’s out of town, Raegan, and there’s no party.” He pilots the truck onto the main thoroughfare. “Where are you staying so I can bring you home? I know it’s not with your dad.”

“I really, really have to pee like really, really bad. Please, James.”

He sighs as he turns down an upcoming street, pulling into the lot by his apartment building. The building I almost moved into. I feel sick to my stomach as the truck stops and he opens the door for me.

“You remember where it is?” He asks as if I’ve been here more than once. But I remember. I remember everything from that day we first came here.

Once we’re inside, I want to lose all the liquor in my stomach when I see a picture of him and Adryian hanging on the wall by the bathroom door. The ocean colored tile meets my gaze as I walk into the bathroom. That floor is one of the things that attracted me to this apartment, and now she gets to walk on it every day.

I spot a box in the trashcan. A pregnancy test. My vision blurs as I stare at it.

“W-w-what the hell is this, James?” I stammer.

“Oh, uh. Sorry. She had a scare the other day.”

“Oh, well I, uh, sorry—”She could’ve been pregnant with James’s baby? Welcome to reality, Raegan.

A wave of nausea hits me as I realize I don’t have to pee anymore. Instead, I’m kneeling over the toilet talking to the porcelain gods. Nothing sits in my stomach any longer but I can’t quit dry heaving. I feel like an idiot, especially when James begins rubbing my back while pulling my hair out of my face.

Any attempt made to move is deeply regretted and I mutter once or twice for him to just leave me here. He doesn’t listen though. He scoops me up, and I wrap my arms around his neck instinctively, like I have a million times before. He lays me in his bed; I’d know this brown checked comforter anywhere. I kick to remove my shoes and I hear him groan as he tugs my pants off.

He doesn’t try anything though. I hear him mumble that my pants are splattered with vomit as he replaces my clothes with one of his t-shirts. The last thing I remember is curling up in the fetal position and forgetting everything.

***

My head feels like it’s going to explode, and I keep my eyes shut for fear of just how horrible this hangover really is. Finally I open my eyes, and I nearly scream.

Why am I in James’s bed? And more importantly, where is he?

I groan as I slowly climb off the mattress. Then I realize the blue t-shirt I’m wearing isn’t my own. On top of that, I’m not wearing pants. Fuck.

All of a sudden James walks in.

“Ohmigod, can you knock?” I scrambled to wrap the sheet around me, stumbling to the ground in the process.

“Chill out, Raegan, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Did we—”