Rock Star Billionaire

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I woke up feeling the weight of the whole universe in my head. Slowly opening my eyes, afraid of the light, I surveyed the room to make sure it was my own. Phew. And I was alone, fully clothed, thank god. I licked my lips, still flat on my bed, head pounding, feeling extremely dehydrated. Reaching for the glass of water next to my bed was an enormous struggle and when I finally grabbed it, it was gone in seconds. What was going on with me?

Then I remembered…last night…the bar…the shots…the birthday party. My last hazy memory was dancing with the birthday girl, after which my mind went blank. I had no idea how or when we had gotten home. I pulled out my phone to call Stacey – it felt like too much effort to go over to the other room – and then almost had a mini heart attack.

There were thirteen texts from Zayden, and one from Brianna (the birthday girl?) saying “New bestieeeee!!!!”

I shuddered to think of what may have caused her to give me that coveted title. I must have done something crazy…danced on the bar counter? That wasn’t something I was completely innocent of.

No wonder Zayden’s texts sounded so concerned. Pretty much all of them were some variant of asking me if I was okay. What did I say to him? Shit.

I scrolled through my sent box to see an embarrassing number of texts to Zayden. Not much was decipherable, but one of them said, “im non ibject.” Even I could translate that to “I’m not an object.” And another one that said “fyk ue contact.” I could only assume that meant “fuck your contract.?

? Then there was “ehy camt I play mumbs lke evry1 eler huh.” “Why can’t I play numbers like everyone else.” This made me extremely glad that nobody else outside of Nick, me, and Stacey knew what Numbers was.

To my utter and complete horror, the phone rang, and it was Zayden. I thumbed the green answer button and weakly pressed the phone to my ear.

“Yes?” I spoke softly.

“What’s up drunky?” He said. I could feel him grinning through the phone and it made me want to throw something.

I mumbled “go away” but didn’t hang up the phone.

“Still unable to speak, I see. That was the theme last night.”

“Look, I’m sorry about the texts…wait…what was the theme of last night?”

“You calling and slurring words that more or less didn’t make an ounce of sense.”

“I called you?” That made me sit up straight.

“When didn’t you call me? About seven times last night. I spoke with quite a few inebriated pals of yours. Some girl named Brianna kept saying her name was Brianna and it was her birthday and that men sucked.”

“I remember very, very little about this person.”

“Last night she was your best friend. She had started suggesting you get on top of the bar counter and dance when I decided to send Ned over to take you home.”

“What?”

“You remember Ned?”

“No, I mean, what do you mean you sent him to take me home?”

“You and your roommates. You told me what bar you were at and I thought it was time for you to go home, based on your complete inability to speak a coherent sentence.”

“Who are you to decide when it’s time for me to go home? You’re not my mother!” A familiar pang of anger started building up inside me. The nerve of this guy.

“I sure hope not. That would be awkward for everybody. But seriously, are you okay?”

“That is quite frankly none of your business,” I snapped.

What was his deal? Just because he has money and a fancy car and driver, he thinks he can push people around and make decisions for them? We would’ve been perfectly fine taking a cab back home. We’d done it countless times before. It’s not like I didn’t have a life before Zayden came into the picture!

“I would say it is, given our contract. It says specifically—”

“Why don’t you just become a lawyer and be done with it?” I sounded angry and that, combined with the headache that was making me feel like I would go blind any second, made me think that I was perhaps not in the best state of mind to have this conversation with Zayden right now. “Look, I am in a lot of pain right now. I’m sure you’ve experienced the mother of all hangovers. It’s not pretty and I am not functional currently. I assure you I didn’t do anything last night that would even put a dent in the contract—“

“I know. You kept saying that last night. I’m not worried, you were on the phone with me practically the whole evening.”