sneak peek - raspberry girl (4)

unedited 

There’s a splitting headache pounding behind your eyes. 

It’s the only thing you can focus on for the first five minutes of being awake, reconciling it with queasiness, the ache of your joints. You feel like you drank an entire vat of vodka. 

Jesus. How did you even get ho-

Oh god. 

Oh my god. 

Fragments of last night come rushing back, shattered clips out of order and full of nonsense, things that make no sense. Improbable things. 

Captain Riley dressing you in his t-shirt. 

Captain Riley holding your chin while he brushes your teeth. 

Captain Riley wiping your make up off.

Captain Riley putting you in bed. 

The fabric of your dress, black with little blue and purple flowers, catches your eye. It’s sitting neatly on top of a dresser with your bra, your shoes on the ground just below, sitting side by side, and the world crashes down around you. 

Your stomach turns, nausea swelling into a wave that washes over you, forcing you from the bed to the bathroom on stumbling, heavy legs, snatching your clothes on the way in, throwing them to the ground as you lean over the toilet and lose what’s in your stomach, bile and water, the burn pulling tears from your eyes. 

What did you do?

Shame rips through you like a knife, stabbing you between the ribs hard enough to make you ache. Humiliation, that’s what this is. You’re humiliated. Humiliated that you drank so much he had to take you home from the bar. Humiliated that you couldn’t brush your own teeth or wash your face or change your clothes or put yourself in bed, humiliated you turned into an irresponsible, drunken mess. A burden. 

He’ll never look at you the same way again. 

You know what will happen now, of course. He’ll stop coming by the shop, or if he doesn’t, he’ll just stick to polite conversation. He won’t text you, and anything you send will be responded to with clipped, brief responses.

It always ends this way for one reason or another, but this, blacking out and making a fool of yourself, is certainly a first. 

A first you had with Captain Riley. The man you’ve spent every waking minute thinking about for months. 

Dumb. So dumb. 

You turn the sink on. Rinse and spit. Wash your hands. Splash your face with cold water, and then do it again, letting it mix with your tears, trying to use the shock of the temperature to slow your spiraling anxiety, your descent into madness.  

The fabric of your dress on your skin and the sight of his t-shirt crumpled on the ground, still warm from your body, nearly drives you to hysteria. 

Knuckles knock against the bathroom door, and then he’s calling your name. 

Your heart drops. 

The bathroom window is too small to crawl out of, but you did see a pretty big one in his bedroom. Maybe… 

“Open the door sweetheart.” You can do this. Just rip the bandaid off. Get it over with. You pull it wide, momentarily blindsided by what’s on the other side, Captain Riley in a pair of sweatpants and a white t-shirt, steam rising from a mug in his hand. A normal sized mug that for some reason, looks like a child’s toy. His gaze sweeps you from head to toe like an inspection of sorts before finally coming to trap you in his commanding, paralyzing gaze. He abandons the mug next to the sink as he steps inside and then turns to pull you closer, warm palm on the side of your neck. “Were you sick?” 

“No.” You croak, the lie so blatantly obvious based on the smell in the bathroom alone. His eyes narrow. 

“Try again.” You can’t force yourself to say it, so you nod miserably. “Oh baby,” He tugs you into his arms, cupping the back of your head into his chest. “Why didn’t you call for me?” Jesus. Christ. 

Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry.

He’s being so nice, it makes it all worse. Makes the ache spread all the way to your heart where it pounds so loud you’re sure he can feel it. ‘U-uh, I… I…” 

The severity of it all hits you like a truck, hard enough to make your knees weak, and you force yourself to step back, leave the warmth and safety of his arms, his body, his smell, his… everything. 

“I’m s-sorry about last night, th-this,” your stomach is queasy again, and you can’t bring yourself to look at him. “I… that was… I don’t usually drink that much, I’m… I’m sorry.” The walls are closing in, a sob so heavy you could drown in it builds in your chest, and you sink into the stark reality of what he’s probably waiting to say. It’s time to go. Get out of his house. “I’ll just… I’ll go.” You move farther of the bathroom, and he stills. 

“You’ll st-” 

“I need to go to work actually.” You’re scrambling, looking for anything that might make sense, might justify you sprinting out of this house. It’s amazing how solid your voice is, truly an impressive feat on your part, treading water in survival mode and trying to preserve a shred of dignity. “I have work. A lot of prep work. To do.” The uber app lights up under a stroke of your thumb. 

“Sweetheart…” he’s got his hands out now, palms open like you’re a wild animal thrashing in a trap and he’s going to free you. “Everything’s okay. You didn’t do any-” 

“I’m fine.” Your voice cracks when you cut him off. You can’t listen to him be nice to you after this. “It’s fine. But I-I… really do need to go.” You can’t describe the look on his face. It’s like he’s holding onto something with barely a shred of control, muscles in his arms tense, jaw tight. It almost looks like anger, mixed with concern, his eyes bright and focused, all of it making the edge of your vision blurry.