I Am Jack's Life Ch. 14

I smirked. That was kind of funny. At least on six glasses of champagne.

Abby grinned at me, "I know you wanted to as well. I know you've been playing what if with it all day. You're even easier to read than she is."

I sighed. I couldn't lie to any of my friends. Abby least of all. Girl was way too damn smart.

"Hey, that's what I am right? The nice guy. The guy that tutors a girl that he's got no chance with, and dances with his ex at her wedding to the guy that terrorized him as a kid."

Abby made a face and looked around for a champagne bottle that still had something in it.

"Bah, now that is ancient history. You aren't that guy anymore. You could have any single girl here in a snap of your fingers," she said and found a bottle with a couple of swigs left in it.

I glanced at Beth. She was dancing with her boyfriend from USC. He was probably going to get drafted next year.

Yeah, I totally missed Abby's signal. I'm kind of stupid that way.

I just sighed and took the bottle from her and killed it.

"When are you headed back to San Francisco?" she asked after a second.

"Tomorrow evening. My flight leaves LAX at 7:50."

She smiled, "Southwest?"

I nodded.

"That's mine too," she grinned. I smiled.

She stood up and grabbed my hands, "Let's slip away Jack, I wanna hit the town before I go back to my hotel room and feel like an old maid because one of my best friend's just tied the knot and I'm still a spinster."

I got and tossed the empty champagne bottle in the trash, "Lead the way Abigayle, I've been ready to leave for hours."

She smiled at me, and it was her smile that said she knew something I didn't. It was a pretty common smile for her.

I said goodbye to my mom and told her Abby and I were going to go be irresponsible adults. She told me to make sure I called a cab and didn't try to drive. I promised her I would and I wouldn't. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and a sad smile. I bet she was missing dad. Which made me miss him too.

Abby grabbed my arm and drug me away. We didn't tell anyone else we were leaving, we just left. The single people. I guess we could have told Anna, but that would have ruined my evening.

Not, that I remembered anything from that evening at all.

#

Sunlight woke me.

Blinding me in the way that a welding torch in your eye is kind of hot. I twitched a little and that send waves of rumbling foulness in my guts. My mouth was full of cotton balls the size of Volkswagens. Someone had put a forty pound anvil on my head and it was slowly compressing my skull in a way that suggested any further movement on my part would have dire consequences.

Tequila. I remembered Tequila.

I started to roll onto my back, but I ran into something hard and lumpy.

Mustering all the will I had, I turned and cracked an eye and looked over my shoulder.

Abby was sprawled out on the bed. We'd changed before going out, and she was in the little black dress she'd put on so she didn't have to go clubbing in her bridesmaid outfit. She looked thoroughly unconscious.

Oh fuck, what had we done?

The need to either vomit or urinate was pretty overwhelming at this point, so I didn't try to think about anything else just yet.

I didn't turn on the light in the bathroom, so I could pee in blessed darkness. The sound of the unending stream of piss hitting the water was loud enough without the infernal white noise of the fan. I splashed some water on my face. Jesus Christ, I'd never been this hung over before. Not even after four years at Stanford. It must have been the champagne I'd started with at the reception. I drank about a gallon of water directly from the faucet.

I stumbled back out into the room, which I now processed was Abby's hotel room. She was sitting up on the bed looking like killing herself was a viable option.

I rubbed my face and croaked, "Did we..?" I asked.

She shook her head, "I already did the panty check. Still on and intact. We're good." She gave a sloppy thumbs up.

I nodded. Well that was a relief at least.

She got up and pushed past me into the bathroom. I noticed that she also did not use the light or fan, so I could hear her peeing through the door. Sounded as if I wasn't the only one with a full bladder.

"Oh god," she said through the door, her voice almost orgasmic in relief.

I couldn't help it, I laughed. But that was quite unpleasant, so I stopped almost right away.

"What did we do last night?" I asked her, still through the closed door.

"Drank all of the tequila in L.A. I'm pretty sure. You're kind of hard to keep up with," she replied. The toilet flushed and the faucet came on.

"Me?" I asked.

"Yes you. I've heard about you Stanford boys before, but never seen it in action until last night. We were drinking for school pride," she opened the door, she was drying off her face.

That explains it a little I think. She and I'd had a Berkeley vs Stanford thing going on for quite a while.

I leaned my head back against the wall with a thunk.

"God I don't think I've ever been this hung over," I moaned.

"Well, that's probably because after the tequila, we started doing Irish car bombs."

I winced.

"After a few rounds of the Irish car bombs we started doing shots of Jack, I think because your name is Jack, and that was funny as hell," she eased herself back onto the bed and laid down.

"Jesus Christ, how are we not in the hospital?" I mused out loud.

"You think if we went to the hospital now they would euthanize me?" she asked with a little whimper.

"I feel like shit," I said.

"Come back to bed. We have five hours until our flight. Let's spend it sleeping," she said, her eyes closed.

I eyed the bed.

She patted the bed beside her.

I went and laid down next to her. I closed my eyes and slept for another four hours.