“Oh my God.” She covered her eyes with one hand, wishing she could crawl all the way under the covers and not come out. Like, ever. But Sprinkles wasn’t allowing that. Nope. He was awake with a capitalAand he wanted to play. He hopped around her, making little puppy squeals, and it occurred to her that he probably needed to go out before he wet the bed. The bed that wasn’t hers.
She pushed herself to a sitting position and swung her feet over the side, and yeah, she was in her underpants and an unfamiliar T-shirt. In the name of all that was holy, did she take her clothes off while she was drunk? She glanced around the room, wondering if there was anything she could use to kill herself but then realized that as soon as she saw Sabrina, she would die of embarrassment anyway. She covered her face with both hands and let out a low, soft moan of shame. Sprinkles thought that meant she definitely wanted to play and began jumping and barking at her.
“Shh,” she said as she petted him and tried to calm him down. “Let me find my pants and I’ll take you out, okay?”
“No need,” came Sabrina’s voice, and then there she was, standing in the doorway, a mug in each hand. “He’s already been out.” She held out a mug, and Adley could smell the freshly brewed coffee.
She took it with both hands, held it under her nose, and inhaled deeply. What was it about the aroma of coffee in the morning that seemed to make everything better again?
Not that it was because Adley was still pantsless, and she didn’t even want to think about looking in a mirror. Her mouth tasted like something had crawled into it in the night and died. She could actually feel the mess that her hair surely was, a true rat’s nest on her head, she was certain. And she likely didn’t smell great, wine seemingly leaking from her pores even hours after she’d drunk the last glass. She took a sip of the coffee, feeling it all the way down, into her stomach, her limbs, her veins. It gave her enough strength to say a few words.
“I’m really sorry,” she said quietly, not meeting Sabrina’s eyes. “Just give me a second and I’ll get out of your hair.”
Instead of agreeing, Sabrina came into the room and sat next to her on the bed. “There’s nothing to apologize for. Listen, you don’t have to hurry. It’s Sunday morning. Relax for a bit. Take some more Motrin. Drink your coffee. You’re welcome to the bathroom and shower if you want.”
She was mortified. Truly mortified. The longer she was awake, the more she remembered about the night before—though some of it was just blank—and the worse she felt. She’d just shown up. Drunk. Just shown up at Sabrina’s home to tell her off. What the hell was wrong with her? Was this what it meant to be spiraling?
“I’m also happy to talk. If you want.” Sabrina’s voice was gentle. She didn’t seem the least bit angry. In fact, she was almost inviting.
“I’m so sorry,” Adley said again, because seriously, what else was there to say? “I just…” She sighed as more pieces clicked into her memory. “I’d spoken to my parents about a loan for the Scoop and they turned me down and…” Too late, she remembered who she was talking to, and a little spark of anger flickered inside her. She finally looked at Sabrina—goddamn it, why did she have to look so pretty in her casual Sunday morning clothes? “Yeah, that’s right. I need an influx of cash to keep my ice cream shop alive.” She waved a dismissive hand at her. “Take that info back to your mother ship. Doesn’t matter anymore.”
The look on Sabrina’s face just then…like Adley had slapped her. She blinked rapidly and gave her head a subtle shake. “I wouldn’t do that,” she said quietly, and somehow, that took the fight right out of Adley.
They sat in silence while Sprinkles jumped around and tried his best to get them to laugh. And he succeeded in coaxing smiles here and there as he tugged on the bedding and Adley’s shirt, which reminded her that she was still minus bottoms. She glanced around the room to locate her clothes and was suddenly hit with another memory piece.
“Oh God.” She covered her mouth with her hand and could not bring herself to make eye contact with Sabrina as she spoke in barely a whisper. “Did I kiss you last night?”
Sabrina took a beat or two before nodding. “Just a small one.” She lifted a shoulder and smiled, like she was trying to downplay the fact that Adley had shown up at her house drunk, kissed her, and then passed out in her bed.
“Oh God.” She stood up, searching frantically for her pants—for any pants, really. Mortified. That was the only word to describe how she was feeling. Absolutely mortified. Sprinkles, of course, took her jumping up from the bed and scurrying around the room as a sign she wanted to play and followed her around, bouncing next to her, his little yips the only sound in the house.
Sabrina tried to wrangle him, finally succeeding in swooping him up into her arms. “Chill, little dude,” she said quietly to him, and when Adley managed a glance at them, he was licking Sabrina’s chin with the kind of adoration in his eyes that only a puppy could display. The imagewas adorable, and in another life, Adley might’ve stopped to take it in for longer than the two-point-five seconds she allowed herself. Becausemortified.
“I have to get out of here,” she muttered as she finally located her pants and shirt and bra neatly folded in a pile on a chair in the corner. She stepped into her pants, fastened them, and was too much of a mess to whip off her shirt in front of Sabrina, even though they’d seen each other naked not all that long ago. She grabbed up her shirt and bra and stuffed them into her bag that was sitting right there on the floor. “I’ll get your shirt back to you later,” she said quietly as she pushed past Sabrina, found her shoes, and stepped into them.
“It’s no problem,” Sabrina said, following her around the house.
At the front door, her hand on the knob, she turned to look at Sabrina, standing there all gorgeous with a puppy in her arms—Seriously, Universe? You’ve gotta hit me with both barrels like this?—and sighed, her shoulders dropping in embarrassed defeat. “I’m really sorry I showed up here on you the way I did.”
“I’m not.” Sabrina’s words were soft, and were her eyes a little wet?
Adley chose not to examine that any farther and shifted her focus to the dog. She reached out, gave his head a scratch, and tried to ignore how close she had to be to Sabrina to do so. “Bye, little guy. Be good.”
She turned and fled.
And remembered that she’d walked there and now had to walk back to the bar where she’d left her car.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered but forced herself to keep walking and not look back. She hadn’t heard the door shut so assumed Sabrina was still standing there.
Watching her walk away.
* * *
She should’ve offered to drive Adley back to her car.
That was the first thought Sabrina had as she stood in the doorway, wiggling puppy in her arms, and watched as Adley hurried away from her as quickly as she possibly could without actually sprinting. But that thought was quickly followed by another one—that Adley would never have accepted it. She couldn’t get away from Sabrina fast enough.Being shut in a car with her would’ve been torture. And the last thing Sabrina wanted to do was make Adley feel any worse than she already did.
She waited until Adley had turned a corner and hurried out of sight before she finally shut the door and set Sprinkles down on the floor. She expected him to run off and find a toy, but instead, he sat next to the door and looked up at her with his sad puppy-dog eyes and whined softly.
