Chapter 3
Aariz stood at the bottom of the stairs, running a hand through his disheveled hair. The morning sunlight filtering through his floor-to-ceiling windows felt accusatory somehow, highlighting every piece of evidence from last night's poor decisions.
"Okay," he called up to Mira, who was still wrapped in his bedsheet like some kind of toga-wearing philosopher. "Your dress has to be down here somewhere."
"Define 'has to be,'" she called back.
He started his search in the living room, finding his own shirt draped over the back of the couch like a flag of surrender. His jeans were nearby, crumpled on the floor next to the coffee table. The whiskey bottle sat empty on the table, surrounded by fancy cheese wrappers and cracker crumbs - a monument to their excellent life choices.
"Found your heels," he announced, holding up the expensive-looking shoes that were somehow on opposite sides of the room. "How did you even manage this?"
"I was drunk and possibly doing interpretive dance. It's all very hazy."
He spotted a flash of dark fabric behind the couch and pulled out her dress. It was wrinkled but intact, which was more than he could say for their dignity.
"Got it," he said, holding it up victoriously.
Mira appeared at the top of the stairs, still clutching the sheet. "Thank god. I was starting to worry I'd have to do the walk of shame in your bedding."
"Pretty sure the walk of shame requires actually having done something shameful."
"We woke up nearly naked together. That feels shame-adjacent."
She descended the stairs carefully, one hand holding the sheet up, the other on the railing. Even hungover and wrapped in expensive cotton, she somehow managed to look put together. It was annoying.
He tossed her the dress, which she caught with one hand while maintaining her grip on the sheet. A skill that probably required more coordination than he had right now.
"I'm taking a shower," she announced. "A long one. Using all your hot water."
"Guest bathroom is—"
"I know where it is. I've been here a million times."
She disappeared down the hallway, and he heard the bathroom door close, followed by the sound of running water. He looked around his living room, taking in the disaster area. Empty glasses, scattered food, their clothes strewn about like they'd been in a hurry to shed them. Which, apparently, they had been, even if neither of them could remember it.
He gathered up the glasses and brought them to the kitchen, then returned for the food wrappers and empty bottle. By the time he'd restored some semblance of order, he could hear Mira still in the shower, probably having an existential crisis under his rainfall showerhead.
His turn.
He headed upstairs to his bedroom, avoiding looking at the bed where they'd woken up tangled together. The sheets were a mess, pillows everywhere, clear evidence of... whatever had happened. Or hadn't happened. The uncertainty was almost worse than knowing.
His own shower was quick and efficient, the hot water helping to clear some of the fog from his head. He tried to piece together the previous night as he washed his hair, but everything after that third glass of whiskey was frustratingly blank. He remembered laughing about something. Mira moving closer on the couch. Her saying she was cold. His arm around her shoulders.
And then nothing until he'd woken up with her practically naked and draped across his chest.
He stepped out of the shower, dried off, and pulled on fresh clothes - dark jeans and a plain black t-shirt. Nothing fancy for a Sunday morning. He could hear movement downstairs now; Mira must have finished her shower.
When he came down, he found her in the living room, back in her dress from last night, attempting to do something with her damp hair using just her fingers. She'd found her purse somehow - it had been under the couch, naturally - and was digging through it looking for something.
"I don't have a hair tie," she muttered. "Of course I don't have a hair tie. Why would I have a hair tie when I actually need one?"
"Hold on."
He went back upstairs to his bathroom and found one of those fancy hair elastics his sister had left behind months ago. When he returned, Mira took it gratefully and pulled her hair back into a messy bun.
"Thanks. I look like I got hit by a truck, but at least now I look like I got hit by a truck with my hair somewhat under control."
"You look fine."
"I look like I spent the night drinking expensive whiskey and passing out on your couch."
"Well, technically—"
"Don't. Please don't finish that sentence."
She smoothed down her dress, which was definitely showing signs of having been worn during a night of poor decisions. "I should probably go. I have to be at work this afternoon, and I need to go home and change into something that doesn't scream 'I made questionable choices.'"
"Wait here," Aariz said suddenly. "I have something that might fit you."
"Aariz, I'm not wearing your clothes."
"Not mine. My sister leaves stuff here all the time. She's about your size."
Before Mira could protest further, he was back upstairs, rifling through the guest room closet where his sister stored her emergency wardrobe. He found a casual sundress - light blue, simple, definitely something that wouldn't look like borrowed clothes.
Back downstairs, he handed it to Mira. "Better than the dress of shame."
She held it up, considering. "Your sister won't mind?"
"She has like fifty dresses. She won't even notice."
"Okay, fine. But I'm keeping the dress of shame as a backup plan."
She disappeared into the bathroom again, and when she emerged a few minutes later, she looked significantly more put together. The sundress fit her perfectly, and combined with the still-damp hair pulled back, she looked almost like she hadn't spent the night drinking and sleeping in his bed.
Almost.
"Better?" she asked, doing a small spin.
"Much better. You look almost human."
"Wow, such flattery. No wonder you're single."
He was about to respond when the doorbell rang, cutting through their banter with the efficiency of a knife through butter.
They both froze.
"Who the hell is that?" Mira whispered, as if whoever was at the door could hear them.
"I have no idea."
The doorbell rang again, more insistent this time. Aariz walked over to the door, checked the security screen, and felt his stomach drop.
"Shit."
"What? Who is it?"
"My assistant."
"Your—" Mira's eyes went wide. "You have an assistant? Since when do you have an assistant?"
"Since I actually have to pretend to do work sometimes." He straightened his shirt, trying to look like someone who hadn't just woken up with his best friend in his bed. "Just... act normal."
"I'm always normal."
"That's objectively untrue."
He opened the door to find Kieran standing on his doorstep, looking annoyingly professional in khakis and a button-down shirt, tablet in hand, expression carefully neutral in that way that meant he was judging everything.
Kieran had been Aariz's personal assistant for about two years now, hired by his father as a "birthday gift" that was really code for "someone to make sure you actually do your job." They were the same age, both twenty-four, but Kieran had his life together in a way that Aariz found both admirable and slightly irritating.
"Morning," Kieran said, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. His eyes did a quick sweep of the entryway, taking in the slightly-too-neat living room, the faint smell of whiskey still in the air, Aariz's damp hair. "Late night?"
"Something like that."
Kieran's gaze moved past him to where Mira was standing near the couch, trying very hard to look casual and failing spectacularly. His eyebrows went up fractionally - the Kieran equivalent of shocked surprise.
"I see."
"You see what?" Aariz asked, moving toward the kitchen with perhaps too much urgency. He needed water. Or coffee. Or possibly a time machine.
"Nothing," Kieran said smoothly, following him. "It's not like it matters to me."
But his eyes kept darting back to Mira, who was now examining the abstract sculpture that she'd made fun of last night, as if it was the most fascinating thing she'd ever seen.
Aariz grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with water from the fridge. He was taking a long drink when Kieran asked, casually, "So who is she?"
Water went everywhere. Aariz choked, coughed, and spluttered, water dribbling down his chin and onto his shirt. "What do you mean?"
Kieran handed him a dish towel without changing expression. "The woman in your living room wearing what is clearly not the same clothes she arrived in last night, given that there's a wrinkled black dress hanging over the back of your bathroom door. Who is she?"
"She's—" Aariz wiped his face, trying to figure out how to explain. "She's my friend. We went out last night, things got messy, and she crashed here. That's it."
"Uh-huh." Kieran's tone suggested he believed absolutely none of this. "Well, your 'friend' aside, we need to discuss today's schedule."
"Today's Sunday."
"Today's the Sunday before your father's quarterly board meeting, which means you have prep work." Kieran tapped his tablet, pulling up what was undoubtedly a color-coded schedule that Aariz would ignore. "You have a conference call at two with the Singapore office, the revised budget reports to review before tomorrow morning, and your mother called three times yesterday about the family dinner next weekend."
"Can't the call wait?"
"No, because you've rescheduled it twice already, and the Singapore team is threatening to go over your head to your father."
"Great. Perfect. Love that for me."
Before Kieran could launch into what was surely a lecture about responsibility, there was movement on the stairs. Both of them turned to see Mira descending, now looking significantly more composed than she had earlier.
She'd found her purse again - seriously, how did it keep ending up in different places? - and had clearly run her fingers through her hair one more time. The sundress looked good on her, casual and effortless in a way her club dress from last night hadn't been.
Kieran's expression flickered with recognition. "Mira?"
She paused on the bottom step, and Aariz watched as she sized up the situation with the quick calculation she was known for. "Kieran. Hi."
"I didn't realize you and Aariz were..." He let the sentence trail off meaningfully.
"We're not," they said in unison, which probably didn't help their case.
Mira continued down the stairs with renewed confidence, the kind she wore like armor when she wanted people to back off. "We're friends. We went out last night, things got complicated, and I crashed here. End of story."
"Of course." Kieran's face was perfectly neutral again. "None of my business anyway."
But his eyes said he was filing this information away for later, probably to compare notes with whatever other assistants gossiped about their bosses' personal lives.
Mira walked over to where her heels were lined up neatly by the couch - Aariz must have put them there during his cleanup - and slipped them on. "I should head out. I have work this afternoon, and I need to go home first."
"Wait," Aariz said, surprising himself. "Have breakfast first."
She turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. "Breakfast?"
"Yeah. You know, that meal people eat in the morning? I was going to make something anyway."
"You cook now?"
"I make eggs. And toast. Sometimes simultaneously."
Kieran coughed, which might have been covering a laugh. "I can give you two some privacy—"
"Don't be ridiculous," Mira said, but she was looking at Aariz with an expression he couldn't quite read. "You don't have to feed me. I can grab something on the way home."
"I know I don't have to. I want to." He moved toward the kitchen, leaving no room for argument. "Besides, you need food before you face whatever disaster is waiting for you at work."
She hesitated for just a moment, then sighed. "Fine. But nothing fancy. I don't have the stomach for your rich people food right now."
"Eggs and toast it is."