I slowly blink the sleep from my eyes and gently move my hands over my bloated stomach, a groan leaving my chapped lips. There's hair in my mouth that I try to spit out but it doesn't budge until I reach up and pull it away.
"Dont touch me, I'm sensitive," Isobel huffs.
I crank one eye open and see a head of blonde hair next to me. I squeeze my eyes closed again, willing the light that's pouring from the window to go away and leave me alone.
"Did I throw up?"
My voice is croaky and burning, like there's acid sitting at the roof of my mouth and sinking into my tongue.
"Yes. On me. Now shut the fuck up."
I listen to her request because I can't stand the sound of my own voice when it's like this either.
I push my arm up underneath the pillow to feel the cool cotton and sigh into the covers that are half draped over my face.
I smell like tobacco. Sandalwood.
That's not right.
Is that right?
Is that what my blankets usually smell like?
I try to open my eyes again, squinting at the light that continues pouring into the room. The comforter is dark grey, crinkled and pulling in every which direction between isobel and me - and it most definitely is not my own.
Sleeping on an actual bed should've been my first clue.
I try to nudge my head up from the pillow, looking around the room. The walls are a cream colour, with a light grey feature wall that matches the bedding.
There's a TV opposite the bed that's almost bigger than the TV downstairs, and a gaming console plugged into it. A playstation 5 i believe. Although, I'm too hungover to care.
A large mirror leans against one of the cream walls, next to a framed poster with an old sports car on it.
I take my sweet time turning over so that my stomach doesn't flip out and make me want to throw up again, and I am greeted with a framed photograph of a young Noah and two people I can only assume are his parents.
My breath hitches.
I reach over for it, the frame cold beneath my fingers, and pull it towards me.
Noah. Noah.
Shit, what did I do last night?
I have vague memories. Memories of pressing against him, of coming onto him. Of calling him hot to his actual face - what is wrong with me?
I look back to his smiling face in the photograph, to the equally wide smiles of his parents standing either side of him, and wail.
"Kenz, if you don't shut the fuck up-"
"Please tell me I didn't throw myself at Noah yesterday?"
There's a beat of silence, and I already know the answer.
Oh god. Oh, God. End it all.
My stomach takes another turn as I try to sit up, so I collapse back into his bed which smells just like he does. It doesn't help how I'm feeling right now.
"I embarrassed myself?" I ask her.
She huffs and turns towards me. Her cheeks are full of eyeliner that she didn't remove, and there's a hint of pink sparkle still sitting on each of her lids.
She takes one of my hands in her own and then slowly brings it up to my mouth, pressing it firmly down so i can't speak.
I roll my eyes at her.
"He already knows that he's hot. I'm sure you didn't tell him anything he hasn't heard before." she explains hushed, voice as croaky as my own. "You did throw up. On me. All over me."
I wince at her.
"I hope you're embarrassed," she finally concludes. "I still smell like your vomit."
She releases my hand and pulls an invisible zip across her lips before turning back over and resuming her sleeping position.
My heart beats through my chest. I definitely embarrassed myself.
I can vividly picture Noah's wide eyes as security escorted me out of the club with an angry Isobel. He must've rounded up the others too.
He saw me throw up. He helped drag me home? And I blatantly told him how attractive I found him, before projectile vomiting all over the floor. Over Isobel. This is life-ending.
If not life-ending, certainly relationship-ending with Cam. He's not going to want me to live here anymore, surely. He'll find it too odd. He'll think I ruined their entire night out by drinking far too much vodka, far too quickly.
He'll know I came onto Noah. what if he wants to have a talk with me about it, or, even worse - what if he's told our mother? No. I will simply crawl into a hole and die.
Something cold presses against my hand, and I pull my discarded phone out from underneath the pillow.
There's a message from Cam, and one from Noah; both unopened.
I take a shaky breath and open Cam's message first, which reads only one word followed by a string of emojis and exclamation marks.
Cam: Lightweight.
A deep sigh of relief. Nothing terrible then, not yet.
Now for Noah's. It can't be all that bad - he's too nice to make me feel guilty about having a bit of a crush on him.
Noah: There's bottled water in my mini fridge. Go to bed you weapon.
I frown, scrolling up to see the previous messages, all sent by myself the night before.
Mackenzie: where are yiu
Mackenzie: Noahhhh
Mackenzie: can yu bring water
Mackenzie: are u asleeo
Mackenzie: im calling u
Oh, fuck me.
I click on my call log, and there it is. An unanswered call to Noah at three in the bloody morning that's almost forty seconds long. I left him a voicemail.
I kick my legs, hide my phone under the pillow, and throw the cover back over my body.
===============================================================
There's a call outside the door followed by repeated knocking.
Isobel curses me out as if I'm the one responsible, which is what makes me open my eyes.
"Kenzie?" cam calls outside of the door. "We have pizza. Are you decent?"
I pull the cover over my shirtless chest and Isobel grumbles as she tries to sit up against the headboard. Her hair is still playing victim to the humidity, and it's four times the size it should be.
I call out that he can come in and Cam enters the room with Noah trailing behind him, both with a pizza both in hand. My cheeks immediately blaze, my eyes dropping to the bedding.
I wish I was literally anywhere else.
"You both look. . ." he trails off, eying Isobel and then me. "How are you feeling?"
Noah steps around him and sits opposite me at the end of the bed, putting the pizza box down between us. He smiles when I risk a glance at him, opening the box.
"Like someone's pounded my head in," I respond cautiously.
"Like someone threw up on me," Isobel adds, grinning at me.
Noah and Cam laugh while I pout at her. She narrows her eyebrows and reaches forward to grab a slice of pizza.
I do the same, leaning back against the headboard.
Cam sits down on the bed too, and opens the second box. Pepperoni. Perfect. I hold the blanket over my chest as I lean over to grab a slice of that as well, making the two slices into a sandwich.
"Alright," Cam sighs.
I narrow my eyes.
He's buttering me up for something.
"That guy last night, Christian. He's no good."
I raise an eyebrow at him.
"With the tally on his hand? The teardrop tattoo under his eye?"
"Ah. Teardrop," I recall, shoving more pizza into my mouth. "What time is it?"
Cam's eyes narrow.
"It's after two, but the point is," he holds the bridge of his nose. Noah looks between the two of us wordlessly, and I'm sure Isobel is just trying to block our voices out. "If he approaches you again, just stay away. Okay?"
"Alright," I shrug.
It's not like I even liked the guy. There's no need for them to get so touchy about him dancing with me.
"He used to be one of my friends," Noah drawls. "The bad ones, remember? The ones I don't hang out with anymore."
Isobel raises an eyebrow at him, but continues to ignore us.
I can barely look at him. Can barely meet his eye knowing what I put him through last night. I don't know how he can even stand to be around me right after the way I'd acted, pining after him like a drunken child.
"Mackenzie," he states and I quickly look up to meet his gaze. "I'm serious."
I narrow my eyes at him.
"I got it, Dad."
His jaw hardens, and his eyes bore into mine.
Cam slaps my leg and begins telling a story about Emily, who had danced with and then gone home with a girl she met last night.
I shouldn't have talked to Noah like that after last night.
I should be begging for his forgiveness, thanking him for not telling Cam that I think his best friend is the hottest thing I've ever laid my eyes on.
Instead, I called him 'dad' and rolled my eyes.
Seriously, what is wrong with me?
Cam continues telling stories from the previous night while we eat away our hangovers, eventually running out of them as the pizza comes to an end.
"Should we just hang out here all day?" Cam asks the three of us. "I need to pretend my head isn't splitting open."
Noah reaches across the bed and pulls a TV remote from the bedside table drawer. Isobel is suddenly spouting films we've never heard of, and eventually he just clicks on Netflix and passes her the remote.
"Noah," his eyes snap to me as soon as I've opened my mouth. "Could I, um. . . could i borrow a shirt?"
His gaze brushes my bare shoulders, only my bra straps visible. He nods lightly.
I don't know what goes through his head, honestly, I don't. But he reaches around to the back of his neck and pulls off the shirt from his own back, handling it to me wordlessly.
Cam smacks his naked chest.
"I didn't ask to see that dude."
I did.
In my head.
I've been asking for almost a week - is that all it's been? A week of me living here. It feels like an eternity.
My body heats up. My cheeks blaze. My eyes scorch his chest with the heat of a thousand suns.
The pecs - the trail of hair slipping into his shorts - the muscled shoulders - the tattoos.
There's too much to fucking look at. Too much to process in such a large dose.
My breath hitches, my legs squeeze together.
He knows.
He knows how attractive I think he is, and this feels a lot like mocking.
He holds out the shirt, so I take it with outstretched fingers and pull it over my body. It smells like the aftershave from last night mixed with our fabric softener, fresh and musky.
He leans back against the bedpost, balancing his phone on his knees as Isobel decides on some dark romance she'd heard of from an online friend.
Cam turns around and lays between us, sticking his bare feet against Isobel's legs.
Noah's skin begs me to look. It's smooth and soft-looking, olive glistening under my intense stare.
I wish I could read the italic words written across the left side of his chest, so beautifully placed and inviting.
I could colour in the shapes on the other side. With my tongue. They're disconnected from the piece on his neck, with a slim line of skin running between them. But they connect with his sleeve pieces, looking dark and intricate.
Is it weird to look at his nipples?
It's probably weird to want my mouth wrapped around them.
My eyes travel down to that little trail of hair that tucks into his shorts.
It's hot in here. Too hot.
My lips are dry because I haven't had a single drop of water today, not because the divots between his abs are deep enough to run a pool of water through.
Water that I'd let drip from his body straight into my open mouth.
His hand settles on his stomach, covering the trail, and I look back up to his smirk.
Behave, he mouths.
He turns around before I can beg him to get closer to me.
Isobel leans over and presses her shoulder against my own, whispering so quietly I almost miss what she says. "You look like you're about to cum in your panties."
"Piss off," I squeak, and both boys turn to look at me in sync.
This is torture. Pure and utter torture in it's most common form. Noah's smirk tells me that he knows it too.
Isobel grabs my shaking hand and I try to pay a shred of attention to the movie she's picked out for us without drifting to look at the bunched muscles of Noah's shoulders.
He's a work of fucking art.
I even catch isobel stealing glances at him every so often.
Halfway through the movie, when i'm admiring him once more, my phone buzzes beneath the pillow.
Noah: Eyes on the screen.
Noah: Please.
====================================================================
Isobel falls asleep again before the film even finishes.
"I think my stomach can handle me going to the gym now," Noah says as soon as the credits begin rolling. "You up for it?"
Cam nods and starts talking about a weightlifting routine he saw online that he might start following, and Noah tells him about his own routine in turn, as I scroll through Netflix for something else to watch.
Noah's shirt is still off.
Since his text, I've done everything in my power not to stare at him.
"Do you mind if we stay here?" I ask him, gesturing to Isobel's lifeless body.
Cam begins pulling himself up from the bed, grabbing the pizza boxes and trying to dust the crumbs away as Noah answers.
"Not at all. What's mine is yours."
He stands up and my lungs collapse.
His shoulders stretch out. It's as if his body unfolds and takes up double the space it used to whilst he was on the bed. He's tall and wide, the muscles on his stomach stretched taut; taunting me.
Hit bottoms hang dangerously low on his hips.
The perfect V line stares at me.
I swallow the excess liquid accumulating in my mouth and drags my eyes up to his equally perfect face. His gaze flits to Cam and then back to me twice, but the smirk I expect across his lips isn't there.
Instead, his mouth is slightly parted, his eyes hooded and his breathing shorter than usual.
My traitorous eyes dart back down to that line without my permission.
"I'm getting dressed," Cam says, eyes glued to his phone as he walks out of the room. Noah's door stays open, but Cam's clicks shut once he's stepped into his room.
I take a shaky deep breath.
Isobel's soft snores only remind me that I'm alone with Noah in his room, wearing his t-shirt, while he stands half-naked in front of me.
Just as I think his stare is about to turn into something more, he turns around and begins flitting through his wardrobe for a shirt.
"You want this one back?"
I pinch the front of the t-shirt he gave me, holding it out towards him as he turns to look back at me.
"No," his laugh is breathy. "How's your hangover?"
I immediately remember the previous night, embarrassing myself entirely. I've always been good at that in front of guys I like - never quite to the extent of last night though.
"Fine," the word comes out meek, like a mutter.
He smiles and puts on a dark shirt that clings to his figure. I release a breath that I wasn't aware I was holding.
Thank God - I don't know how I managed to keep my composure during the last two hours. I don't think my composure was kept at all.
"Do you remember?"
"Huh?" I state, purely to buy myself time.
"Do you remember last night?"
"Nope," I say, popping the 'p'.
He purses his lips, eyeing me.
I pull my phone back in front of my face, scrolling through social media that I don't care about to try and get his attention off of me.
"You don't remember anything?"
"Nope."
I say again, with the same pop sound leaving my mouth.
A shadow appears over the bed, tall and intimidating. He's blocking the window light with his body, significantly closer to where I'm laying under his sheets.
Scroll faster. Like that picture of an old friend with a baby. Comment kissy faces on Isobel's recent post.
His hand pushes my phone down on my chest.
"I think you do remember." he states, looming over my body. His hand is still looking over my own, making sure I can't lift my phone again even if I wanted to. "I think you're just embarrassed."
"Then tell me something embarrassing."
My words come out stronger than they are in my head. It makes him falter, loosen his grip on me. He doesn't take a step back, so I continue blinking up at him.
"This again?" he laughs. He rests his free arm on the headboard, flexing over me as he lowers his face towards mine.
My breath deepens, my cheeks blaze.
His hand frees my own but I don't lift my phone up again.
Instead, I keep my gaze on his, waiting for the confession to come. Waiting for the torture to end.
His thumb brushes a piece of hair from my neck and he may as well have reached between my legs with how wet it makes me.
His nose brushes past my cheek.
His lips touch my earlobe.
He releases a quiet shaky breath that I'd miss if he wasn't so close to me.
"Tell me something embarrassing," I repeat in a whisper.
His free hand appears over mine again, pressing down gently.
I practically pant as I twist my fingers so that our palms can press against each other.
"I don't want to say it," he murmurs, breath warm against my ear, hand even warmer on my own.
"Why not?"
The side of his head touches the side of mine. His hair tickles my jaw.
"Because I don't want to stand back up and pretend I didn't."
Isobels mewls beside us, pulling the blanket over her head. Noah doesn't pull away and neither do I.
We breath each other in quietly, waiting for until she's silent again.
"I remember most of it," I admit.
"I know."
I can feel the smile in his words, feel his lips turn up against my skin.
Cam's door opens and he springs back from the bed and throws his hands into his pockets, turning away from me and towards the TV that is still on the Netflix home screen.
"Ready?" cam asks Noah, appearing in the doorway in his gym gear.
"Down in a minute," Noah speaks without looking at either of us, fiddling with a pair of airpods sat on top of his chest of drawers.
Cam tells him to hurry up but turns and goes downstairs anyway.
Noah doesn't bother to hide how his breath shakes and neither do I.
"Something embarrassing, yeah?"
He turns around and my eyes drop to his shorts, where the outline of his cock presses against the fabric and critically points towards me with blame.
I'll deny the whimper that leaves my mouth.