Finally, I pulled away and tried to steady myself on the bar stool. But suddenly I didn’t feel quite right.
“Cole?” I said quietly. Shit. The room was spinning. When had the room started spinning?
“Yes?” he asked with concern, leaning forward.
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
Then I threw up. All over the floor. And Cole Brannon’s shoes.
Oops.
“Sorry,” I croaked, ashamed and humiliated. It was the last thing I remember saying before I passed out.
Gossip and Vices
Drinking
Somewhere in the distance, I could hear the phone ringing. I wished someone would make it stop. With each shrill jangle, the throbbing in my head seemed to get worse. I started to open my eyes, but even the smallest sliver of invading morning light turned out to be too much for the powerful ache in the back of my skull. Far off, the phone continued to ring.
“Tom,” I mumbled. “Tom, can you get that?” There was no reply. Finally, the ringing stopped. I groaned and sank back into the sheets. I wanted nothing more than to drift back to a place where my head didn’t throb like I’d been clubbed with a baseball bat.
I pulled the sheets up, still squeezing my eyes tightly shut in a vain effort to block out all the offending sunlight. I shivered, fought back my rising nausea, and reached for my quilted comforter. I pawed around for a moment at the foot of my bed, but I couldn’t find it.
“Tom!” I groaned, hating how my stomach swam and my head throbbed with additional force every time I spoke. “Tom, what did you do with the comforter? I’m cold!” I felt like I was yelling, but I was dimly aware that my words were coming out at a decibel just above a whisper. Any louder, and I feared my head would explode.
I knew I’d woken up from a nightmare, which might begin to account for the throbbing in my head. I couldn’t remember much of it. Tom was there, and in the dream I was angry with him. Cole Brannon had been there too, in a bar, which was strange. I couldn’t understand why I would be dreaming about him. Even if he was the hottest man I’d ever met.
“Tom!” I moaned again, a bit louder this time. He still didn’t answer, and I suddenly realized I could hear the shower running. I couldn’t remember hearing it from the bedroom in the past. But perhaps my throbbing headache had given me superhuman hearing.
Finally, I realized that if I wanted the comforter, I’d simply have to crawl out of bed and get it myself. Reluctantly, I forced my eyes open and groaned as the sunlight poured in, blinding me momentarily. Slowly, the room started to come into focus.
Then suddenly, time seemed to stop as I realized that I wasn’t in my bedroom at all.
Awe mixed with utter confusion as I slowly blinked at my surroundings, still blurry through my sleepy eyes. My drab and pale bureau, which I’d bought four years ago at a garage sale, had been replaced by a glistening black chest of drawers, topped by a massive oval mirror. Instead of my faded blue gingham curtains over tiny windows, thin white gauze did little to block the sunlight streaming in through giant panes that stretched from floor to ceiling. I was awash in white satin sheets, and the bed they covered was at least twice the size of my double. Beneath me was a seemingly endless sea of plush, snow-white carpeting that covered a floor easily bigger than my whole apartment.
I lay back for a moment, the breath knocked out of me. My head continued to throb and my stomach churned threateningly. But both were overshadowed by the mounting horror I was feeling. I had no idea where I was.
Think, Claire, think. A quick assessment of my physical condition told me I’d gotten drunk last night. But where? With whom? I had never been here before. Had I gone home with a stranger?
That triggered a foggy memory. One-night stands. There was something about one-night stands. . . . My God. The article for Mod. Had I done it? Had I taken my own misguided advice and had a one-night stand? No, that wouldn’t be right. I would never do that to Tom.
Tom. Oh God. Tom.
I closed my eyes, trying to block out the images that suddenly flooded my brain, but it was too late. Tom with the leggy brunette from the Christmas party. Tom inside the leggy brunette. That damned Bruce Springsteen singing like nothing was wrong. Me, storming out of the apartment. The bottle of merlot, Metro, the tequila shots, the Coronas.
And Cole Brannon.
Oh no. Cole Brannon.
With rising horror, I remembered seeing him at the bar. Crying on his shoulder about Tom. Letting him hold me and comfort me . . .
Vomiting on his shoes.
Suddenly, I had a very bad feeling about all of this.
As if a director from one of his movies had suddenly yelled, “Action!” the bathroom door far across the massive bedroom swung open dramatically and Cole Brannon stood in the doorway, clad only in a skimpy white towel wrapped around his waist. His darkly tanned upper body, filled with perfectly toned muscles bulging to get out, gleamed with droplets of water. His perfect washboard stomach drew my stunned eyes tantalizingly toward the top of the low-slung towel, which seemed mere inches away from exposing what it was supposed to be hiding. As our eyes met, Cole grinned and quickly adjusted his towel for more coverage.
“Well hello, sunshine,” he said cheerfully. “You’re awake.” I couldn’t move. I just stared. I desperately tried to recall the events of the previous evening. It was hard to think with my head pounding like the bass on a bad rap album. Hard as I strained to remember, though, everything after vomiting was blank.
“I threw up on you last night,” I moaned finally. I was completely humiliated and dimly aware that I was processing my thoughts very slowly. I had puked on the biggest star in Hollywood. This was not how journalists were supposed to behave. I felt sure I’d read that in the AP Stylebook.
But instead of looking at me in righteous fury, he laughed.
“Why yes, you did,” he said, the corners of his eyes wrinkling with amusement. He took a few steps closer. “I must say, that’s the first time that’s happened. I’m used to journalists kissing my feet, not throwing up on them.”
“Oh my God,” I moaned. I sank back into the pillows and pulled the sheets over my head, wondering if it would be possible to disappear and wake up in my own bed instead.
“I was just kidding,” said Cole’s voice with sudden concern, muffled by the covers over my head. “I really don’t mind. . . .” I groaned and emerged from the covers. Evidently, it was not possible to teleport home from beneath his sheets.
“No, it’s not what you said,” I said finally. “I just can’t believe . . . Oh my God, I have never done anything like this before. Never. And especially not with someone like you.”
“Someone like me, eh?” Cole grinned again. “And exactly what do you mean by that?” I would have blushed if all the blood in my body hadn’t been coursing in throbbing currents through the back of my skull.
“Someone I’ve interviewed,” I mumbled. “I don’t even know what to say. I’m always so careful to be completely professional. And look at me now.” I groaned. As I spoke, something nagging at the back of my mind came closer to the surface, and I scrunched up my nose in concentration, trying to remember what it was.
“Claire, no worries,” Cole said gently. He crossed the room in a few long strides and sat down beside me on the massive bed. My embarrassment was momentarily overshadowed by the realization that the most attractive man I’d ever seen was mere inches away from me, nearly naked, in a silk-covered bed. Unfortunately, before I had a chance to process that realization, the hyperprofessional-journalist portion of my brain kicked back in.
“I’ll lose my job,” I moaned.
“Claire,” Cole began, his voice gentle and soothing. He put a hand on my shoulder and looked so deeply into my eyes that it set my heart pounding. “I told you. No one has to know. This is between you and me, okay? No one’s going to lose their job.”
I glanced down at my lap and received another shock I hadn’t been prepared for.
&nbs
p; Instead of the pencil skirt and pink blouse I had on last night, I was clothed in a massive gray Boston College T-shirt that certainly didn’t belong to me. Before I had time to freak out about the fact that I was no longer wearing my own clothes, the thought that had been nagging me suddenly came into full focus. I could hear Wendy’s voice replaying in my head.
“Cole Brannon is a sex addict,” her disembodied voice chirped, suddenly loud and clear.
I stared at Cole for a moment in horror, my heart pounding. He was still grinning at me, which made me even more afraid. His grin suddenly looked knowing, almost smug and lascivious.
“Oh my God, did we . . . ?” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t even complete the sentence. My heart pounded hard and fast.
“What?” asked Cole, tilting his head to the side and looking at me in confusion.
“Did we . . . ?” I still couldn’t say the words. I looked down again at my body, wrapped in one of his T-shirts. Surely we had. I would have to quit the magazine. I had slept with someone I’d interviewed.
And I didn’t even remember it.
“What’s wrong?” asked Cole, concern now mixing with the confusion splashed across his face. “Do you need to throw up again? Are you okay?”
I just stared, the little voice in my head squeaking in horror. Am I okay? What, did you think that I wanted you just because you were able to drag my unconscious body home?
I realized suddenly that he was still looking at me in bewilderment. I had to know how it had happened.
“Did we . . . Did we . . .” I couldn’t complete the sentence. I looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and shame. “Did we . . . ? You know!” And suddenly, he did. Realization dawned, and he laughed. He actually laughed at me. Had it been that bad?
“Are you asking me if we had sex?” he asked incredulously. It hurt to hear the words, but I nodded anyhow, then squeezed my eyes shut. I braced myself for the words I knew would end my career, my whole professional life as I knew it. He paused, then spoke.
“Claire, you were unconscious all night!”
“What?” As much as I’d braced myself, those were not the words I’d been prepared to hear. He had sex with my unconscious body? What kind of a guy was he? I needed to start taking the tabloid rumors more seriously. I shuddered involuntarily.
“So we . . . ?” I began. I just needed to hear him say it. So I knew that my life was over. He squinted at me.
“No, Claire!” he said finally, looking distressed. “Of course not!” I blinked and tried to process what he’d said. “I slept over there,” he added, gesturing to a small love seat near the window that still had a blanket, a sheet, and a pillow strewn across it.
“What?” I asked, confused. It wasn’t adding up. I looked down at the T-shirt and suspiciously back at him. “But where are my clothes?”
He sighed in exasperation and gave a kind of half laugh.
“You were, um, covered in your own vomit,” he said uncomfortably. I just stared at him. “I didn’t know what to do, so I called the front desk, and they had someone from housekeeping come up and help you change.”
“And you . . . ?” My voice trailed off as I had a sudden mental image of Cole watching my vomit-encrusted clothes being stripped from my jiggly body.
“I stepped outside,” Cole said softly. “I had the woman come get me when she was done.”
I looked at him for a moment. He was blushing. A new wave of humiliation coursed through me.
“Oh,” I said finally. I didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you.”
“Hey, no problem,” he said breezily. He squinted at me. “Although I haven’t yet decided whether I should be offended by your line of questioning.” This time I could physically feel the blood rushing to my face, which must have meant my headache was starting to subside.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean . . . It’s just that . . . Well, I mean, I’m not dressed, and I’m in your bed, and . . .” Suddenly it dawned on me. He didn’t want to sleep with me. Maybe he was a sex addict and I was just too repulsive. My heart sank.
“I prefer my partners to be conscious,” Cole said, as if reading my mind. He winked. “I try to keep that as at least a minimum standard.”
“Oh,” I said stupidly.
“I’m kidding, Claire,” he said, nudging me gently in the shoulder. “I’m just giving you a hard time.”
“Oh,” I repeated. I felt like such an idiot. I groaned, closed my eyes, and leaned back into the pillows. I wished I could go back to sleep, wake up, and realize this had all been a bad dream.
“I hope it’s okay that I brought you here,” said Cole, sounding almost shy. I cracked my eyes open and looked at him. “I didn’t know what else to do, and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Thank you,” I said finally. “I am so embarrassed.”
“No need to be,” Cole said with a dismissive wave of his hand. But he wasn’t making me feel much better.
I shuddered. This was horrible. This was more than just a step over the line of professional ethics. This was a pole vault into the next time zone. What was I doing?
“I have to go,” I blurted out suddenly. Cole, still perched on the edge of the bed, looked surprised.
“What?” he asked. “Where?”
“I just have to go,” I repeated, trying to sound firm.
“Oh, okay,” Cole said. He looked a bit hurt, I thought, but perhaps that was my imagination. “Well, listen. I had your clothes sent out to be dry-cleaned.” My jaw dropped. “They should be ready any minute now. Why don’t you hop in the shower while I call down to the front desk and see if they can bring them up, okay?”
“I can just shower at home,” I protested weakly.
“You have vomit in your hair,” Cole pointed out wisely.
“Oh,” I said, blushing. That changed things. I looked at Cole for a moment, wrapped in his skimpy towel. A few drops of water still glistened on his body, and his dark hair was damp. I tried to ignore the warm feeling spreading across my abdomen. “Don’t you need to get back into the bathroom?”
“Nah,” he said. “You go ahead. I’ll change out here.” He grinned. “No peeking, though.”
I smiled, blushing, and tried not to let my eyes wander down across his tanned, hard body.
“No peeking,” I agreed, trying not to sound as reluctant as I felt.
*
Twenty minutes later I had taken a quick shower, swallowed two ibuprofen tablets, dried my hair, washed my face, and used the only makeup I had in my purse—powder, lipstick, and an old tube of mascara—to make myself look somewhat presentable. I was no Gwyneth Paltrow, but I was exponentially more attractive than I’d been when I first stumbled in. Okay, so that was the understatement of the year.
I was still standing with a towel wrapped around me when there was a knock at the bathroom door.
“Your clothes are here,” Cole said through the door, his voice muffled.
“Oh,” I said, startled. I readjusted my towel and tucked in the end tightly to make sure it stayed put. I did a quick check down below and wished that I wasn’t showing so much flabby thigh, but at least all the important areas were covered up. “Um, come in.”
Slowly, the door opened. Cole Brannon stood on the other side of the threshold, holding my perfectly pressed shell and pencil skirt, which hung innocently on a hanger as if they hadn’t seen me at my very worst just hours earlier. He looked effortlessly sexy in a pair of dark jeans and a black ribbed T-shirt that traced his contours perfectly. As we stood there in silence, I was conscious of Cole’s eyes moving slowly up and down my body. I suddenly felt naked, vulnerable.
“Well, you sure do clean up well, Little Lady,” Cole said finally, his eyes coming to rest on mine. He looked almost embarrassed. “Here are your clothes, good as new.”
“Thank you so much,” I said quietly, looking down. I took the hanger.
“Now get dressed and get out here to have some breakfast with me,
” he said cheerfully.
“Breakfast?” I asked, my eyes widening. “No, I couldn’t.”
“Well, it’s already here,” he said with a grin. “And your coffee is just getting cold.” I opened my mouth to protest, but Cole cut me off before I even began. “And don’t even try to tell me you don’t want any coffee. I saw you yesterday morning. I know about your caffeine addiction, Little Lady.”
“Guilty as charged,” I said weakly, forcing a smile. “I’ll be out in a second.”
I quickly pulled on the shirt and skirt, then stared at myself in the mirror.
What had I done? In the past I’d never so much as looked at an actor with lusty eyes, or smiled the wrong way at a rock star. And here I was in the bathroom of Cole Brannon’s hotel room after puking on him, sleeping in his bed, and letting him see me wrapped in a tiny towel. I just had to go home. I couldn’t let this go any further. I already felt like my professional reputation was ruined.
I took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door. Cole Brannon was sitting on the corner of the bed. He grinned at me as I emerged. I quickly forced a frown, but couldn’t stop my eyes from darting eagerly around the room.
In front of him a table had been rolled in, and on it were a big pot of coffee, matching crystal pitchers of orange juice and water, and a buffet-sized display of breads, croissants, muffins, Danish, and fruits in every color of the rainbow. The ibuprofen was already kicking in, and my stomach growled, but I ignored it. I had to go. Maybe if I got out of here, we could both eventually forget what had happened. I doubted it, but it was worth a shot.
“Took you long enough,” Cole teased, apparently oblivious to my internal conflict. “Your coffee’s getting cold.” He held out a mug he’d already poured for me. “Cream and one Sweet’N Low,” he said. I just stared. “I remembered from breakfast yesterday.”