Old, New, Borrowed, Blue

Part 63: In Which Lovi has a Hangover

Apparently Lovina had been hit by a truck last night.

That was the only explanation for how she felt right now. She'd never woken up in so much pain before; her head hurt so badly that she wanted to scream, and she hadn't even opened her eyes yet. Partly because she was worried if she opened them, she might vomit. She felt so nauseous…

I am never fucking drinking again. Never never never…

She hated hangovers. It was the primary reason why she rarely drank more than the occasional glass of wine at dinner. No amount of 'fun' was worth this pain.

She groaned and rolled onto her side, burying her face into her pillow. It didn't help the nausea, but maybe she could pretend it was doing something to help her head.

"Lovinita? Are you not feeling okay?"

She was startled by the voice. She hadn't realized anyone else was around—not that she was really in a position to be particularly observant—especially not Antonio. She turned her head toward his voice and warily opened one eye.

He was kneeling on the floor beside the bed, his face only a few inches away. She would've moved back, but even the thought sent a particularly painful throb through her head, so she just closed her eyes again in hope he'd go away.

God, if she looked even half as awful as she felt.

"Poor Lovi…" She felt a hand brush against her forehead. "I brought you some aspirin. I thought you might not be feeling very good after last night."

Aspirin. Few words had ever sounded so sweet. Lovi didn't bother opening her eyes again; she just thrust her arm out in his general direction and mumbled, "Gimme."

She heard him laugh softly and then there was the feeling of two pills in her hand. She immediately brought them to her mouth, dry swallowing out of desperation to get the aspirin into her body as quickly as possible.

"Lovi, I had water right here for you," he said in a slightly scolding tone.

Whatever. She made a noise of dissatisfaction and then rolled onto her back. Slowly and cautiously, she allowed her eyes to slit open.

There was a fucking chandelier on the ceiling.

She groaned again and brought her fists to her eyes, rubbing at them as if she could erase the image of the light fixture from her brain. She'd almost forgotten. Francis's mansion. The party… So much alcohol, so much stupidity.

She felt a weight settle onto the bed beside her and then there were hands around her wrists, gently tugging her hands away from her eyes. She opened them fully now, staring up into Antonio's face hovering right above hers.

He looked annoyingly sunny. She couldn't quite remember everything that had happened last night, but she was pretty sure she remembered him drinking too, so why wasn't he suffering like her?

And now he leaned down and rested his forehead against her own. "I'm sorry you don't feel well, querida. I tried telling you to stop last night, but you didn't listen to me."

She could feel her entire body heating up—and she was annoyingly aware it wasn't an aftereffect of the alcohol. But she couldn't really think of anything to say. Her body was annoyingly aware of his nearness, but she didn't have the energy to throw him off or yell at him to stop being so clingy. That she could take care of herself.

His eyes were so stupidly green and they crinkled up as he smiled down at her, which didn't make any sense since she knew she had to look terrible right now. And probably smelled terrible…

And that thought was enough to finally jerk her back to reality. She hurriedly reached up and pushed at Antonio's chest. "Off."

He moved away as she sat upright, staring down at herself in distaste. She was still wearing yesterday's clothes, of course, and they were all sweaty and gross after spending an entire day and night in them.

Antonio was still sitting on the bed, beside her. It was a huge bed, she noticed now that she was finally observing her surroundings. A huge, two person bed…

"Did you sleep with me?!" And the words were out of her mouth before thinking. She tried desperately to fix it, even as she felt her face turning bright red, "Not—not that kind of sleeping, pervert!" Which, of course, just made it worse.

For once, she wasn't the only one turning red. Antonio's own face flushed, although, of course, he didn't turn red as a tomato like she did.

"No, of course not, Lovinita! I just came in this morning to bring you medicine… Franny, Gill, and I fell asleep downstairs last night. After I put you in bed."

Oh, Christ… What had she even done last night? She didn't remember him putting her to bed. She barely remembered anything…

"Do you remember? You asked me if I'd stay with you, but I said it'd probably be a bad idea." He laughed, almost sounding a little nervous. "So, Franny, Gill, and I slept together like we did when we were little and had slumber parties!"

Lovi groaned, and this time it had nothing to do with her still aching head.

She didn't want to know. She really didn't want to know. But, she had to know. It was like picking at a scab, even when you knew it would hurt.

"What else happened last night?"

She wasn't looking at him, but she could feel his weight shift on the bed as he moved closer to her. He was probably staring right at her, but she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of meeting his eyes.

"Well, you came here with the other girls, which was a really nice surprise. I'd been missing you. And then you asked if we could play 'Never Have I Ever,' which I didn't even know you knew how to play. So we did! And Franny and Arthur won! Or lost… I'm not really sure which."

Fuck, she vaguely remembered that. It was that girl's fault. Leon's friend, Robin. She was the one who mentioned it on the car ride over. "Once you get there, you should ask to play something like 'Truth or Dare' or 'Spin the Bottle' or 'Never Have I Ever'… Ooh, that'd be a good one. I bet you could get all kinds of juicy secrets out of the guys that way."

And apparently alcohol turned her into an idiot, because she'd agreed for some reason. Why she'd want to get any secrets out of her idiot and fiancé and his idiot friends was something sober her couldn't even begin to understand.

"It was kind of funny, I think," Antonio was still prattling on, apparently over his temporary embarrassment. "They both got really really drunk and started arguing after a while. It kind of ruined the game, though."

"What kind of questions did I ask?" She didn't want to know, but she had to…

"Oh, just normal ones." Was it her imagination, or had he said that too quickly? Lovi immediately looked up at him and caught the slight darkening of his cheeks.

"What's that supposed to mean?" She turned fully towards him. Oh yes, he was trying to avoid meeting her eyes now. What the fuck had she asked?

She, unfortunately, was pretty sure she already had a good idea.

She tried to avoid thinking about back then. Back when they were all stupid kids and Antonio had been even more of a moron than he was now. Back when he'd been with other girls… But it wasn't something anyone could just forget about. Especially at a time like now, when she was thinking about…things… After the wedding…

Fuck, even in her own brain, she couldn't say it.

She knew Antonio had been with plenty of other girls before. And she'd already forgiven the idiot for it, of course, but that didn't mean she didn't occasionally wonder about it…

"Lovinita…" He lifted his head again to meet her eyes and it took all her willpower not to immediately look away, because there was just…too much there. Worry, guilt, but mostly an overwhelming passion.

She flinched slightly as he reached out and cupped her cheek in his hand.

"Lovinita, I know you're still upset with me for what I did… And you should be, because I hurt you more than I can ever make up for. But, you know you're the only person I've ever loved like this. I love you more than anything else in the world and if I could go back in time, I'd punch my younger self in the face for daring to hurt you."

She had to smile at that. He met her smile with one of his own and then leaned in closer, resting his forehead against hers again.

"I love you so much, Lovi. You make my life a million times better and I can't wait until we're married and we can spend the rest of our entire lives together."

"Idiot."

"Sí, but I'm your idiot. Only yours."

She was blushing again and trying desperately to keep her face expressionless. But it was hard when he was being so sappy… And when he was so close. It took all her self-control to push him away again and then drag herself off the bed. Pretending she hadn't been affected at all by his declarations.

"Yeah, well…" She refused to meet his eyes as he watched her from the bed. "You're just lucky you have me, because most people wouldn't put up with your idiocy."

"I know that, Lovi!" He sounded way too happy for someone she'd just called an idiot. "I know I'm the luckiest man on Earth!"

Yeah, well… She wasn't about to say it, not when she was nursing a hangover and after spending an evening making a fool of herself. But, he wasn't the only one who felt that way.

A/N: Hello, my lovelies! It's been a while again. Sorry about that. But things have been very eventful on my end. I've moved to Scotland and started grad school at St. Andrews University!

Right now, I should be working on an essay, but instead I wrote this because I've missed my Pleasantville babies. And nothing inspires me to write like procrastinating on something else.

Anyway, I hope you liked it. I've been in the mood to write one shots recently, but haven't been able to decide on what to actually write, so if anybody has any requests or prompts, throw them my way in the comments or DM me! It can be in the Pleasantville-verse or something completely different. I'm up for anything right now.

And send nice thoughts my way as I work on this essay, because essays are hard.