My face felt cold, and kind of numb, like a shot of Lidocaine was all up in my cheek. I tried to open my eyes and realized that said cheek was stuck in place. I peeled my skin off the cold underneath me and let it fall back into place with my eyes now open.

I groaned, uncomfortably: "The view from the bathroom floor this morning is great."

From my limited field of vision I had assumed I was alone. If I could have moved I would have jumped when Edward replied: "Hey Drunkard."

"Why'm I here? Did I throw up?"

"You were eating pizza in the shower when you passed out. And no, but frankly that's an unexplained miracle."

I frowned into the cold, bathroom tiles. "Why was there pizza?"

"Cause you made Mike order it. You also made the delivery guy do two tequila shots with you before you'd let anyone pay."

"Oh man, please tell me he didn't do it?" I pouted into the floor. "My mouth tastes like ass. I hate everything."

Pretty Boy chuckled. It sounded nice. Loud, but nice. "He did. I still have his keys."

"You took his keys?" I squinted up at him.

He nodded. "I took his keys."

"That was nice. You did a nice thing. Why couldn't your nice thing have been putting me on a bed? Why was I in the shower?"

"Sleeping on the floor had a low risk of being fatal. Driving a tiny pizza moped after four shots of tequila seemed more worthy of my Boy Scout good deed for the day."

"You said two."

"I said you forced him to take two. The second two required no coaxing."

From my vantage point — face pressed against the cool tiles — I could just about see when Pretty Boy rolled his eyes, and pushed himself upright from where he was leaning against the door frame. He grabbed a glass from the counter, emptied out the toothbrushes currently inside it, and rinsed out all the dried-on toothpaste from the inside. He swished some bright green mouthwash around inside it, who knows why, and then filled it with water. He placed the glass on the floor next to my nose.

"I need a straw. Glass so far away."

He sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the counter. Edward nudged the glass toward my face with his pointer finger, bumping it against my nose.

"Merghhh."

"You still have pizza left in the shower if you need to get your strength up."

"I do not get why I was eating it in there. So gross."

"You were having possessive issues with the pepperoni. A glass wall separating you and the pizza from the rest of us seemed to do the trick."

I scrunched up my face in disgust. "Why are you not hungover?"

He shrugged. "I am, kind of. I have a headache but I took a fistful of Tylenol awhile ago."

"You did not." Despite the throbbing, agonizing pain it incited in my temples I smiled. "You took two and you made sure they were in their original packaging and read the instruction label to check two was the regular dosage."

He poked my shoulder with his shoe, in annoyance. I grunted in response.

In a smaller voice, I asked: "Am I drooling?"

"We might need to erect a little 'Wet Floor' sign next to your head in case people slip."

"Did I do anything stupid?"

"Define 'stupid'."

"Oh man." I wanted to cry. I hated the... embarrassment that went along with drinking. Okay, so not so much drinking as drinking. I liked being drunk. It was fun, and illegal in a totally socially-accepted way. Everybody drinks at college and I never slept around or did drugs. I just said stupid things too loudly and admitted all my feelings and threw up... although I seemed to have managed impulse control on two of those things the night before.

Pretty Boy leaned forward and stroked my sticky, greasy, alcohol-soaked bangs away from my face. I closed my eyes.

His voice was softer when he asked: "You wanna go home?"

"I wanna time-travel to before the beer."

A smile was clear in his words. He teased: "And the punch. And the tequila shots. And the watermelon wine-cooler things."

"Or to a time after aspirin, and after embarrassment."

"That time is never. You took off your bra to win an argument about whether or not it could be done without taking off your shirt. I will remind you about this forever."

I groaned. "You're a bad friend."

"You're a bad drunk." His fingers were still in my hair, catching up all the stray tendrils around my face and pushing them back towards my crown. I had never been so glad to have layers in all my life.

"Touche."

His hands left my hair and wrapped around my ribs to pull me up to my knees. "Come on, Duckie. Home time."

I let my arms flop toward him uselessly. "Carry me?"

He cocked an eyebrow, still holding me up. "People will think you OD'd and I'm getting rid of the body."

"Piggy back?" I suggested hopefully.

"Do you really deserve a piggy back? You dragged me aaaall the way off campus and then ditched me for a dirty bathroom rendezvous. You didn't even invite me."

I huffed. "It can be your good deed for the day. You haven't done today's yet."

"Not leaving you here was the good deed."

"But if there's no piggy back you will be leaving me here. Pity the drunk fool."

"Oh," he pretended to consider me at arms length, "tiny, pasty brunette pretending to be Mr T is the saddest thing I've ever seen."

I pouted: "See?"

Pretty Boy's only response was a loud sigh. He rolled his eyes and crouched down in front of me so I didn't have to try and gather the coordination to jump. It was so wise of him.

I wrapped my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, resting my chin on my forearm which in turn rested on his shoulder. "You're my favorite," I said against his neck, sleepily.

"Sure, for the length of time it takes to carry you home."

I admitted: "Not just for then."

"Bella?" he asked, softly.

"Yeah?"

"You're my favorite too."

"Good." I snuggled further into his shoulder, settling comfortably on his back, and closed my eyes.

I bounced lightly with each of Pretty Boy's steps. The movement lulled me into a state even closer to comatose, like a baby with motion-related narcolepsy. He had picked his way around the various abandoned party-goers with surprising grace and even managed to navigate out of the front door without dropping me.

We'd — fine, he'd — been walking in silence for awhile when suddenly I realized: "MC, your car is at Mike's!"

"Fuck. You distracted me! We could be driving right now rather than putting me in the running for a premature hip replacement."

I dug my chin into his shoulder in retaliation. "Whatev, I'm not that heavy. Where are we anyway?"

"Pretty much exactly halfway."

I snorted, and then recommenced using his shoulder as a pillow. "Don't lose momentum, MC," I mumbled. "I need soap, and a latte, and a nap."

He landed hard on his next step, deliberately jolting me. Asshole. Before I could bitch him out for it an unearthly, awful shrieking noise surrounded us from seemingly nowhere. I screwed my eyes shut. "Oh God, make it stop."

"It's my cell."

"Please answer it, please. I think I'm dying. Honestly, MC, it's giving me brain damage."

He craned his neck around to try and look at me while he spoke, but that just put our faces too close together (not gonna lie, no such thing, even with the threat of morning breath — although Pretty Boy was surprisingly minty as though he had the foresight to steal mouthwash before I woke up) so he quickly gave up: "I'm holding you up. Grab it from my pocket."

"Urgh," I groaned into his neck. "Which one? How is your ring tone this long? Why aren't they hanging up?"

He teased: "I know some really stubborn people."

"Oh, yeah, sure, make fun of me while I'm hungover. Let's make that a staple of our relationship."

Then — blissfully — the ringing stopped.

Before I could celebrate it started up again.

"Oh holy hell — which pocket?"

I could hear the smirk in Pretty Boy's voice. "Back-right of my pants."

"Fuck, I can't get it. I'll fall."

As much as I would have loved to retrieve his cell phone in that moment — for many reasons: stopping the noise, maybe bitching out the person on the other end of the line, definitely copping a feel of his ass — I didn't trust myself to stay upright while having to lean back in order to get into said pocket.

The ringing stopped suddenly before Edward could suggest that I get off him and walk the rest of the way home like a normal had been so desperate to speak with him obviously got bored. We continued on in the same fashion we had left Mike's until finally, finally we reached the edge of the parking lot outside our building.

Hot shower and cold Starbucks were in my not too distant future! The world made sense again.

Just as we crossed the threshold of the lot a voice rang out loudly against the tarmac. "Baby E!"

Pretty Boy's grip on my legs faltered and I felt a jolt as I began to fall. I clung to his neck like a koala — trying to save myself from ass-planting by climbing up him in a way that was entirely too energetic for sober-me, let alone hungover-me — until he realized and grabbed under my knees again, hitching me more securely up his back.

A waif-like woman was running across the parking lot towards us. In fact she was sprinting in four inch heels... and they had a little platform. Her hair hung just above her shoulders in a feathery bob that was currently blowing all around her face from the running, her hair was a little darker than Pretty Boy's.

I jumped down from Edward's back of my own accord as she neared us, at speed, getting out of the way just in time for her to jump on top of Pretty Boy. Her arms wrapped around his neck and he swung her around. One of the pointy shoes nearly took out my eye.

"Lissie!"

He put her down carefully and as she landed her hair fell perfectly around her high cheekbones. They were definitely related.

"Baby E!" She repeated. "Your phone is off!"

He pulled it out of his back pocket, and held up both hands as he inclined his head toward me. "No free hands."

The woman raised a single eyebrow with an expression I would have killed to replicate, and replied: "Is that so?"

I blushed painfully. I think blood vessels in my face burst permanently.

Pretty Boy nudged my shoulder gently with his. "Bella, this is my sister, Alice. Lissie, this is Bella." He nodded across the lot to where Alice had appeared from — a tall blond guy was leaning against an unsurprisingly expensive looking car. "That's Alice's husband, Jasper."

"He's unpacking presents," Alice agreed. "It's lovely to meet you."

"Uh, hi." I sent an awkward wave in her direction. It was too early to deal with grown-ups.

"What're you even doing here, Liss?"

"I can't miss you, you ungrateful brat?"

"I guess. Is it just you guys?"

"Well... we thought maybe we could drag you away from life on campus for the day. Wanna rock up at home for some Sunday lunch?"

"Uh, I dunno. I mean you could've given me some notice."

"Cause you have so many important prior engagements at college on a Sunday? Planning some laundry? Beer pong tournement? We'll totally set one up for you in the sun room, but I warn you I almost went pro while you were in grade school."

His eyes narrowed. "I hate you."

"Thanks, babe." She rolled her eyes at him, and I could see where Pretty Boy had inherited the trait. "C'mon, it'll be fun. I thought that's why we dragged you all the way back here — so we could see some more of your pretty face."

Pretty Boy was blushing almost as much as I was. In fact he was positively squirming. It was hilarious. "I was going to hang out with Bella today."

"She's invited, E, we're not complete social savages. What'd'ya say guys? The food'll be great."

Pretty Boy turned to me and admitted: "The food is really good."

"Okay, I guess. Thanks," I mumbled.

"Great! Let's go — Jazz can take the supplies we brought up with you and then we'll head off."

"We need to shower."

The eyebrow went up again and Pretty Boy's returning expression did an amazing impression of kill-rage-destroy Bella. Alice smirked, and held her hands palm up as a peace offering.

"We should just take another car, meet you guys there," he continued. "Makes more sense for getting back tonight."

"Oh, babe, you know Jazz'll drive you."

"Yeah, I know, but it's cool."

"Okay, okay." She glanced at her watch. "It's not ten yet so we'll see you back at the house before lunch. Here's" — she pulled out a slim, leather wallet from her gigantic purse and pulled out a fan of crisp bills — "gas money, and if you're late I'm gonna call your cell every ten minutes until you show."

He took the money and pretended to fan himself with it, laughingly. "Consider me warned."

"C'mon, Duckling."

We trudged over to the shiny car and Alice's husband handed over a bunch of paper grocery bags to Pretty Boy, who insisted he didn't need help carrying them up the stairs.

Alice stepped forward to give Edward a kiss on the cheek, around all the bags in his arms. "Okay, love birds — scrub up! We'll see you later."

"Alice!"

"What?"

"I have post traumatic stress disorder from being raised by you."

She smirked with a cute little twitch of her nose, and then her and Mr Tall, Blond and Gorgeous were back in the car — pulling out of the lot much too quickly for Sunday morning traffic to handle.

I looked over at Pretty Boy, my entire being deadpan.

His face looked repentant, his lips just a little pouty. "Sorry?"

Instead of responding I pursed my own lips and gave him a swift kick to his leg before marching inside. "We're stopping for lattes on the way."

AN: You guys are so incredible; I'm having so much fun! Thank you for reading! Reviews for this chapter get a teaser for the next - just make sure you're signed in and have Private Messaging turned on, a couple of you didn't last time around!