XXX
Oliver
The sunlight that I normally enjoyed waking up to was currently a blinding inferno of white light, igniting a headache bad enough to make me gag and giving me no option but to pull the duvet over my head, locking myself into a cocoon of dark abyss. If I wanted to make it out of here alive, I was going to require at least four pairs of sunglasses and a ride on the baggage cart.
"Ollie," I heard Enrique call out to me, his voice not so much calm and soothing as much as it was nails on a chalkboard. Earplugs might also be necessary. He brushed his fingers through my hair gently, moving across a painful bump that resided on the top of my head that I had no memory of getting. "We need to check out, it's almost noon and there's a cab waiting downstairs."
"If I smell the inside of a cab I'm going to throw up."
"There's nothing left in your stomach to come back up, you're gonna be okay." He sighed, "Look, I'm not against carrying you on my back, but you're currently in your underwear and I think it might send the wrong message. It also might get us on a list of people not allowed back, if you didn't already manage that yesterday."
He was trying to be cute, something I currently wasn't at all in the mood for. Still, I wasn't going to have any choice, keeping my eyes shut tight as I forced myself into a sitting position and dropped my head into my lap. Enrique began to fidget with my legs, making me question what on earth he was trying to do before realizing he was putting my pants on for me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, now shoving my face into his collar bone to shut the light out and letting him lift me to my feet. Not even my pride currently wanted to intervene, the pounding in my head taking all the help he was willing to give me without even a shred of embarrassment. I was in too much pain to feel any other emotions.
He set me back down on the bed, bringing my arms through my dress shirt and not bothering to button it before throwing my sweater vest over my head and sticking my unsocked foot into an uncomfortably moist shoe.
"Why are my shoes wet?" I mumbled.
"They've been soaking in the bathtub."
"These are leather…"
"Yeah, well, I think water is less damaging than the contents of your stomach. Do you wanna try walking or do you want me to carry you?"
I had to admit, it was an extremely tempting offer, but I didn't want to think about the looks it would get us, or the outcome of us possibly getting recognized and news of this getting back to my parents. Instead I stood upright, squishing water from the bottom of my shoes as they took my weight and locking myself to Enrique's arm, nuzzling my head into it in hopes of keeping some of the light out. He didn't seem to mind, slowly leading me through the door of the room and into the hallway, even leaning me into the wall of the elevator in order to keep me steady, causing heat to rise to my thankfully covered face at the thought of what I had attempted to do to him last night.
"Enrique?" I said quietly, still not taking my face out of his arm so long as there was any chance of being met with florescent lighting, even if he really needed to put more deodorant on.
"Hm?"
"Thank you… For last night, I mean. For stopping me."
He didn't say anything, just turning his neck and planting a gentle kiss on my head. A mild flutter filled my chest at his affection and I gave his arm a gentle squeeze just before the bell of the elevator touching down to the lobby floor sent a shot of pain into my temple.
"You okay?" Enrique asked.
"Yeah."
I wanted to go back to sleep so badly, to make a room as dark as I possibly could and not wake up until all of this was out of my system and then eat something insanely unhealthy and drowning in butter. As terrible as I currently felt, my stomach had been growling since I woke up, hunger finding its way through the discomfort.
He lead me outside, helping me into the cab before insisting that he would be right back, just having to return the hotel key and check out. Thankfully the cab driver only needed to take one look at me before turning the radio off, double checking that I didn't need a plastic bag to puke in right before Enrique made it back out and got in the seat beside me. He must have already been given his address, not asking for it before pulling out of the hotel parking lot and making the relatively short drive back to his family mansion.
"Your girl alright?" He asked Enrique, mistaking me for a woman for what wasn't the first time and wouldn't be the last. Although I had made an attempt to abide by more traditional gender rolls the other night, I was now starting to regret cutting my hair.
"Yeah," Enrique mumbled, feeling safe wrapping an arm around me now that he didn't have to fear anyone discovering he wasn't 100% completely heterosexual, something that had concerned him much less when he had visited me in Paris. I knew he wasn't going to correct the cab driver, an understandable fact that I may as well learn to accept. It was at least better than his sister calling me a queer, which in itself wasn't offensive but I still preferred being referred to by name and not by an adjective.
"I think you should stay another night," He told me quietly, letting me rest my head on his shoulder for the remainder of the ride. "Then you can at least get everything out of your system before going home."
I closed my eyes, hoping it wouldn't make me motion sick.
It was an offer I would happily take him up on.
XXX
Oliver
"I can get you set up in a guest room again," Enrique said, letting me lay down in his bed as he grabbed more comfortable clothing from his dresser, "Your suitcase should still be in the one down the hall and one of the maids probably washed your clothes while we were away, I desperately need to take a shower though, I stink."
"You always stink." I remarked, trying to form at least a small smile.
"Excuse me, but last time I checked I wasn't the one whose vomit was soaked into our shoes."
I pulled myself up from the bed, suddenly taking notice to the fact that I also didn't currently smell the greatest. Not necessarily like puke, but I didn't brush my teeth yet this morning and hadn't put on deodorant since leaving for the hotel in the first place, which was nearly twenty-four hours ago. My hair was a tangled mess that needed to be washed and conditioned, currently coated in my bodies natural oils along with my face. Whoever claimed adults didn't have to worry about acne was a liar.
"Can I use the guest bath?" I yawned, still unable to fully open my eyes and dreading that I couldn't just lay back down and immediately fall asleep. They say cleanliness is close to godliness and I liked to be beside myself.
"I'd offer you the Jacuzzi if I wasn't concerned you would drown." He went into his bathroom, grabbing a towel from the closet and handing it to me.
Currently, taking a bath was not something that sounded even remotely relaxing, meaning I showered as quickly as I could and walked back into Enrique's bedroom with waterlogged hair I really should be blow drying first and wearing pajamas at half passed noon without caring who saw me. His bathroom door was still closed, shower on full blast and not even remotely covering up the sound of him singing way off key to himself. I'm sure he thought I was asleep in the other room, causing me to wonder if it was strange of me to come back in here. I didn't want to be alone right now though, a relatively new concept I was still struggling to understand.
He turned the water off after what was probably only another ten minutes, now whistling the same song that I was pretty sure he made up and walking out of the bathroom as naked as the day he was born. He clearly hadn't expected to see me on his bed, screaming at the vocal range of a twelve year old girl at a Spice Girls concert and slipping on his own wet feet, falling with a loud thud to the ground.
No matter how much pain I was in or how miserable I currently was, baring witness to a completely nude Enrique screaming like a preteen girl and falling flat on his bare ass was enough to break me into a sudden fit of hysterical laughter, tears forming in my eyes as I collapsed off of the bed holding my stomach. I absolutely could not stop, keeling over as he walked up to me and whipped me in the head with a towel like a fourteen year old in a locker room.
"Could you have given me a damn warning?" He giggled, "I'm indecent!"
"Lock your door next time," I laughed. We both knew it wasn't a big deal, we'd been nude in front of each other long before the first time we'd had sex, but there was no denying a slightly erotic tension in the air, the realization dawning on me that his lower half was eye level to where I sat, making me look away and blush, continuing to giggle as I waited for him to put pants on and pretending not to think about the act he had willingly preformed those months ago that I had been too shy to reimburse. Having only one relationship that hadn't lasted a particularly long time, I had never gotten to the comfort level of preforming oral sex on someone and I hadn't wanted him to realize it, still trying at the time to convince him I'd had plenty of sexual experience.
"What are you even doing?" He asked, "I thought you were gonna take a nap?"
I picked myself up off of the floor, face becoming even more flushed out as my eyes were drawn to his bare chest, tattooed with a symbol of some sort that may have been tribal. I made a mental note to ask him more about it someday. Things had been awkward the last time I saw him shirtless and I hadn't really focused on what the picture was.
"Actually," I stuttered, taking a moment to clear my throat, "I was wondering, is it okay if I lay here with you?"
His cheeks went red as he buttoned his shirt up, breaking eye contact with a shy smile. I didn't want to feel the things I was currently feeling, and yet I did… my heart pounding in my chest at the idea that I had even asked him. We had laid on the couch together only a few weeks ago and I'd been fine, why did I suddenly feel so differently? Why after only one night did he suddenly make me feel like this?
He turned the bedroom light off, crawling on top of his mattress and wrapping his arms around me from behind, pulling me down and rolling me affectionately on top of him with a tight squeeze. I wasn't sure if falling asleep was even going to be possible anymore, preferring what was right in front of me to any dreams I may have.
Where were the two of us possibly supposed to go from here, though? Our goal was to see if being friends again was even an option, yet here I was suddenly wondering after a single night if I wanted to be more than that. Enrique was not ready to come out as bisexual and I needed to accept the fact that he may never be. He had spent years playing a game of being a ladies man, rarely having a relationship hit the point of long term. He had a history of cheating on girlfriends that I couldn't just brush under the rug and experience I couldn't possibly catch up to, more than willing to do things that I didn't want to admit that I'd never experienced before and that I wasn't sure I was ready to do to him. In the moment, it had surprised me.
I rolled off of him, laying back down on the mattress with only my head on his chest and arm wrapped around his torso. He still didn't let go of me, hugging me to his body with a tired sigh. It wasn't like it had been when we were kids, determined to win a game of who got the last word in before falling asleep and giggling at inside jokes we refused to outgrow. Now, the less we said the better, allowing the feeling of touch to overpower words we couldn't say.
"How are you feeling?" He asked quietly.
"I mean, I'm not great." There was a deep pulsing sensation behind my left temple and I was developing tunnel vision if I stood up or moved too quickly, making me motion sick at the sensation of walking only a few steps and forming a knot in my already queasy stomach. Mostly it was my head, though, a shaken bottle of soda that I swore would only feel better if it popped. Cracking my own skull was beginning to feel like my last resort to stop the pain, even if I knew significantly better and did understand the science behind what I was experiencing. I did seem to be handling bring lights better, though. "I'm sorry I was such an idiot yesterday, I don't know what I was thinking."
"That Italian wine is superior?"
"Shut up."
"Make me."
Wrapping my arms around his neck, I pulled him in for a kiss, holding our bodies together in a tight embrace as the heat of our skin touching, caused a bead of sweat to trickle down my wet hair. This couldn't be our entire relationship and I knew it, we couldn't just keep making out when it was convenient and then go back to an attempt of forming the friendship we had lost. It was too much for either of us to handle and in the end, all that it would accomplish was someone getting hurt, yet I never wanted to give up the feeling of his lips on mine, even if they were a little bit on the dry side.
It brought up the question I was still determined to not ask myself: Was there a part of me that was beginning to view Enrique as more than my friend?
I wasn't sure how long I lay there kissing him, time merely a concept at this point. All I knew was that it didn't feel like long enough, a line of saliva dribbling down the corner of my mouth as he licked at my tongue with his, trying to back his body away from mine enough to where I couldn't feel his erection pressed up against me.
Just as I attempted to pull him back in, the sound of his door opening cut me off, a sudden sense of urgency separating the two of us, overpowered by the sound of his mother giving a startled yell.
"Oh, god!" She shrieked, slamming the door closed once more as Enrique pulled himself off of me, catching me hard on the eyebrow with the curve of his wrist and leaping to his feet as though the bed was made of fire.
"Shit!" He screamed, backing up until his body hit the wall behind him. "Shit!"
The fear in his voice was taking over, dropping into his chest as his breathing intensified. Quickly, I pulled myself up from his bed, attempting to sit him down any place that he was willing, even if it was on the floor. He was about to have a panic attack.
"Enrique-"
"You need to leave!"
Caught in an icy tundra, I froze.
"What…?"
"You need to go, Oliver! You need to get out of here!"
In an instant, my stomach dropped, the only other feeling outside of complete and utter numbness being that of my heart shattering into a million pieces. He was supposed to ask for my help, to be his rock while he went through the one thing he had been trying to avoid so that he could finally get it over with. Telling me to leave was not supposed to be how any of this went.
"I thought I was staying one more day?"
"Please don't pick a fight with me right now."
"I'm not-"
"Oliver, seriously… you need to go. Now."
He sat back down on his bed, body trembling as he hid his head in his arms while saying not another word to me, silently rocking back and forth. As quickly as he had proven himself changed, he had taken it all back. I no longer mattered to him more than he mattered to himself, a shattered reputation suddenly taking my place in the front seat. Turning away, I quickly left the comfort of his bedroom, getting my belongings from the guest room next door after a quick change of clothing and slinging the bag over my shoulder, not picking my eyes up from the phone I held in front of my face as I stepped quickly down the spiral stairs while attempting to call a taxi, having to catch myself on the railing once as I lost balance. To make matters worse I was going to be stuck standing in front of his house to get picked up and that was on top of having absolutely no idea how long it would take one of my family members to get a plane out here to me. Hell, no one even knew that I was here. I was going to have to take a train back.
"Oliver?" I heard Eliana call out to me from the first floor, confusion clear in her voice. "What's the matter? You look like you've seen a ghost."
"I have some business that I need to attend to," I quickly answered as calmly as I could. "I need to get to the train station."
"Where's my brother?"
"He's busy."
"Do you need a ride?"
I stopped, looking up at her with a false smile. I didn't normally accept favors from people, significantly more comfortable getting other people out of dire situations than being the one rescued. I was no damsel in distress and as much as I hated asking for help, now might be one of the rare moments where I needed it.
"Would you mind?" I asked with all the strength I could muster, praying that she couldn't see how painful it was to ask.
"Not at all, you're basically a part of the family."
She lead me outside and into the parking garage, not asking anymore questions as I stepped into the passenger seat of her car, clutching my bags tightly against myself. Unlike Enrique, I had experience with keeping myself calm and levelheaded, being in a line of work that required it during the moments where I was getting screamed at by an angry customer because they insisted they didn't order the cake that was clearly stated in the email as being the one they wanted. That didn't mean that she couldn't sense that something was wrong, though, giving me a gentle pat on the leg just before pulling out of her parking spot.
I was going home… and I didn't know if I would be coming back.