Page 9 of Second Chance Husband

Paisley

The tap-dancing gorillas that were currently working on a special piece for the morning did not want to let up anytime soon. The fact that they were on my temples at the moment, practicing with their little tap taps and oddly delicate sashays, meant that if I opened my eyes, I might actually die. That could be the end of life as I knew it.

Of course, because I had the memory of an elephant, I could remember exactly what had happened the night prior, and why I was currently having an imaginary conversation with those tap-dancing gorillas from my headache.

I knew I must have been near the end of my sanity as I was apparently leaning into the circus and safari themes of my nightmares. Or would they be daymares now because I could sense the sun cutting through the blinds that were not my own as they shone over my closed eyelids.

Of course. Of course.

I was ridiculous in so many ways, but never in ways that I let others see. In fact I was usually good about keeping my ridiculousness at bay.

It wouldn’t be great for the world to see Paisley Cassidy Renee act as if she did not know what she was doing. She couldn’t be the ridiculous one without any sense of knowledge or kindness.

No, she had to be steady.

But I hadn’t been her last night. No, I had been the insane one who had decided to drink far too much. And not only had it been so unsafe, but I was lucky I hadn’t made even more mistakes than I already had; it was also just another reason that led me into my current hell.

I took a deep breath, pushing all memories and thoughts I did not want to focus on out of my mind so I could do the unthinkable.

I opened my eyes.

With a deep breath, I then promptly shut those lids. No. Too much sun. Way too much sun.

The tap-dancing gorillas had now been joined with a trio of violin-wielding crocodiles who had decided to serenade me with their hell.

Was I still drunk? That was quite a possibility. One never knew these days.

Especially when it felt as if I was never going to be able to recover from what had just happened.

And it wasn’t even the current pain residing in my skull, or the fact that as I opened my eyes one more time, the light blinded. No it was none of those things.

It was because I knew exactly where I was.

I wasn’t at home. I wasn’t in a stranger’s bedroom after a night of intoxicating sex in which it was all mistakes and terrible decisions. No, it couldn’t be a stranger. I couldn’t have even been kidnapped by a crazy knife-wielding man. No.

I had been saved by my ex-husband. No, not the one that I had divorced yesterday. But the one that had divorced me years before.

And there were always going to be those qualifications, weren’t they?

Because Jacob and I had divorced each other, even though he had cheated on me, we had divorced each other. Much to my mother’s painstaking disappointment.

But August? He had left me.

And now here I was, sleeping in what had to be his guest bedroom, and under his roof for the first time.

Why was it that it couldn’t only be embarrassment crawling over my skin? No. It had to be something worse. Was that pity for myself—no, it couldn’t be that. Was it pain? That made a little more sense. Because I didn’t know why I would be feeling like this. I shouldn’t feel this way.

With some distinct effort, I forced myself into a sitting position and took stock of my situation. I had no idea where August was. I didn’t even know if he was in the house. Maybe he had left me here and gone to his girlfriend’s home. I held back an audible groan at that thought.

His girlfriend.

I had no room to talk. I had been married until late yesterday afternoon. I should’ve been happy he had moved on. With a nice, caring woman who hadn’t even blinked about the fact that the man she had currently been dating had left with a drunk woman in the passenger seat. Or maybe the woman was completely clueless and maybe August did that often. Helped drunk women and stuffed them in his guest rooms.

It had taken me a moment to realize why I had been in his guest room and not my home. Because of course August didn’t know where I lived. I didn’t know where he lived either. In fact I had no idea where I was. I had no idea if we lived in similar neighborhoods, or on opposite ends of Denver. Because Denver wasn’t just main city Denver. If you said you were from Denver, you could be from one of over a dozen suburbs. We all lived in different towns within Denver. Whether it was Arvada or Littleton or Westminster or Centennial. All of these places still counted, at least when you talked about the grand scheme of things. In fact, I had driven through two suburbs to go from the lawyer’s office to my house and then back to the bar. So for all I knew, I could be neighbors with him or be an hour away.

Then again, I had been countless miles from him even when I thought he had loved me. So what did I know? But no, I had things to do. I would schedule a car to get me home—after I found my clothes, because I was currently wearing shorts and a shirt that were not mine. I was at least wearing my balconette bra and panties, so there was that. But he had seen enough. Of course his mouth had been over every inch of me at one point in our lives, and while I didn’t look exactly the same, I shouldn’t be too embarrassed. I had probably thrown up all over my clothing, and he was just trying to deal with the smell. I was a disgusting mess.

And of course, even through my drunken haze, and that hangover that would not quit, I could remember exactly what I had told him the night prior. I could still hear the words seeping through my lips as I sat on these blue cotton sheets with the stone-gray curtains not blocking out the sun.

---