Page 32 of Crazy Love

“What an amateur,” I groan, reaching for the glass. Last night is a splotchy blur. I only remember snippets of my date and the aftermath with Anthony. One thing I’m certain of is that I had zero filter last night.

Movement in the hallway makes me sit up and I clutch my head with a groan. Hazel is banging around like the goddamned elephant woman. She knows the rules. I need quiet before coffee – hangover or no.

I manage to get out of bed and cross the room, heading towards the noise to make my displeasure clear.

“Good morning!”

I grab my head as the pain rips through again, squinting at the man looming in my kitchen. “Bonetti, what the hell are you doing here?”

“That’s no way to greet your house guests,” he sings, spooning cereal into his mouth.

I straighten up, taking in his shirtless torso sprawled with ink, the way his defined v dips into his low-hanging track pants. If I wasn’t feeling like shit warmed up, I’d spend a lot more time admiring his physique.

“Did we have sex last night?” I ask. Anthony smirks down at his bowl. “Bonetti. Answer me.”

“Hmm do you think I jumped your bones before or after the car ride home, where you rapped WAP for me?Twice.”

“Nobody does a better Cardi B than me,thank you.”

Anthony chuckles. “I believe it. I saw it with my own eyes.”

The tension screaming out of my skin isn’t helping my hangover. Did we, or didn’t we? I’m not sure what I want the answer to be. I mean, it’s fine if we did, but what if I’d blacked out and not remembered what I was hoping would be amazing, animalistic sex with this piece of man meat? I don’t feel sore except for my legs, which I assume is from my renditions of WAP.Oh no. Maybe his penis is so small that it left no reminder …

“Bonetti,” I groan. “I’m spiralling.”

Anthony chuckles. “We didn’t have sex, Red. Chill.”

A relieved sigh escapes my lips, and he raises an eyebrow. “That breath of relief is almost insulting.”

“Your ego can take it,” I dismiss. Anthony grins again and it makes me irrationally annoyed. “Why don’t you look like you’re dying?”

“I don’t drink.” Anthony scrapes his spoon around the bowl, the sounds resonating like nails on a chalkboard.

I grit my teeth as I press my nails into my scalp. “And you’re here to rub it in?”

Anthony’s smile widens as he places his now empty bowl in the sink. He washes it and rinses it silently. I never realised how sexy it is watching a man clean up his own dishes until this moment. When he’s finished, Anthony spins, his hands placed on the bench behind him. “How do you feel this morning?”

“Like shit.”

“I know, but … you’re, alright?”

I narrow my eyes at him. “What does that mean?”

“How much do you remember of last night?”

My stomach drops. “That’s never a good question to ask a woman with a hangover.”

“Yeah, I don’t think it’s only a hangover,” he says grimly. “One of the side effects of getting your drink spiked is memory loss.”

I blink at him, something familiar yet vague dancing in my mind just out of reach. Like we’ve had this conversation before, but I can’t remember it. “You think someone spiked my drink?”

“I thinkNathanspiked your drink,” Anthony snaps, his eyes flaring. “You could barely stand when I found you. That dickhead only had one thing on his mind, and it wasn’t your wellbeing.”

He gives me a run-down of what happened once we arrived at the studio and the sinking sensation in my stomach turns into something more violent.

“I want to throw up,” I mutter.

Anthony surveys me. “I don’t blame you. Whatever it was, knocked you around. I had to carry you inside once we got here.”

---