Page 96 of Guys Can't Write Romance
On his way out, he grabbed a spare blanket from the closet and crashed on the living room couch, eventually dozing off to the sound of distant waves on the shore.
Chapter twenty-four
Hangovers, Waves, and Flying
Rhino shuffled groggily into the living room, rubbing at his face as the smell of slightly stale beer mingled with the salty ocean air wafting through the open window.
He stopped abruptly at the sight of Chad sprawled across the couch, a blanket half-falling off his chest and one arm hanging dramatically over the edge.
“What the...” he muttered. He looked over at Chad’s bedroom door, which was slightly ajar. He walked over and peeked inside, his eyes widening at the sight of Daisy asleep in his bed.
He walked back to Chad and did what any good friend would do — he slurped his protein shake as loudly as possible until Chad’s eyes squinted open.
Chad groaned. “I will literally pay you to stop existing right now.”
“Bro,” Rhino said. “Did you know there’s a chick in your bed?”
Chad pulled the blanket over his head. “Yeah. Thanks for the update.”
“Wait! Hold up!” Rhino said as something clicked in his brain. “She’s in there, and you’re in here? Did you miss the class on the birds and the bees?”
Chad muttered something incoherent and hungover beneath the blanket.
“Sorry, bro. I don’t speak blanket,” Rhino said.
Chad pulled the blanket down just enough to expose his eyes, shooting Rhino a flat, tired glare. “I said, we got drunk, and she needed a place to crash. That’s it.”
“So, you were a gentleman?” Rhino snickered.
“Go finish your protein drink,” Chad groaned, pulling a pillow over his face.
Meanwhile, in Chad’s bedroom, Daisy blinked groggily against the morning light streaming through the blinds.
Her head pounded with the worst hangover she’d had in recent memory. She slowly sat up and took in the unfamiliar room, her brain struggling to process what looked like a crime scene.
The blanket across her was crumpled and disheveled, yet cozy and warm. A ‘Jaws’ poster and several horror movie posters hung on the walls, taped at slightly tilted angles that only Daisy would have noticed. A surfboard stood in the corner, while sports gear and piles of clothes cluttered the floor. Definitely Chad’s bedroom.
“Right,” she muttered under her breath, combing her fingers through her hopelessly tangled rat’s nest of hair.
Then, for the moment of truth. She bit her lip as she cautiously lifted the blanket and sighed with relief when she saw her dress was still on, although probably wrinkled beyond repair. Looking over the edge of the bed, she saw her shoes neatly placed on the floor. There was even a glass of water on the nightstand beside her. Despite the pounding in her head, something warmbloomed in her chest as she realized Chad had been a perfect gentleman.
She swung her legs out of bed and grabbed the glass of water, gulping it down. With a groan, she walked into Chad’s bathroom and looked in the mirror. It was worse than she had feared, her long wavy hair knotted in hopeless tangles and her mascara having found its way to her cheeks. For a second, she debated over crawling back into bed and hiding under the covers.
This was going to suck.
Daisy shuffled into the living room like a hungover zombie on a bad hair day. She found Chad sprawled on the couch beneath a crumpled blanket, a throw pillow over his head and one arm dangling over the side. Seeing this made her heart feel lighter.
“Morning,” she croaked, surprised her vocal chords even worked. She was way too hungover to muster anything resembling pep, but she managed the smallest tired smile in Chad’s direction.
The pillow lowered from his head, and he looked over, his hair sticking up on one side with comical bedhead that Daisy wouldn’t have traded for the most perfectly groomed GQ hairstyle. It was Chad, at his unglamorous best. “Hey,” he muttered, managing something resembling a smile.
“Hey back,” she said. “You slept out here?”
“Yeah,” he said, yawning as he stretched. “This drunk girl stole my bed.”
Her smile warmed. “That drunk girl thanks you for not taking advantage of her ridiculously drunk self.”
“Tell her she’s welcome.”
