Game On(31)

I swayed on my feet, turning back in the direction of my hotel. My head was bleary with beer and frustration. I just wanted to lie down. This evening sucked. It really, really sucked.

“Sophie—” Nathan stepped forward, his hand gently reaching out for me, but I slapped it away, spinning to face him. The world spun with me and didn’t stop.

“And you!” I waved my finger at him, trying to keep from falling over. When I steadied myself, I found that he was staring at me, a worried look in his eyes. He should be worried, I thought. I was a loose cannon with a ton of goddamn gunpowder to spare.

“All I wanted was a f*cking interview!” I told him. “All I wanted was to do my job.” I was shouting now, the words tumbling out of my mouth, the alcohol freeing them completely. All the frustration, professional and sexual, that I had been feeling since I set foot in Austin poured out of me in a jumble of slurred words. “I’m a good reporter! I just wanted to interview you, for f*ck’s sake. I just wanted to write this piece and prove to those *s at the paper that I was worth something. That I wasn’t some girl that they could order around. That I wasn’t someone who was there to get them coffee or make copies. I wanted to prove to them that I could write a good story. And you just keep jerking me around like I’m nothing. But I’m not nothing, Nathan Ryder. You might be the hottest thing since microwaves, but I am now officially immune to your charms. I’m done letting your smile and your tight shirts and your great butt distract me! I’m a f*cking reporter and I’m here to do my job. I didn’t even want to come to this bar tonight. I shouldn’t have been here at all, so I’m done. I’m done with both of you.” I pointed at Nathan. “I’m done with you tonight.” I pointed at Nick. “And I’m done with you forever. As far as I’m concerned, you’re an * and not worth another moment of my evening.”

Somehow in my drunken state, I realized I was being much harsher on Nathan than he deserved. He hadn’t broken up with me. He hadn’t left me for a member of his band. He hadn’t gotten me evicted from his apartment. He had just been annoyingly hard to interview, and now I was screaming at him in the street. But it was too late to back down. I had already crossed a line and I was too drunk to make any kind of meaningful apology. That would have to wait until I could walk straight. I waved my hand at both of them. “I’m going back to my hotel. Across. The. Street. Don’t you dare follow me.”

And with that, I turned unsteadily on my heel and stalked off, leaving both of them standing outside the bar. Good, I thought to myself as I walked away towards the hotel. They deserved each other.





Chapter Thirteen


The ringing of my phone set off an explosion of pain my head. My mouth felt as if it was full of cotton balls, my body ached, and I was pretty sure that if I tried to stand up, the entire world might flip upside down. I had no idea where my phone was, but the noise it was making seemed to be all around me. All the lights in my hotel room were still on, which caused another sharp jab of pain in my head each time I tried to peel my eyes open. They seemed to be glued shut.

I swept my hand across the bed, finding piles of pillows and sheets, but no hard rectangular electronic device that was clearly in league with the devil. Suddenly the noise stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief. As I pulled one of the pillows closer to me, I realized I was still fully dressed. Eyes firmly closed, I gave myself a good pat down discovering that not only was I still wearing my bra, T-shirt, and jeans but I was also still wearing socks and shoes. Yet I hadn’t let that stop me from crawling completely under the covers.

Groaning, I rolled over on to my back as the previous evening’s dramatics came back to me in painful Technicolor. Sitting in the bar with Nathan, seeing Nick on stage with his band, Nick and Anne Marie playing the song about me with new, updated, unwelcomed lyrics, me drinking half the beer in Texas in an effort to avoid reality and then throwing up in the street. Nick asking me if I liked the song and then my whole, glorious, expletive-laced monologue about how bad Nick was in bed, how good I was, and how much I wished I was in bed with Nathan. And on top of all that I had been mean to him. Like, truly, unnecessarily mean. What the hell, Hall? Nathan was not Nick and it wasn’t fair to even compare them.

Fuck me, I thought, my head pounding. I had truly and completely f*cked up this assignment. There was absolutely no way Nathan was going to speak to me again, let alone allow me to interview him in a professional capacity. Good job, Hall, I told myself. You’re a f*cking moron who can’t hold her booze.

Then, as if things couldn’t get any worse, the phone started ringing again.

“Argh!” I moaned and yanked my pillow out from under my head and threw it across the room. When I lay back on the bed, however, my skull cracked against the very device I had been struggling to find. “Ouch,” I muttered and squinted at the screen. My mother. Of course.

Knowing that it was unlikely she’d stop calling, I pushed ACCEPT and held the phone a good distance from my ear, my head still throbbing in rhythm with the now silenced ringing.

“Hello?” I croaked.

“That’s my girl,” Mama said, her own voice as raspy as mine. I didn’t know how she did it, but somehow my mother knew exactly when I was hung over and always chose to call me as early as she could that morning. I forced my eyes open wider and blinked at the digital numbers on the clock next to the bed. 12:30. OK, well, that was early for her, I supposed. From the gravel in her voice, it would be an easy assumption that she had been out just as late as I had, probably doing much of the same thing. Though my mom rarely ended her night screaming at two men in the middle of the street. Usually it was just one man and it was in our living room.