Finding Grace(53)

She woke to a tap-tapping on her bedroom door.

She forced her crusty eyelids open and groaned as a jackhammer started up in her head.

Snatches of last night’s drinking marathon flashed in and out of her mind in glorious, fractured Technicolor. Knocking back shots, singing, and a wisp of an unwelcome memory of clambering on a nearby table to dance, aided and abetted by the whooping laughter around her.

She swallowed and wished she hadn’t. Her throat felt like sandpaper.

That tapping noise again… it could only be Angela enquiring how she was, but her efforts were making Lucie’s headache worse.

‘Go away,’ she groaned, turning her head to the wall and closing her eyes again.

Tap, tap, tap. Now a more insistent knocking.

‘Lucie? Open up, it’s me.’

Stefan!

She sat bolt upright in bed and held both temples in an effort to relieve the agonising pounding as her poor swollen brain registered its objections to the rapid movement.

‘Lucie?’

‘Coming,’ she called out as loudly as she could bear. Little more than a croak emerged from her mouth.

Impatient knocking at the door now.

She gingerly swung her legs out of bed, pressing the soles of her feet on to the cold tiled floor. She stood up and waited a beat, trying to decide if she was likely to be sick again.

She dreaded to estimate how long she’d sat hunched over the toilet bowl last night, vomiting up the contents of her overindulgence. It had been long enough for her to start falling asleep on the bathroom floor, only roused by her jaw hitting the loo seat. So gross.

‘Lucie, come on! I’m getting cold out here.’

She pulled on her robe and crossed shakily to the door, reaching out a trembling hand to twist the latch. The door opened.

‘At last! I thought you were… Oh dear.’ Stefan’s eyes took in the state of her. ‘I think it’s definitely going to be a bad-hair day. I’d skip your first lecture if I were you.’

He looked fresh and eager, standing there in the doorway, fit and lean in his jeans and clean white T-shirt. Lucie caught a faint strain of sandalwood soap and her stomach roiled.

He pushed a brown paper bag into her hands.

‘I brought you coffee and a croissant. Are you going to invite me in, or do I have to stand out here in the corridor?’

‘Sorry. Sorry, come in. I’m afraid I’m a bit disorganised.’ She looked around at her small space, littered as it was with last night’s leggings and dress, the contents of her handbag where she’d obviously turned it upside down, and, she was mortified to see, her lacy knickers and bra.

Stefan’s eyes flickered over the garments. ‘Hmm. You did get yourself in a bit of a state.’

‘I know. Sorry.’ She opened the brown bag, extracted the beaker of coffee and placed the croissant on her desk.

Stefan pulled out the desk chair and sat down.

‘No need to apologise. We all had a good night, just like I told you we would.’

‘You also said we’d be back home by ten,’ Lucie reminded him.

She opened the lid of the cardboard cup and inspected the frothy latte within. She swallowed down a sudden sickly taste in her mouth and set the cup back on the desk, untouched.

Stefan laughed. ‘Oh dear, is it that bad? If coffee won’t help, you must be suffering.’

‘I feel so, so ill,’ Lucie said gravely.

‘You’re not ill, you’ve got a hangover.’ Stefan shrugged. ‘Are you seriously telling me you’ve never had a hangover before?’

‘Not like this.’ Lucie shook her head, slowly and carefully in an effort to avoid more pain.

‘Aww, my little hangover virgin!’ Stefan said gleefully.

Her face flushed with heat and she hung her head, mortified.

‘Oh come on, it’s not that bad. You’re living life at last, look at it that way.’

Her father’s disapproving face floated into her mind. The narrowed eyes, the lips pressing into grim disapproval. Thank God he wasn’t here now, to witness her downfall.

‘I can’t remember much about last night, just awful flashes. I can’t even recall how I got back here.’

‘Oh, I can help you with that, doll. I brought you back. I stopped you falling into the bushes and carried you the last few yards.’

She was going to throw up again. Stefan had brought her back here? But she was naked when she woke up this morning; how had…

‘Don’t look so worried. Rhonda came with us and got you safely tucked up in bed. I retreated like the perfect gentleman I am.’ He grinned wolfishly.

‘Thanks,’ Lucie whispered. ‘For looking after me.’

‘Hey, no problem. Don’t take it so seriously. You had too much to drink, nobody died.’

Not yet, Lucie thought grimly. It felt exactly like she was on the cusp of dying. And now she was bothered by what Stefan had said about Rhonda getting her tucked up in bed. Why didn’t she leave her fully clothed? That was what you’d do if someone was drunk. You’d just pull a cover over them and leave them to sleep it off.

How creepy that she’d been naked this morning.

Still, Stefan had proved himself to be a gentleman, despite her dad’s colourful warnings about the drink and drugs and wild hedonistic parties one encountered at university.