Somewhere Only We Know(19)

SATURDAY





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


LUCKY


The first weird thing I noticed was the light.

What happened to my black-out curtains? I never woke up to sunlight.

Second was the faint snoring. Was that Ji-Yeon? Did she spend the night in my hotel room? She’d done that in the past when I had particularly anxious nights.

I shifted under the covers, then froze. I was still wearing my jeans and my neck was all crunchy-feeling. Why was I—

The hotel hallway.

The dude in the elevator.

The mall.

The bus.

The boy.

The bar.

The boy.

I shot up—brain fully awake and registering everything around me: The small bedroom crammed with a hodgepodge of black wood furniture. A poster of some old action movie. Threadbare floral curtains fluttering around a large window. The cracked-open door and the sound of light snoring drifting into the room.

OH MY GOD.

My hands flew to my mouth, muffling my involuntary scream. What in Sam Hill did I do last night?

I spied my coat neatly folded next to my hotel-room slippers at the foot of the bed, placed side by side. Which led me back to the view of the other room … two feet poking out from a pile of blankets on a truly hideous sofa.

Was that him?

I remembered the guy like a fuzzy dream. Tall. He towered over me. Lean but sturdy. I remembered him feeling sturdy. Oh, good gravy. My face burned at some memory I couldn’t quite grasp. I tried to piece together an image of him. Thick, longish hair pushed back from his face, tucked behind his ears. His face, though … my memories couldn’t focus on any definitive features on his face.

I was so out of it last night and somehow ended up in a guy’s apartment. He brought me back to his place. He was a stranger. All my girl alarm bells were going off at the moment. I needed to get the heck out of here.

He was still asleep. Only needed to slip out of here unnoticed. I found my hat on the nightstand, pulled it low over my eyes, and practically slithered out of the bed, careful not to make any sudden sounds.

I dropped to the floor and crawled toward my jacket and slippers. Why was I crawling? In case the paparazzi were poised outside the window? A shudder went through me at the thought. Yeah, I had to get out of here like, now.

But the second my fingers brushed the slippers, the sofa pile moved.

I let out a low hiss and pulled back. Blast. Then I heard muffled cursing from the pile of blankets before a series of frantic movements began underneath them. I leaned back against the bed and froze, watching the blankets. Afraid of what would emerge.

First, a hand fumbled around the coffee table until it found a phone. The phone disappeared under the blankets for a second before all the blankets were thrown aside to reveal a real live boy sitting up in the middle of the pile.

Ah, there was his face.

Dark, heavy-lidded eyes, bleary from having just woken up. Finely sculpted bones—he had cheekbones I would murder for and a jaw that could cut glass. But it was his mouth that startled me. An outrageously pouty mouth. He looked like a bratty playboy from a K-drama.

I must have made some kind of sound, because suddenly he was looking at me.

Those sleepy eyes widened and his how-dare mouth dropped open. We stared at each other in silence for about .5 seconds.

I scrambled up and shot out of the bedroom, toward the front door of the apartment.

“Wait!” he called out from behind me, but I fumbled with the dead bolt until I was out the door. Halfway down the hall, I noticed the flickering lights and the smell of cigarette smoke.

Then I stepped in something wet and registered my bare feet.

Waves of revulsion rolled over me as I tried not to think about what I might have stepped in. Ew, ew, ew.

I took a deep breath, pushed my hair off my face, and closed my eyes. Mind over matter. Trying to summon my meditation app’s breathing exercises. It was all about focusing on your breath so that the absolute horror of your surroundings and current life could melt away or something. It did help, though. It got me through excruciating dance numbers with a sprained ankle. Got me through the scent of grilled meats at late-night barbecue spots when I was subsisting on sweet potatoes.

My mind finally stilled as it was on the edge of freak-out mode. Tightly wound self-control kept me anchored, kept me still. When I opened my eyes, I was as cool as a cucumber. I had no idea where I was in the city, and not wearing shoes would attract unwanted attention. Not to mention, it was totally gross.

So I grudgingly made my way back to the apartment. Except I didn’t know which one I came from. I walked door to door, hoping one of them would trigger some sort of familiarity by appearance alone.

Moments from last night kept flashing through my mind, including the boy’s face. And then suddenly, I wasn’t merely imagining his face. I was seeing it.

Right in front of me.

He was standing in the hallway, holding up my slippers. “You forgot something.”

Even though his hair was all mussed, his eyes still bleary, and clothes rumpled, there was a confident gleam in his eyes. His lips curled up into a knowing smile.

I snatched the slippers from him. “Where am I?”

“You’re at a luxury apartment complex in Hong Kong,” he said. Every part of him exuded extreme enjoyment at this predicament. It turned that lovely mouth into a punchable one.