Page 99 of A Country Kind Of Love

“Worse than that?” Peyton nods towards Jesse’s friend Drew, who has one hand clutching his pizza smeared violin and the other fingering a bottle of Dos Equis. “I really hope his finger isn’t stuck.”

“I think it might be, but we’ll smash it off. It’s no big deal,” Jesse shrugs.

Peyton isn’t one to partake in weekend long benders, but she did have something to celebrate this weekend, or someone. The girl crumpled up at the other end of the sofa with no T-shirt and Peyton’s leopard print hair clip holding the majority of her hair atop her head is the reason. Even when she’s half wasted, smells like alcohol, and has strands of hair falling around her neck, she’s stillmesmerizing.

After realising sex with Cleo is life-changing, Peyton realised it again, and again, and an undisclosed number of times after that. They woke up Saturday afternoon completely naked with pulled muscles and chapped lips. Experimenting with positioning sounds fun; it sounds exciting, and when you’re swept up in a sex-fest as Peyton was, it’s easy to get carried away. She realised her limits pretty quickly. She is nowhere near as flexible as the girls in the Kama Sutra book they found online. She spent all day Saturday walking around like she’d suffered a serious sports injury, except she doesn’t play sports, so Jesse knew the truth immediately. He took great pleasure in telling all his friends Saturday night about Peyton’s sex-crazed night.

Sex is just like yoga; you have to work your way up to doing the advanced poses, and somewhere amidst the endorphin release she thought she could play in the MLB before she graduated Little League. She did get more than one home run though; she was proud of that.

Jesse informed the group of a recent sexual exploit, the theme of his story,where there’s a hole, things can get stuck.And that’s how Saturday night turned intoan explicit version of Twenty-one Questions.

Peyton spent Sunday in bed, wrapped up in Cleo’s arms, hungover, and full of Jesse’s famous crispy bacon pancakes. Jesse had an obscene amount of alcohol left over from one of his summer parties. He decided a cleanse was in order; that’s how Sunday night came about, and Peyton finds herself with a double hangover and enough alcohol in her system to pee tequila. She’s basically a giant human-shaped optic.

Wait—

Peyton sits forwards and grabs for her phone, but it’s dead. She grabs for Cleo’s, also dead. If she’s spent all weekend drunk on love, and well, drunk in general, that wouldmake today—

“Monday.”

Suddenly, it dawns on her.

“Fuck... Jesse, what time is it?” She stands up too quickly; she uses the edge of the sofa as a support rail like she’s on a boat that’s aboutto capsize.

“Erm... I don’t know, maybe like nine-ish.”

“Why are there no clocks anywhere in this apartment?” She clambers over the coffee table to reach for Charlie’s phone.

“You know I don’t like clocks. The ticking makes me want to smash itto pieces.”

“You can get one that doesn’t—never mind.”

Peyton presses on Charlie’s phone.

Gulp.

“Oh, this is bad.” She clambers back over the coffee table to shake Cleo. “This isreally bad.”

“No.”Cleo grunts.

“Wake up.” She shakes her again.

“What’s going on?” Jesse muffles as he helps himself to day old airedout Cheetos.

“It’s Monday, and the time is 10:13 a.m.” Peyton eyes him.

“Right...” He says nonchalantly. She waits for it to register. “Oh.” He spits the remainder of the Cheetos into the trashbag. “Fuck!”

He runs from one end of the apartment to the other, up the stairs to his room, back down, and he throws the cushions off the sofa. He almost throws Cleo in the process. He checks the fridge, the coffee table, and the inside of everyone’s shoes.

“Where is my god damn phone!” he yells.

“Is this it?” The girl who Peyton still has no recollection of hands Jesse a phone. “Sorry, I thought it was mine.” She wipes excess sick from her mouth.

Gross.

“Hi, it’s Sophie, right?” Jesse grabs the phone from her grasp.

“Sasha.”