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My head was like lead, feeling the heaviest it had ever felt. It pounded relentlessly the next morning, like tiny men hellbent on torturing me were driving steel rods on either side of my temples. The pounding kept getting louder and louder, until I realized that the noise was coming from outside of my body. Someone was knocking on the front door of my apartment.

I hadn't made it to my bedroom when Thayer had helped me inside, refusing to help him help me to my bed, taking refuge on the couch. He'd grabbed my cosy comforter from my bedroom and then told me to sleep it off. Which was why I was so pissed off that someone was now beating down my door this early.

When the knocks shifted from unfocused to relentlessly purposeful, I muttered, “Fuck off” from underneath my enormous comforter as I stayed curled on the couch. Whoever it was kept knocking like a madman and I grunted in pain as I whipped the comforter open to free myself, struggling to walk toward the front door now that the all too-bright light from the windows was impairing my vision. I somehow made it to the door and ripped it open with closed eyes.

“What the fuck do you want? ”

I heard a scoff as I reluctantly squinted my eyes open to see who it was. I softened when I realized it was Thayer. I rubbed my eyes and tried to absorb all I could. He had on a lopsided smile and was holding up a bag of what looked like Chinese takeout. His hands had been full, which I guess was an okay reason for him waking me up instead of using his key.

“Less ‘what the fuck do you want’ and more ‘thank you so much, Thayer’.”

“Fine, thank you so much, Thayer.” I said, waving him in after me.

I made my way back to the couch and sunk back into my comforter as Thayer sat in the chair next to the coffee table, unpacking the food he'd gotten for the both of us.

“How did you get Chinese so early?” I asked, pulling the comforter back over my eyes.

“Early?” Thayer laughed. “Bas, it's after four.”

“Oh God, okay.” I rubbed my head. Clearly I was a lot worse off than I thought I was.

“I figured you'd be in need of some TLC, also known as This Lovely Chinese, but I didn't think you'd be this far off.”

“Yeah, me either.”

I decided to leave the comfort of my blankets and sat up like a normal human being, reaching for the crab rangoons Thayer had placed on the table. I lazily bit into once, mewling at the perfect blend of sweet and savory.

“Ugh, I take back every horrible thing I've ever said to you.” I told him. “Thanks for getting this.”

“No problem.”

“Were you not horribly hungover this morning?”

“No, I was,” Thayer confirmed, using the provided plastic forks to lift his sesame chicken into his mouth. He took a second to savor the flavor before continuing. “I just was awake around noon and nursed myself into being a halfway decent person.” He chuckled .

“And now we're back to fuck off.” I sighed but gave him a smile as I kept nibbling on my crab rangoon.

“So...wanna tell me who the guy was you were all over last night?”

I froze mid-bite. Had Thayer seen me with Kroven? Obviously he'd seen something, but did he know that I'd been swapping spit with an Orb? What bothered me wasn't that I thought Thayer might not understand if he did know that it was Kroven that I'd been kissing. It was that I had been kissing an Orb and I found that absolutely exhilarating . I'd gone through too many emotions in the past twenty-four hours. Kissing Kroven, though, had been such a whirlwind of pleasure and I definitely wanted it again.

But could I tell Thayer that? Would he accept me as someone who clearly enjoyed macking on Orbs? I wasn't sure I was ready to admit that to myself, let alone to him. So I played the fool.

“Guy?” I leaned forward and grabbed the other order of sesame chicken and a plastic fork. I combined the sauce covered chicken and rice together for a few seconds and looked up as he eyed me expectantly. “What guy?”

I shoveled some food in, grateful that I was getting some semblance of sustenance into my system, Thayer shaking his head prolifically.

“Oh, don't give me that, Bas, I saw you.” I felt my skin crawling to get away from my bones while Thayer shook his head. “I mean, I didn't see who the guy was, but I saw some blond hair and you guys looked like you were going at it. So come on, spill.”

“He was cute and I was drunk, so I went for it.” All true, so I didn't have to outright lie to him. “There's nothing more to tell than that.” I winced at myself internally. Okay, that wasn't technically true, but I was really trying to spare him the gory details.

Thayer thankfully accepted this as an explanation. “Well, good for you. How about that one guy that kept dancing between us?” I laughed, recalling the guy that wasn't too subtle about wanting us both. “I swear he was ready for the threesome if I had remotely hinted at it.”

“I know,” I agreed. “What a wild night. That I am now painfully paying for.”

In more ways than one , I told myself.

I'd just made things worse with Kroven by fleeing from the club. I'd essentially just done the same thing to him that I'd accused him of, only worse because I was drunk and then throwing myself at him like I was starving and he was a medium rare steak.

Now it was messy as hell and all my fault. What the hell was I going to do if he showed up at the blood center now? He would have to, wouldn't he? So we could talk about the hot as hell kiss. I'd confronted him about him bailing and he'd have to confront me about kissing him.

Apparently I was too much of a sappy hopeful.

I spent the rest of the weekend in my bedroom, alternating between reading books on my iPad and gaming on my Nintendo Switch. I hadn’t experienced such an awful hangover in years and I didn’t start feeling halfway decently until late Sunday evening.

Thayer had been a godsend, making sure that I ate enough and drank enough water because I could barely leave my bed. By the time I fell asleep while he was at work late Sunday, I was dreading how work was going to be the next day.

Luckily, once I got to work that next morning, the workload was fairly lighter than normal, making it possible for me to nurse the remnants of my hangover. I sure wasn’t making the best impression on my still new co-workers in the Orb wing with my unkempt appearance, but I didn’t care.

My thoughts were tangled up in Kroven and our encounter at the club, even now, days later. What did our kiss mean now? He’d vanished from coming to the blood center and then I accosted him in the club. My face warmed as I thought about the fact that Kroven had very obviously kissed me back . I could still feel his hands on my ass from when we’d been kissing if I closed my eyes for long enough.

Trying to will my dick to stay soft, I stood up from the chair behind the desk of the Orb wing station, hitting print on the computer so I had my list of appointments for the day.

Was Kroven thinking about our kiss as much as I was? Even if he was, he wasn’t coming to this center anymore, his name noticeably still absent from my list of appointments as I attached the list to my clipboard. What did he make of our mutual attraction to one another? He’d said that the reason he’d left abruptly his last day here was because he was attracted to me.

Kroven was attracted to me. I knew it because I’d felt how much he wanted me through our kiss. If he wanted me as much as I wanted him, why the hell was he avoiding me? Would he stay away from me even more now that we’d breached contact?

God, I wanted him. I didn’t even care that it wasn’t societally normal for humans and Orbs to mingle romantically. I just wanted him. Every thought I had since the club went back to how he felt pressed up against me, how good it felt to have his arms enveloping me. It was the kind of kiss that cut through everything and I didn’t ever want it to vacate my memory.

Did it feel that way for Kroven too? I needed to know, I decided, as I finished getting ready for my first appointment of the day. I had no idea how I would even find Kroven if I wanted to talk to him about it. It’s not like I had his address or anything.

I froze mid-step, turning back to the computer. Actually, that wasn’t true. We kept files on all the patients. If I wanted to, I could pull up Kroven’s file and see if he had registered his home address in the blood center’s system .

Thankful that I still had a few minutes before I had to start calling back my first Orb of the day for their consumption appointment, I slid back into the chair and furiously got into the file keeping system. My foot tapped eagerly against the wheel of the chair as I typed Kroven’s name and waited.

It brought up a new page and I saw information about Kroven I already knew. His height, his weight, any physical descriptors such as hair color, piercings, or tattoos. But when I scrolled down to the address information, it was blank. I sighed. We didn’t require Orbs to give us their address, just in case they ever felt that their safety was in question.

So I was out of luck. No way to track down Kroven and ask him if he was feeling as out of sorts about us as I was. Begrudgingly, I stood back up, grabbing my clipboard in preparation of using work as the perfect distraction, per usual.

That's when I heard the sounds of yelling coming from the waiting area.

I bolted toward the waiting area, where it looked like one of the sangamar was trying to get through the double doors. I recognized the one trying to stop the sangamar from getting back as Ronnie.

“Ronnie, what's going on?”

She snarled at me, but I could see relief in her eyes. “Good, you deal with him!”

Ronnie ran past me, retreating to one of the employee only areas of the Orb wing, and I gently pushed the double doors open to see who was causing the hysteria.

Kroven immediately softened once he saw me emerge from the double doors, looking at me with already fed eyes of scarlet.

“Bas,” Kroven said, looking less irritated and no longer aggressive. “We need to talk.”