Page 6 of Wicked Games

“That’s me,” Trent said with a careless shrug. “Just ask my parents.”

I knew they were pissed when he’d decided to become a small-town pediatrician, but I had to say the choice looked good on him.

“Aren’t we past the age where we live for our parents?” Iris asked.

“Fuck yeah.” I took the decanter from Iris and raised it for a toast. Iris and Trent lifted their cigars. “To living our own lives.”

“Cheers to that,” Trent said.

“Woohoo,” Iris added.

From there, things got a little foggy.

A shrill sound pierced my peaceful slumber, making me realize my pounding head felt three times its normal size. “Fuck,” I groaned. My mouth felt as dry as the Sahara desert and tasted like I licked the bottom of an ashtray.

“Answer the phone or fucking shoot me. You’ll put me out of my misery either way.”

My whole body tensed as I recognized the voice from the pillow beside mine. “What did we do?” I whispered hoarsely as the phone blessedly stopped ringing.

“Not a damn thing,” Trent said.

I took a chance and opened my eyes and immediately regretted it. We hadn’t pulled the curtains closed before we fell asleep and even the gloomy light from a rainy morning burned my retinas. “My head,” I whined. “There’s someone inside my skull stabbing my brain.”

My phone started ringing again, sounding louder and shriller than the ringtone normally was.

“Please, Ry. If you ever cared about me as a friend, you’d shut your phone up. I’m so fucking hungover right now.”

“Me too.” I reached for my phone, but it wasn’t on my nightstand where I normally kept it. “Damn it. Where is the stupid thing?” I sat up too fast, and a wave of dizziness washed over me; my stomach pitched. I sat still for a minute to get my bearings and sighed in relief when the phone stopped ringing and the urge to vomit subsided.

“They’ll call back,” Trent said, sounding muffled. “It’s the fourth call in a row. You sleep like the dead.”

I carefully turned and saw Trent had buried his head beneath the pillows. I was relieved to see he was wearing a t-shirt and vaguely remembered pulling a shirt and sweats out of a drawer for him. I looked down at myself and saw I wore similar clothes.

“We didn’t fuck.”

Trent lifted the pillow from his head and glared at me. “You don’t have to sound so damn relieved. You’re horrible for my ego.”

“I’m sorry, Trent. I don’t want anything to ruin our friendship. I feel like you and Iris are all I have in the world.”

He placed a warm hand between my shoulder blades and rubbed. “I have an idea how you can make it up to me.”

“Didn’t you just hear what I said?”

“Not that, idiot,” Trent said. “Lie back down here and look disheveled with me. I’ll snap a photo and send it to our mothers. It’ll make their day. Hell, it might make their entire year.”

I chuckled and gingerly stood up to find my phone. “And then our mothers will start nagging us to meet with their wedding planner.”

“True,” Trent agreed. “Okay, so it wasn’t my best idea.”

“I’m amazed you can think at all, buddy.”

I found my phone in the tuxedo pants I’d haphazardly thrown on the floor sometime in the early morning. It started ringing almost as soon as I had it in my hand. Seeing the caller ID, I groaned out loud.

“She must have an informant in the building.” I wasn’t in the mood for her shit, so I silenced the call.

“What?” Trent asked.

“It’s my mother. Someone probably told her you didn’t leave last night.”