I've been trying to wake up for the past hour. Every time I get even close to opening my eyes, I feel like I'm falling down an abyss. It's such an unpleasant feeling; drifts me right back to sleep.

There's also this comforting feeling of hugging a personalized pillow. And I only found out that the pillow was Clay when I finally woke up.

Opening my eyes, I realize that my arms are wrapped around his neck, and my head is buried between the pillow behind his head and his neck while my legs are circling his body. We're not even lying down, he's leaned back to the headboard and I'm basically sleeping in a vertical position.

I don't even want to ask how. All I remember is getting drunk and that's more than enough.

When Clay feels me shifting and stretching, he speaks, "Good morning, moonshine," he's casually scrolling his phone while I'm stuck to his body like a leech.

I've never been so confused in my whole life. Well, I say that a lot. And it says a lot about me, "What?"

"It's like sunshine but for alcoholics like you," I have no idea what's going on.

Since when am I his sunshine- I mean moonshine?

And why am I in his shirt? Why does my boob hurt? Why is my hair in a bun, I never sleep with a bun.

And is that Nick sleeping next to us?

I have so many questions-

I roll away from him, careful to not land on Nick. My whole body aches. Especially my head and my right boob.

The pain is so distracting that I'm forced to look under my shirt to see what's going on before doing anything else. I find an oval-shaped red mark on my chest. Wait-

Wait, is that a hickey?

"Did you- did I?" I don't even know if I should ask Clay or Nick. Or both. My last memory is of me on Nick's lap, but there are also faint images of me and Clay together, "Did we?"

Clay's barely holding back a grin. I know that face, it means that he's about to laugh at me and call me an idiot.

"What?"

I pull the neck of his shirt I'm wearing to expose the red mark, "What's this?"

He didn't even hesitate before answering.

"It's the upper inner corner of your right titty."

Why does it sound like something I would say?

And why is Nick here, it's so fucking ridiculous-

I pull my brows together and he notices how concerned I am. At least he doesn't tease me any longer and actually starts giving proper answers to my questions.

"It's a burn mark, idiot." There it is; he called me by my real name.

A faint memory of me spilling hot coffee on myself resurfaces. I thought it was a dream. But if it wasn't a dream, then did I ride Clay? Cause I kinda remember doing that.

"Did we fuck?"

I know it came out a bit blunt but that's the best I can do. Clay blinks in surprise, completely losing the ability to speak for literal seconds.

"You were drunk, Anastasia," he makes his words clear, "nothing happened."

That one must've been a dream then.

The next thing that worries me is how tangled my hair is in this bun. It's pulling from all the sides and feels like someone laid an egg on my head. And even when I try to detangle it, the hairtie is stuck. It almost makes me lose my shit and rip my hair out.

That's when I notice that Clay's looking at me guilty-eyed.

"You were throwing up so I tried to put your hair up," he presses his lips together, "and then it got tangled.. yeah, sorry about that."

How can I have no memory of it at all? I don't remember throwing up, how is that even possible?

"When did I throw up?" My eyebrows go up in surprise.

"You went to sleep and then got up after an hour," he looks at his phone, "and then you went to sleep again and threw up again after half an hour," I already feel bad, but it wasn't all, "then you woke up twice cause you were nauseous but couldn't throw up anymore so I made you some tea."

Did he even sleep? I feel so bad, he took care of me the whole night and I don't even remember any of it. All I remember is him making me drink the coffee. And I only remember that because of how distinct the bitterness was.

"I'm so sorry," I wrinkle my nose bridge, "did you sleep at all?"

He nods, "Yeah, like for 40 minutes," he says it like it's a reasonable amount of time to sleep, "then Nick fell from his bed and started throwing up, so I brought him here."

I cover my mouth, widening my eyes, "From the bunk bed?" He sleeps on the top part of the bunk bed. I fell from there once- well, I didn't fall, George pulled me, and it hurt like a bitch.

"He's okay as you can see, don't worry," he laughs, looking at his peacefully sleeping friend, "his elbow is a bit bruised and that's all."

"You should sleep too," I look at Clay's messy hair and heavy eyes. I can't believe he had to deal with not only one but two drunks at the same time. And all of that is because we're both idiots and couldn't find anything better to do.

"Maybe after I shower," he looks down at his shirt. It's supposed to be loose, but now I can see every single outline of his muscles - it's stuck to his skin. Gosh, it must be the flashbacks of that dream taking my mind places it shouldn't go.

I can already imagine how unpleasantly sweaty he felt having to bear the heat of my body on him for the whole night.

Judging by the silence of the room it feels like both of us are reliving the same feeling; my body clung to his. Yet for some reason, he's smiling. It's not just a smile; it turns to a soft chuckle soon.

"What?" I'm curious. He started chuckling to himself.. it's kinda weird.

"Don't you remember anything?" He's laughing softly now.

"Whatever I remember turns out to be a dream," I shrug.

I just accidentally admitted that I had a wet dream about him and he didn't even get it.

Who's the idiot now?

"You were like- clung to me," I've never seen him talk this enthusiastically to me and smile this much, "you kept saying that I'm your tree and you're my koala until you fell asleep."

I cover my face. That is so embarrassing. And he's laughing too-

"That's so-," I'm laughing through the pain, "that's so stupid."

"Yeah, you're pretty stupid," I missed his insults. But then his laughter dies down, "I found it cute tho."

And so does my mine. I look down at my fingers. His behavior is too confusing to me. All I remember is drinking with Nick, a blurry mess of Clay forcing me to drink coffee, and waking up to him acting weird. And by weird I mean he's not being an ass to me. He's way softer than usual.

"I'm gonna go shower," he announces after a long awkward silence and gets up.

I'm so stupid that I forgot to tell him something important. I guess it's better late than never

"Hey!" I stand up from the bed when he reaches the door. My voice makes him turn his head back, "I'm really sorry, and thank you."

He smiles, "You've said that a thousand times already. It's nothing."

Weird. I don't remember thanking him at all.

"No one's ever done this to me, so it's not nothing to me. Means a lot." My own words hurt me.

"I know, you've already said that too," there's now sadness in his smile.

"What else did I say?" I'm honestly scared cause one time my brother told me that drunk words are sober thoughts and I think about that to this very day.

Clay's gaze freezes on one spot and he smirks. Furrowing my brows, I'm trying to understand what he's thinking of. But he quickly snaps out of the memory and shakes his head, "Nothing."