The phone buzzing by my head drags me out of my deep slumber, and I reach out groggily, feeling along the smooth surface to capture my vibrating device. It's like a hammering drill on my skull, and my eyes are glued shut. I'm so tired and muggy-headed, and I slide it towards me, peeling one eye open to check if it's an alarm, and see Yoonah's name on the screen. Pulsing at me in demand. I swipe it to answer, haul it under the duvet with me, and press it to my ear so I can close my eyes back in my safe, warm, cozy bubble. Jyeon's hot body pressed up behind me with an arm tossed casually across my waist, and his heavy breathing indicates he's still oblivious.
"Hello." I murmur, sounding very much like a person who is not with the world yet.
"Sohla, is that you? Are you still asleep?..." Yoonah's very alert and bright. His cheery voice is like a big pointy prod to my aching skull that makes me wince. It's painful, and I pull the cell away from my face so he's not as devastatingly loud. I have the start of a hangover from hell, and this is not helping.
"Mmmmmm." I groan.
"I am assuming my brother is with you? Please tell him to wake up, pick up his phone and call me back in the next five minutes, or OLO will burn in hell at my hands. Thank you."
"What?" I murmur, half getting the message, missing his sarcasm completely, and blinking my eyes open as though somehow that will help me understand him. Coming around as my senses slowly trickle back, it dawns on me that I am not meant to be here. This isn't the bed in the shack, this is Jyeon's bed on his boat, and if Yoonah's already at work, it can't be that early. I have a second of pause while I question how I ended up here, reality slapping me, and a little confusion as to why my alarm hasn't gone off.
"It's nine am, tell him I'm waiting, and it's important. He needs to agree on something before I can proceed."
"NINE AM??!" I snap and sit bolt upright in startled shock, flinging my sheets back and flinching as light pierces my eyeballs again, and my head swims with the jolt. Inwardly panicked because I was meant to be up hours ago. This is the main reason I was not going to stay here.
"Okay, okay…. Okay." I flail my arm and accidentally smack my very out-cold beloved in the face with the back of my hand. I am frazzled because Greta will kill me for not being there already after I promised I would and when I was meant to be sleeping upstairs in the shack last night. After picking up supplies, we planned on a bright and early clean, prep, and reopening. It's already breakfast hour. Day one of getting back to life and failing so badly because I got drunk with Jyeon last night.
"Baby, was there any need to punch me in the face… I'm very awake now." Jyeon grumbles, rolling onto his stomach and rubbing his cheek before shifting to face the other way.
"Here, It's Yoonah. He needs you." I toss my cell in his direction and slide out of bed, hearing an 'ouch,' and I assume I probably just assaulted him for the second time, only with an iPhone landing on his skull. I'm too frazzled to care and keep thinking of all the ways Greta will beat me to death.
"Thanks." Jyeon murmurs at me, and I hightail it to the bathroom, covering my naked parts with my hands like it makes much difference. Hiding is futile, and there's only one bed sheet anyway. Jyeon has seen every inch of me the last couple of days, and there isn't a tiny patch he hasn't touched.
I hear the low mumble of him carrying on a conversation and start frantically hauling clothes out of his dressers, looking for anything I can throw on to get up to the shack. Considering we came here drunk, my clothes are god knows where, and I have partial memories of some pretty wild things that would make my parents turn in their graves. I don't want to unravel that mess because half of what we got up to doesn't seem legal.
I catch sight of myself in the mirror of one of the wardrobe doors and gawp with a verbal groan. My hair is a bird's nest, my makeup mostly smeared over my face, looking panda-like because I stupidly decided to dress up last night and wear some, and my body is covered in a manner of tiny scratches, light bruises, and two very obvious hickies near my left breast. I vaguely remember us having a very intense hickey competition.
"What in the actual fuck?" I stare, rotating slightly to check out my side and back and get a mental image of my falling into the bushes outside the front door. That was about as successful as my getting up this morning. The roll down the shack steps when I told Jyeon I was not waiting for him to help me.
After years of not drinking and on only two dates, Jyeon has me behaving like a reckless teen and throwing caution to the wind. He upped his tolerance in my absence, so he assumes I too can drink my own weight in booze.
I run my fingers through my knotted hair and drag on some grey sweat pants, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. This is probably the last outfit I will ever wear, given she will bury me in it. I look awful but I only need to sprint home, take a shower, and dress properly once Greta stops yelling at me.
"Babe…. Where you going?" Jyeon knocks lightly on the door before sliding it open and catches sight of me in oversized sportswear that clearly amuses him. His eyes wandering up and down the baggy look of a toddler in daddy's clothes.
"Home… how could you let me sleep in? I was meant to be working. How did we end up here?" I snap at him, tired, testy, and suffering from alcohol consumption. "Why did you drag me here when I swore to Greta I would sleep with her at the shack so we could start early." He's getting the blame, seeing as he and Bryant started mixing up cocktails and insisting we try them.
"I was not the one doing the dragging, well, except out of the plants that you decided to roll in. You made it pretty clear we needed a bed and alone time. Couldn't contain you, baby." Jyeon winks at me, stretching up to push his palm on the upper door frame and extending all that hard muscle and flat abdomen on show. He has boxers on now, but it's not exactly hiding much, and I hesitate and give him a second look over. Not immune to the sexiness that he is when he's practically naked.
"I can't even remember half of what we did last night." I balk, pushing past him to go in search of my shoes, and he follows me with a casual meander. Seemingly not worried at all that I am about a hundred feet away from death.
"Under the bed." He nods at where I assume my shoes are hiding—no idea how he knows it, but he's right. I drag them out, bending low and almost vomiting with the maneuver.
"Most of what we did last night was porno…."
I straighten up fast, slap my hand over his mouth, and give him a stern glare. I do not need him to remind me of what a shameless hoe I was and reliving the gory details of things I had never done with him before. Alcohol is the devil's juice for sure.
"Do not say it. Greta is going to kill me, and I can't have my excuse being that I snuck out with you to have crazy sex on your boat. I'm going to hell for what we did."
Jyeon snort laughs at my dramatics, and pats me on the top of the head with a very sympathetic smile.
"You could just say you figured her and Bryant wanted alone time, given they started screwing in the kitchen." He shrugs, and I completely gawp at him in utter shock.
"What?" I do not remember that at all. I don't even know if he's joking. I have zero memory, and it's not like I want to jog for that visual either.
"Yeah, when they went AWOL for another round of cocktails and never returned. Right before you decided we should fall in the flower bed. That was your great sneaky escape because of the noises coming from the kitchen. Don't ever try and take up a job as a stealth house burglar, baby… you suck at it." Jyeon smiles, pats me on the head and then strolls by me to pick up some of the clothes strewn in every possible corner and on every surface. It looks like we got in here and threw them around. My panties are hooked up on the corner of the wall mirror here.
"Jyeon….. are you being serious right now? Greta and Bryant were really having sex?" I just can't… not in the kitchen. That's gross. We have to cook together there. I do not want to walk in and be traumatized by flash visions of memories coming back through a hangover fog. Not to mention how unsanitary that is.
"Unless you keep some weird, wild animal in there that sounds like Greta having an orgasm and Bryant grunting, then yeah, I think it was probably very loud sex."
"Ewww. Don't give me that mental image." I waft my hands at him as though the very words themselves are toxic. Greta's naked ass pastry is not going on the menu today. I don't want to think about it at all and I hope she had the sense to disinfect or at least not sit anywhere we prep actual food.
"I thought you were freaking out you are late. Have you stopped caring now you know Greta is as much of a hoe as Bryant?" Jyeon reminds me, hauling on clothes, and I snap out of my daze. Standing here like I have all day and screwing up my face at what my best friend might have been doing last night. The upside is, if she was as drunk as me, she might be still out cold, and today we delay an opening. I might not die by her hand if that's the case.
"Right…. You think Bryant stayed there with her? In our room?" I wrinkle my nose and grimace at the thought of a naked Bryant around my things and near my bed while those two go at it, making me feel physically sick. Bryant is like a brother to me, or he was, and Greta is very much my sister. It's weird. And now I mentally cross myself and pray for my poor beloved possessions exposed to such grossness.
"Probably. He would've seen how hard this boat was rocking and thought better of coming back." Jyeon winks again, smirking at me, and I bat him on the shoulder with a flat palmed slap. He's very smug this morning, probably because of last night, and does not look like he's suffering half as much as I am. He seems immune to hangovers now.
"Stop being so crude."
"You weren't so shy last night." Jyeon ducks as I aim a second slap at him and get an infuriating laugh as he scoops up his shirt and heads for the bathroom. Retreating because he knows I will beat him otherwise. He doesn't need to spell it out that I gave him a very drunken blow job for the first time in my life, convinced I was a natural at it, and was in some pretty impossible positions. I don't want to think about where I let him put his penis. It's all a mish-mash of cringe-worthy thoughts, and I'm mortified that alcohol turned me into a sex maniac with zero inhibitions.
"Why are you getting dressed? Are you coming to drag your friend out of my bedroom?" I call after him and sit down to slide on my shoes and find my bra wedged under the very bottom of the mattress. I don't even understand how. I pull it out, fold it up and stick it in the front pocket of my hooded sweater.
"If Bryant is in your bedroom, I may have to beat him to death," Jyeon calls back, and I eyeroll. Not that I wouldn't put it past him. I have started to notice that Jyeon is capable of a little green-eyed jealousy. He trusts Bryant, but he doesn't like him getting too touchy with me when giving me brotherly affections.
"There is only one. Greta and I share it." I jump up and make my way out towards the bedroom door. "I need to go. Catch me up if you're coming." It's a haphazard goodbye as I slap the bathroom door in passing and then hightail it through the small corridor of the boat and head for the steps to the upper deck. I don't wait for a response because I know he'll follow. He has done it the last two days here while we got unpacked.
I like his boat. It's a lot homelier than I expected and roomier too. It feels like a holiday lodge on water and has lovely bright and neutral décor in a pretty spacious plan. I scale up and run across the deck before climbing down the metal ladder onto the pier and running like the wind for home. Mentally cursing and hoping Greta is unconscious and suffering, so I will be the last thing on her mind.
I am out of breath as I get off the wooden dock and onto solid ground and slow to a fast-paced walk as sunshine fries what's left of my retinas and brain. I realize I am more hungover than I gave myself credit for, and the suffering hasn't started fully yet. I may still be a little drunk, if I am being honest. We overdid it on cocktails last night after Jyeon had the bright idea of kicking back a little. They were mixing every type of booze they could find in our kitchen store, which made for some pretty disgusting tastes.
My head's like cotton wool is stuffed in and cramped tight, my vision smudgy, and my mouth an arid desert. My stomach is a washing machine cycling to the point that vomit is slowly working up to my throat while my skull is throbbing, and I am practically zig-zag walking because my coordination has gone to hell. I gulp in some air, take a few heaving lungfuls of fresh salty goodness to curb nausea, and focus on the uphill walk to the shack.
"Anna? Hey, Anna… You're back. Slow down." A male voice comes at me from my left, and I cringe at the use of the name I haven't heard in almost a month. It's weird how quickly I became accustomed to being called Sohla again, and I turn to see who's calling. The sun's glare catches me and makes me cover my eyes as the looming dark figure approaches me at speed. I have no idea who it is, and I don't want to be rude.
"Hey." I respond in a friendly manner, seeing only the dark silhouette and having to blink watery tears away to adjust until he comes and shadows me from the direct blinding gaze. It's someone tall and wide, which means it could be any of the fishermen here who typically greet me.
"Wow…. I thought you were never coming back. I've missed you." He towers over me, and I lower my hand, focusing on a familiar face that makes me weirdly nervous. Recognizing him as my vision adjusts and my heart drops into my stomach. Not just because I am always weird around him, he has that effect because I know he's always liked me, but because I know Jyeon is hot on my heels, and he has some reservations about this guy.
I mean, they had one very tense interaction, and then I used him as a shield when Jyeon first tried to get close. He's a pretty significant waving red flag for my sometimes jealous husband.
"Hi, Tom. Yeah, we just got back a couple of days ago." I hesitate, glancing over my shoulder to see if I can escape before Jyeon appears and freeze as I catch the stalking figure of a glaring lover heading our way from the pier. His death glare locked onto Tom, and I know this will be drama.
I swallow hard, take two steps away from the burly fisherman to give myself space, and tense. Waiting on him, knowing Tom too probably isn't going to be all that friendly when he notices him.