"What the fuck am I doing here!?" Kayla screeched, trying to get up but she tripped but managed to balance herself.
Oliver rolled his eyes, leaning against the door frame.
"You…. What did you do to me?" she used her hands to check her body, "Did you…" she gasped, "take advantage of me!?"
Seeing that he was silent, she asked again, "Where are my clothes!? Did you change my clothes for me!? Did you see me naked? Ah!"
"Will you shut up? It's too early in the morning for me to deal with your drama, Hastings." He rubbed his temples.
"My drama? My drama!? You kidnap me and say it's my drama!? Are you mental!?"
"I didn't kidnap you, Hastings." Oliver sighed. "You called me last night and asked me to pick you up, don't you remember?"
"I did what now?" Kayla searched through her memories and everything that happened last night flodded through her head. The game, the fight, the bar, and the phone call.
Wait a minute.… she wanted to call Loui, not Oliver. Fuck!
"I clearly made a mistake. I wanted to call someone else." Oliver hummed in response.
Next time, she wouldn't be so impulsive and drink away her brain, the last bit she still had, and accidentally call her professor!
However, she didn't blame herself. Last night was too much for her to handle. She single-handedly ended a match that both teams have been prepping for, for weeks or even months because she let Wyatt kiss her. No, because she was too stubborn to listen to Louisa when she told her that they could just go.
Thinking about this, she thought she would feel a sharp pain because of the hangover but surprisingly she didn't feel any pain. She felt… normal.
"Are you done with your inspection?"
"Inspection? I wouldn't need to inspect if you were actually trustworthy!" She glared at him.
He pushed himself off the frame, straightening his back so that even so far away, Kayla still felt he was towering over her. He smirked, "You and I both know that I don't need you to be drunk to do anything to you, Hastings."
Kayla could hear her breathing, which was abnormal. The large room suddenly became small under Oliver's intense gaze.
Oliver didn't mind and walked out of the room leaving Kayla alone. Her hazel eyes swept across the room.
The bed was dressed in dark gray bedding, positioned against a striking black and wooden accent wall. The ceiling was designed with slanted, vertical beams, which looked so futuristic but this was The Oliver Wilde, the leading CEO in cyber tech.
Flanking the bed were built-in shelves and subtle lighting that gave the space a soft glow. A low coffee table sat in the foreground, holding a candle, a glass cup, and a whiskey bottle she recognized to be from a high-end whiskey brand. This wasn't the use of a coffee table.
Close to the window, there was a minimalist setup of a dual-monitor desk used for coding. The monitors displayed lines of code, and the desk was clean and organized with a water bottle and keyboard.
Kayla's eyes were mostly on the bookshelves on the wall of the bed. She climbed into the bed, walking with her knees to the edge. She inhaled sharply.
These books. They were all Harry Potter books and on the top shelf was a wand. Her eyes darted to the door to see if he was coming back because courtesy told her that it was rude to touch other people's things without permission but if the person was an asshole, did it count?
Hands shaking slightly, she picked up the wand that was so similar to Voldemort's wand. Her finger traced it, feeling the length and pointing it at random objects with one eye closed.
That was when she noticed something engraved into the wand. "Happiness can be found even in the darkest times."
Her interest piqued. What dark times did Oliver mean? But the thing that shook her core was both she and Oliver were H.P. die-hard fans because just like her, he had all the editions.
"Sigh. If it weren't for his terrible, terrible personality." She shook her head, disappointed.
"Hastings," Oliver called out to her from outside the room and she quickly put the wand back in its position.
"What do you want?"
"There's a brush in the bathroom for you to use," he informed her.
"Hey! How do you know that I don't brush after I eat?" She got off the bed.
"I don't care. The last thing I need is to smell your morning breath." The impatience and disgust echoed and she wanted to hit him. He wasn't even a gentleman in the slightest. Sheesh.
Kayla entered the bathroom which was also very big. A bathtub separated from the shower with a glass door and another glass door separating the basin that had a circular mirror above it.
The brush was sky-blue and she felt all giddy inside. The place had Oliver's scent, Citrus and wood with a hint of lavender. She couldn't help but sniff his shower products. His hygiene was superb, almost having as much skincare as she did.
One, in particular, caught her eyes. It was a scar-removal soap. Was there such a thing? And if there was, why did Oliver have it? This man was an enigma.
After she finished brushing, she came out of the bathroom and searched for her phone.
She forgot to call Loui. Fuck, she must have been so worried. Fortunately, to Oliver's credit, he left it out for her on the bedside table.
After two rings, Loui picked. "Kayla! Where the fuck are you!? I spent all night searching for you with Jack and Rosaline! Where did you go!? We were so worried!" Her frantic voice made Kayla's heart clench.
She behaved irresponsibly, even though she knew that. Louisa rarely cussed so this was wrong of her. "Sorry for troubling you, Loui. I went to the bar and got drunk but I managed to call a taxi and I'm currently at a hotel." Shit, why was she lying? But could she say she was at Oliver's?
"What hotel? I'll come there right away!"
"No, no, no! Don't come!" She blurted out before realizing what she said. "I mean, I still need some time to myself so I'll come home and you need to get some sleep too. Help me tell Jack and Rosa that I'm fine too."
"But Kay-"
"Bye! Love you! Sorry for the trouble!" Her finger pressed the hang-up button before breathing a sigh of relief.
She scrolled through her phone and saw that Wyatt and Andrew also called. They dared to call her after the fucking stunt they pulled!? Talk about shame being an afterthought.
She threw her phone to the bed. Oliver's bed. Oliver's house. This was all his and she was a lost dog in a lion's Cave. Oliver loved to control and mess with her so her being here wasn't a coincidence. What did he want?
She walked out of the room. Something immediately felt off. She sniffed the air. Why did it smell like something was burning?
Could Oliver have set the house on fire with her in it!? Her eyes widened. Unlikely but who knew with this guy! She followed the smell and landed in the dining room and saw Oliver placing plates of burnt-toasted bread on the table.
Did he expect her to eat this atrocity? Her eye bucked.
"What in Channing Tatum's name are you doing?"
Oliver glanced at her. "As you can see, this is food."
"I think we both have different meanings of what we consider food. This looks like a middle school high school experiment gone wrong. No, no, this looks like a volcanic eruption into one plate!"
Oliver narrowed his eyes at her, "Remember Hastings, you're in my house, so I'd be careful with what I say."
The warning was clear and Kayla's bells went off on her brain. The darkness that shrouded him enveloped her. He could do anything to her. Anything.
"Hehe, what I meant to say was this is not suitable for consumption."
"Then what do you propose?" He crossed his arms across his broad chest. He looked so good in house clothes. A long-sleeved white turtle neck top and brown khakis.
An idea popped into her head and she smiled. "I'll cook real breakfast, Oliver, since you are so clueless on such basic skills of life."
Oliver's lips twitched.
Kayla walked into the kitchen and instantly familiarized herself with the equipment he had while Oliver stood at the door frame, hands behind his back, watching.
Feeling his heavy gaze, she turned her head to him, "What are you doing?"
"This is my home, Hastings, I can stay wherever I want."
"I know this is your home since you keep reminding me every 3 seconds. God, you're so annoying!" She focused on what she was doing after speaking.
Oliver's gaze never left her and it made her uncomfortable.
The way she moved was like her dancing so smoothly. How she skillfully packed her hair on a bun without a rubber, how her brows tightened as she chopped things. Watching her, was his favorite past time activity.
Kayla Hastings was simply recherché, ethereal. There was nothing she did that wasn't intriguing and Oliver was nothing less, if not intrigued. She was his to take, to mold, to bend and he would have her, no matter what.