It took every ounce of my strength to force my eyes open and sit up in the bed. My head felt several sizes too big and my stomach heavy, like I had feasted and then fought the night before. But that couldn’t have been right. All I had ordered from the restaurant was chicken and rice. What the hell?

Groggy, I tried to make my way to the bathroom and relieve myself, still trying to remember the night before. I almost didn’t make it to the toilet. Evidently, my legs were replaced with rubber pegs and walking in a straight line was like walking through an obstacle course. Blindfolded. On rollerblades.

As I tried to clean myself up, images from the night before flashed before me. Sharae and I having a dull date and her slapping me. She was mad about a burger or something. It wasn’t clear. Then I remembered seeing Chloe. She came back to my home with me and-

A cold chill crept up my back. That’s what had happened. Chloe and I had come back to my place to finish off dinner and somehow I got the grand ‘ole idea to open up a bottle of Grey Goose Vodka. I couldn’t remember much else about the evening except she and I doing an awful lot of laughing. Shit! I couldn’t even remember if we had slept together.

Not good.

After I took a quick shower and threw on some fresh clothes, I had a somewhat clearer head on my shoulders. I remembered a little more from the night before. We didn’t sleep together, but that wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part. I tended to get a little playful when I drank. And by “playful” I mean “horny.” She didn’t let me, though. Chloe kept true to her word. She just wanted company.

I made my way downstairs. I heard Chloe in the kitchen singing to herself. She had my front door wide open, letting in the cool morning breeze. She also had some music playing in the background. The whole downstairs was spotless like she had busied herself cleaning all morning. And something smelled very enticing.

I followed my nose to the kitchen and found Chloe dressed in one of my tee shirts, cooking breakfast and looking adorable. I grinned and said good morning.

Chloe spun around at the sound of my voice. “Good morning, babe! Sleep alright?”

I nodded. “If you call passing out ‘sleeping well’ then, yeah, I slept ok.”

She laughed and returned her attention to the frying pan where she had some pancakes cooking. “Well, you did drink quite a bit last night. I told you not to do it, but you were all depressed doing that woe-is-me thing you sometimes do.”

I frowned and tried hard to remember what the hell she was talking about. Then I remembered feeling down about not speaking to Isabel that day.

“Wait a minute, Chloe,” I said hesitantly. “Did I, um, say anything, like—”

“Were you talking about her? Yes, you did an awful lot of talking about her.”

The “her” she was referring to was Isabel. Even though Chloe was careful about the tone of her voice, I could still hear a little bit of hurt behind that one syllable.

Sighing, I hopped onto my breakfast bar and spotted my cell phone on the counter next to the stove. I didn’t remember putting it there, but then again, there was a lot I couldn’t remember correctly at the present moment.

I took a long look at Chloe in my shirt. Her long legs poked out from underneath it in such a way that made me think she wasn’t wearing anything else. Try as I might, I couldn’t help but get a little turned on by that.

“You know, Richie, your phone was going off quite a bit last night.”

I snapped back to reality. “Really? I don’t remember hearing it.”

“Yeah, well you were out of it. But I fixed it for you.”

Now I was really confused. I got up and walked up close to Chloe, folding my arms. “What do you mean you fixed it? I don’t understand. Who called me?”

Chloe rolled her gorgeous eyes towards me and smiled. “Isabel called, like, ten times last night. You were so deep into me and your drinks that you just ignored it. I got to tell you, though, I was surprised. I always imagined you would break your neck to answer a call from her. But, no. You kept sending her to voicemail.”

I couldn’t place what I was hearing in Chloe’s voice, but I had a brief image of a wolf in sheep’s clothing as she spoke. It didn’t escape me that she never answered my original question.

I repeated myself. “What do you mean by ‘you fixed it’?”

“Oh! Well, she was calling so much, I figured something must be wrong, so I sent her a text from your phone stating that you were tired and she should just stop by here in the morning.”

All of a sudden, Chloe abandoned her post in front of the stove and kissed me hard. Her hands intertwined in my hair while she pushed my head further down to meet her hungry mouth. I was beyond confused. I wanted to push her away, but instead, my arms wrapped around her and reciprocated the kiss. Hangover or no hangover, it’s kind of hard to ignore a female who knows what she wants.

“Ahem.”

Chloe and I turned to the foreign voice coming from the entrance to the kitchen near the front door.

Isabel.