CHAPTER FOURTEEN

 

Thisbe came awake all at once, with that high awareness that came of sleeping in a strange bed in a stranger’s house. She regretted waking up almost immediately, as her eyes felt as though they were trying to escape her head through her ears and her stomach wanted very much to join them. She hadn’t been so hungover in years.

She groaned softly, fumbling for her bag in the unfamiliar dark to find her bottle of hangover pills and swallowed them dry, ignoring the cottony feeling in her throat and the way her tongue felt three sizes too big for her mouth.

The clock on the nightstand informed her it was just after six in the morning. She rolled over onto her back and tried to convince her throbbing body to go back to sleep but gave up after a few more fruitless minutes of blinking up at the shadows in the bare ceiling.

This wasn’t how she was supposed to wake up that day, cold and alone and miserable. She should have been wrapped up in Shy’s arms, safe in bed at Starfall Ranch and breathing in the scent of the woman she adored. Their bodies should have been languid and pleasantly heavy from all the great sex they’d just had. Then eventually they would have stumbled down into the kitchen and she would have made a big breakfast while Shy worked her magic with the coffee. Maybe after there would have been a hot, sensual bath for two…

Thisbe groaned again and turned over to bury her face in scent of a spare room pillow, willing herself to stop thinking about Shy. But in the quiet and the dark, with nothing else to occupy her thoughts, Shiloh Kerridan was all she could think of.

She flipped around again and pushed the careworn floral comforter off of her, considering her limited options. It was a decent enough hour to sneak out of her host’s home and find herself some coffee at a café where she could brood through her hangover in peace.

Sitting up (slowly) and looking down at the borrowed outfit she had slept in, Thisbe marveled at how easy it was for a miniskirt to be so sexy one moment and so utterly clownish and awkward and trashy a mere few hours later. She didn’t have a mirror handy, but she didn’t need one to know that her makeup was smeared and flaky or that her hair had grown limp and frizzy, sticking to the back of her neck with stale sweat that smelled of oxidized whiskey.

Well, at least I’ll look a proper train wreck for the tabloid photos, she thought grimly as she collected her things. It was unlikely that any of the Earthsider reporters she knew would be anywhere near Sirona, but people were people. Pictures of fabulous celebrities being fabulous were only slightly less universally coveted than pictures of fabulous celebrities falling flat on their faces.

And Thisbe’s face was squarely in the metaphorical ground this time. The photographers would be all over her wherever she went. She was abruptly reminded of the time she had hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and had come across a pair of coyotes fighting over a dead rabbit.

The thought made her queasy stomach heave and it took several rounds of controlled breathing to get it to settle down.

“Happy thoughts, positive thoughts,” she whispered to herself as a crappy pep talk. “I am my own person. I am more than the image presented in media.”

It would have to do. Creeping downstairs, Thisbe was surprised to find that she was not the first person awake. Light from the kitchen pooled into the hallway leading to the front door, and the irresistible scents of coffee and bacon lured her away from a quiet exit.

“Well, it’s the lady of the hour! Good morning, Thisbe. You certainly look… something.” Taryn looked up from the griddle with a bleary smile.

“Taryn!” A blonde woman who reminded Thisbe for all the world of a fluffy, friendly cat smacked him lightly on the ribs in admonishment.

Thisbe had the vague recollection of being introduced to her the night before, after Shy had driven off. Maddy, that was her name. She remembered Taryn protectively guiding her back inside from the parking lot and into the back of the bar, where Maddy had been waiting to press a glass of water into her hands and then draped a coat around her shoulders.

They had let her stay back there until last call and when she explained that all her stuff was still back at Starfall Ranch, it had only taken one brief glance between the couple for them to insist she stay the night with them until she could go retrieve her things in the morning.

“What my husband means to say is that you have plenty of time to shower before breakfast if you want, dear.”

Wow, Thisbe decided she must look worse than she’d even imagined.

“Oh, um, I didn’t want to trouble you two more than I already have. Last night was such a mess and you’ve both been angels. I was just gonna…” She pointed to the front door and shrugged her shoulders with an apologetic smile

“Trouble? Are you kidding? Opening night at Galactica could not have gone any better if we’d planned it. We’ve been open less than twenty-four hours and we’ve already had our first interplanetary tabloid event, not to mention our first dramatic couples’ tiff!”

Taryn caught the extremely obvious look of warning Maddy was flashing him and changed course. “Uh, anyway pancakes should be ready in fifteen! And this is just a ton of batter, you’ve got to stay and get a good meal in you.”

Maddy rolled her eyes and pushed away from the counter, setting her steaming mug of coffee aside.

“Come on, hon, I’ll get you a towel. My sister left some of her clothes here the last time she visited and you and her are about the same size, I think. I’ll set them out for you in the guest room while you get cleaned up. You’ll feel so much better after.”

It was the weirdest feeling, being in the home of two strangers at her most vulnerable and yet… neither of them had implied she owed them anything. Maddy hadn’t made any snide comments about Thisbe’s inability to hold her liquor. Taryn hadn’t “joked” about all the other available women Thisbe could have gone home with if she’d really needed a place to crash. Instead, they were feeding her pancakes and bacon and politely but firmly offering her use of their shower.

Is this what it’s like being around decent human beings all the time? Thisbe saw no other option but to surrender to her hosts and their mind-boggling kindness. She followed Maddy back upstairs, dropped her purse back on the guest bed, then let herself be armed with a fluffy white towel and ushered to the bathroom.

Finally face to face with a mirror, it took all her mental fortitude not to scream bloody murder at the dour, smeared, puffy-eyed woman that skulked on the other side of the sink. She looked like a bar floor had made out with a glittery garbage can.

“Thank the universe and heavenly bodies for kind strangers that don’t shoot feral houseguests on sight, and who don’t let said feral houseguests wander out of their home without showering first,” she said aloud to her reflection. “Hashtag gratitude.”