NOT What I Was Expecting (18 page)

“I really would
like to sit down for a minute,” I announced and as Luke swung the door open, I
slid my back down the wall until I was sitting.  “That’s better.”

Luke put the food
inside the doorway and turned to me, saying, “No, no, no.  You’ve made it this
far so let’s get you into bed.”

“So you
dooo
want to take me to bed.” I said triumphantly, and that’s the last thing I
remember of the evening.

CHAPTER 12

It sounded as if
someone was practicing playing the tuba, and they only knew one note.  I wished
they would stop playing it over and over right next to my ear.

I put my hands
over my ears to block out the noise as I tried to pry open my eyelids, so I
could see who was making that noise.  I’d hate to kill the wrong person due to
mistaken identity.

When my eyes were
opened only slit high, I saw flashes of light so bright I was forced to slam
them closed to avoid going blind.  What was up with that?  And where was I? 
And who was playing that incredibly close tuba?

Aware that I
wouldn’t get the answers to any of these questions if I didn’t try another
peek, I moved one hand from my ear to shield my eyes.  Having convinced myself
I needed all those answers in addition to stopping that horrible tuba practice,
I gave the eye opening thing another go.

While I blocked
the majority of the light with my hand, I forced my eyes to remain slitted and
hoped they would adjust.  As I waited for the adjustment, I thought it was
pretty obvious what was going on.

CeCe must have
changed the bulbs in my ceiling fan light fixture.  I guess she didn’t notice
she was putting 500 watt bulbs in their place.  Apparently, she had come into
my room, turned on the light to wake me up, and gone off to get the coffee
going.  But what was up with the tuba?

When my eyes
finally focused enough for me to see, I discovered I was wrong.  There were no
500 watt bulbs in the light fixture.  It was the sun streaming through the
window.  I was not in my room, and CeCe was not here making coffee.  Most
shocking of all, there was nobody playing the tuba next to my head.  That
turned out to be my own pulse I was hearing.

It was at that
point little things started coming back to me, hinting at what had put me in
this condition.  Fortunately, they came back very gently since that was
apparently all I could handle at that moment.

Luke, the French
Quarter apartment, something about dinner, an electric guitar, drinks, and then
we talked about – bed?  I quickly turned my head from side to side to take in
my surroundings – which was a huge mistake.  When the mind numbing pain that
shot through my head directly behind my eyes settled back into a dull throb, I
tried to will my queasy stomach to settle down.

Once I decided I
wasn’t going to hurl, at least not right then, I allowed myself to slowly look
around the room.  I was in bed in the apartment with nothing on but a t-shirt
and I mean
nothing
else.  I was alone in the room, which was such a
relief I let out the breath I’d been holding while inspecting my surroundings.

Unfortunately, my
relief was short lived.  When my eyes scanned the bed I was sitting in, I
noticed there was a head imprint on the pillow next to the one where my head
had been resting.  A little involuntary gasp escaped my lips, followed by a
slightly louder “Eek” when the bedroom door flew open with a bang.

“Oops, I’m sorry
about the door.  I left it pulled shut, and it was sticking earlier so I had to
use a little force on it, but I guess it’s not sticking . . . ,” Luke cut off
his explanation mid-sentence and stood holding a tray with coffee, eggs, bacon,
and toast.  It was impossible to miss the big grin on his face as he stared at
me.

“Sorry,” he
apologized again, as he approached the bed and set the tray on the bedside
table.  “I didn’t even say good morning yet.  Good morning, Beignet.  How about
some coffee?”

“Coffee sounds – wait,
what did you call me?” I asked thinking I must have heard him wrong. 

“Don’t tell me
you’ve decided you don’t want me to call you Beignet anymore?  You loved it
last night,” Luke said looking confused.

“I did?” I asked
trying so hard to remember what had happened last night that there was a very
real possibility my brain could explode.

“Sure.  You said
you were my Little Beignet, and I was your Sucre on top,” Luke explained trying
to look innocent and wounded that I’d forgotten.  He enjoyed it more than
necessary and was unable to pull it off.

I reached for the
coffee mug he handed me and took a few slow sips.  I needed both the coffee and
the time to gather my thoughts.  What
had
happened last night after we
got back to the apartment?  I remember Luke unlocking the front door.  I
remember being so tired I just wanted to go to sleep.  I remember – nope,
that’s the last thing I remember.

I set the coffee
down on the tray Luke had placed in my lap.  “Whew,” I said shaking my head,
very slowly this time, from side to side.  “I think those Long Island Iced
Tea’s hit me a little harder than I expected.  I don’t remember saying that. 
Not that I’m not embarrassed enough by that, but ah, did I
say
, or ah,
do
anything else after we got back here?”

Luke adopted his
wounded look once again and said, “Well, let’s see.”  He gave the impression of
being deep in thought as he ran through last night’s conversation and/or
activities in his head.  “We came home.  I offered to heat up your leftovers. 
You said you weren’t craving any food.  I said, ‘let me make you some coffee.’ 
You said you didn’t want any coffee and started taking off your clothes.  I
steered you into the bedroom, pulled out one of the big t-shirts you bought for
sleeping in, told you I’d wait in the living room, and asked you to call me if
you needed anything.”

I listened in
horror as Luke went on with his narrative.

“When you said,
‘Oh, Luke, could you come here please,’ I came in and found that you had
removed every stitch of clothing and were sitting up in bed with the covers
pulled back beside you,” he continued.  “You patted the space next to you on
the bed and said, ‘Come here, my Sucre.’”

No, no, no, no,
NOOO!  Oh, the inhumanity!  Long Island Iced Tea?  I don’t think so.  Why don’t
they just call it Elixir of Satan?   Since I was speechless from horror and
embarrassment, Luke went on.

“I said I didn’t
know what you just called me, and you told me
Sucre
means
sugar
in French.  You explained that you were my Little Beignet and I was . . . . ”

“Okay, okay,” I
interrupted.  “I think we already covered that part.  Luke, I don’t know what
to say.  That person you’re describing from last night is so
not
me.  I
mean, I realize it was me, but I do not ever act like that.  Well, obviously, I
can’t really say that now, can I?” I concluded softly.

Luke’s big smile
shifted into a tentative smile, full of concern.  “Maggie, look . . . ,” he
began, but I cut him off.

“I’m so sorry,
Luke.  You must think – well, I don’t really want to think about what you must
think,” I conceded.

“No, wait.  You
don’t understand . . . ,” Luke tried to interject.

“Oh, I think I
understand, all right.  It’s okay, Luke.  I don’t blame you at all.  I mean, obviously
I threw myself . . . ,” I tried to tell him.

“Nothing happened,”
Luke interrupted.

“Huh?” I declared,
once again trying to impress him with my brilliant vocabulary.

“Nothing,” he said
very slowly, so that my poor, pickled brain cells could comprehend, “happened.”

“But – but I was
all naked?” I stammered.

“Yes, but you had
the sheet covering your – interesting parts.  While I stood there trying to
figure out what to say, you fell asleep or, I guess passed out would be more
accurate.  I slipped your t-shirt over your head, pulled up the covers so you
wouldn’t get cold with just the sheet to cover you, and went to get a bucket to
put by your bed.”

Well, okay then. 
Wait a minute!  My muddled brain was working slowly, but it was still working. 
What was slick and sexy trying to pull here?

“The pillow!” I
said accusingly.  “What about the other pillow on my bed?” I asked pointing my
finger at the tell-tale head imprint on the guilty pillow.  “Who else slept in
my bed?”

“Yeah, I uh,
didn’t want to embarrass you more than necessary, so I wasn’t going to mention
that,” Luke admitted, looking slightly uncomfortable.

AHA!  So we did
it, and then he lied about it.  That’s worse than the fact that he took
advantage of me.  Yeah, I got that right. 
He
took advantage of
me
. 
And here I was trying to be so kind about it and make sure he didn’t feel bad. 
The Slime.  The Low-Life.  The Jerk.

After taking a
moment to figure out how to put it delicately, Luke launched in, “After you
barfed the first time, I saw that you barely woke up.  I was afraid to leave
you alone.  I didn’t want you to choke when you hurled, so I slept next to
you.  On top of the covers, though, and I only touched you to hold your hair
back.”

He didn’t want me
to choke on my own puke?  How sweet was that?  He held my hair?  He’s an Angel.

“You held my
hair?” I asked with tears forming in the corners of my eyes.  “That was so
sweet of you.  You’re very kind, and I’m such a mess.”  The tears flowed in
full force after that, which was just perfect, because I wasn’t sure I could embarrass
myself further in front of Luke until the tears showed up to prove that I
actually could.

“No, Maggie,
you’re actually very kind.  If you were really a mess, you wouldn’t be staying
down here to help me find out what happened to my Uncle Barney and Ms. Eliza. 
Does that sound like something a mess would be doing?” Luke asked softly,
either because he knew how incredible his voice sounded when he spoke softly or
out of respect for the tuba player in my head.  “You just had a big day, you
hadn’t eaten enough, and the alcohol hit you a little hard, that’s all,” Luke
rationalized in an attempt to comfort me.   “It could have happened to anyone.”

“Not to you,” I
sniffed and snorted, as I looked around for a box of tissues, which of course wasn’t
anywhere in sight.

Once again, being
the knight in shining armor and saving the day, at least in my eyes, Luke
reached under the utensils on the breakfast tray, pulled out the napkin, and
handed it to me.  My hero.  And he smelled good, too.  I smelled like puke.  That
thought made me feel embarrassed, undesirable, and kind of stupid, but mostly
it made me angry.

“You didn’t get
drunk.  You didn’t say stupid things you regret.  You didn’t throw yourself at
someone who’s so – soooo,” I drug out the word in an attempt to delay long
enough to find a word insulting enough to fit the way I felt about Luke at that
moment, “someone so perfect.”  I guess I told him.

Feeling I hadn’t
exactly cut him to the quick, I continued, “Do you have to do everything — to
be so defectless?  Because let me tell you, as a flawed member of the human
race I can honestly say we don’t appreciate your kind.”

Eew, getting a
little loud there and hurting my little hangover.

“Look, Maggie,”
Luke said softly, but at that moment my cell phone rang.

I grabbed my
purse, which was propped on the night stand, and started digging for my cell
phone.  When my hand came out of the bag with the phone, I answered the call
and said a little too loudly, “WHAT?”

“Um, Maggie?” CeCe
asked tentatively.  “If this is a bad time, you can call me back later.”

“CeCe, no, this is
fine.  How are you?” I asked all fake happy and chipper.

Luke, noticing
he’d lost my attention, got up and left the room, closing the door behind him.

“Um, I’m fine,
Maggie, but you sound kind of . . . .”

I cut CeCe off as
soon as Luke closed the door.  “Oh, CeCe!  Things are so awful here now.”

“What’s wrong? 
Did Luke turn out to be a jerk?  A pervert?  A sex maniac?” CeCe wanted to
know.  “Lock yourself in the bathroom, let me call Fry, and we’ll be there with
the shotgun.  You tell that sex fiend he has 20 minutes to clear out before we
get there.  Unless you guys had a good time?  Is that it?  Did you fall for him
like I said you would?”

CeCe is the reason
I don’t usually drink anything stronger than wine.  She makes me dizzy without
alcohol.

“No, no.  He was
being so wonderful, and things were going so well, until last night.  Now
everything is ruined.”  I bellowed into the phone.

“Oh no, he
didn’t!”  CeCe yelled.  “He forced himself on you?”

“No, he was a
perfect gentleman,” I whined trying to find the words to tell CeCe how lame I’d
been.

“Well, that’s
good, Maggie,” CeCe exclaimed, all irritating.  “Why are you so upset?  If he
was a gentleman with you, he obviously thinks a lot of you.  What’s the
problem?”

“You don’t
understand,” I began.  “I got stinking drunk last night, and he took care of me
without trying anything the least bit sexual.”

“He should be
horse-whipped,” CeCe said flatly.  “Maggie, honey, what is it you’re upset
about?  It sounds like he really cares about you.”

“
That’s
what I’m so upset about,” I practically yelled in CeCe’s ear.  “He was so
sweet, and do you know what I did?  I threw myself at him last night, which was
bad enough, but did I leave it at that?  Oh, no.  I started off this morning by
telling him off.”

“For what?” CeCe
asked.

“For being so
wonderful,” I said slowly, as if her comprehension was impaired.  “Haven’t you
been listening to me?”

CeCe let out a
heavy sigh and said, “Maggie, have you had your coffee yet?”

“Only a few sips,”
I admitted grudgingly.

“Okay, here is
what I need for you to do.  Drink some coffee, go take a shower, drink some
more coffee, and then call me back.  Now go!”  Having listed my next several tasks
in no uncertain terms, CeCe hung up.

I sat there for a
minute trying to decide if I was mad at CeCe for ordering me around that way.

Oh whatever, she’s
right so I’ll let it slide this time.  I downed the rest of my coffee, and had
a few bites of toast.  Luke had left the tray he brought in earlier, but I
didn’t feel scrambled eggs or bacon would be a good idea.  I might not remember
puking, but my stomach was threatening to relive it if I wasn’t careful.