Unsurprisingly, the very next morning, Reese was greeted with a pounding headache, and nausea bubbling up in the pit of her stomach. She groaned and pulled the covers further over her head to block out the early morning light filtering through her thin curtains.

After another good thirty minutes of failing to go back to sleep, Reese rolled out of bed, stumbling as her legs got caught in the tangle of sheets. She padded to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her and turning automatically to glance in the mirror.

Instead of the bloodshot eyes or bedraggled hair, she was expecting, her gaze went straight to the big, black blob on the center of her forehead.

Oh, God, Tom's number!

She ran back to her bed and snatched up her pillow, turning it over until she came upon a sizable smear of black that took up at least half of the pillowcase. Maybe she could just smuggle it out without anyone noticing. There was a maid that came to clean the room once a day, so Reese decided she'd just dump in with the dirty towels, and hope that no one would notice until it was in the wash.

Sighing, she stomped back into the bathroom, grabbing her phone on the way and powering it on. 7:00 a.m it read. Reese was hardly ever up that early.

Before she could overthink it, she started to compose a text, after picking out what numbers she could understand (she wasn't quite sure if the last one was a seven or a one), to Tom: "Tom, Because of you, I woke up with a great big black hole on my forehead. And a pounding headache, thanks for that ;)"

She pressed send and went to work scrubbing away the ink as best she could with warm water. In the end, she'd gotten most of the pen off, but replaced it with a huge splotch of red from pressing so hard.

Knowing it wasn't going to get much better than that, Reese peeled off her clothes from the night before and hopped in the shower, but not before swallowing a few Advil, hoping her headache would calm down before the rehearsal later that evening.

She rinsed her hair, then just stood under the warm water, eyes closed, breathing in the steam and feeling it soothe the throbbing behind her eyelids. She knew she'd have to head downstairs pretty soon for breakfast, though she wasn't particularly hungry and could still taste the sour pang of liquor in the back of her throat. She'd have to make conversation, and probably have to recite what had happened after she'd disappeared the previous night, and truthfully, she couldn't remember a whole lot.

Reese shut off the water and threw a towel over her head, shaking droplets from her wet hair. Absentmindedly, she wandered into the living room and picked up her phone. Her heart leapt as she saw Tom had responded to her text.

"Maybe that was my intention :) I'm glad you decided to put my number to good use -- I had a lovely time chatting last night, though I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember half of it!"

Reese sent back a reply without pausing to process what he'd just said: "Me too. We're as good as friends now, I suppose since I spent a good twenty minutes last night telling you about my broken relationships -- sorry about that btw."

Smiling, Reese slipped her towel from her hair, letting it fall damply over her shoulders and moved over to her dresser. She hesitated for a moment, seriously considering a run, but then deciding that it'd most likely end with her puking her guts out a mile in. Maybe later that evening, or the next day, she was getting pretty restless after a good five days of inactivity.

Reese pulled on a pair of shorts and slipped a red tank top over her head, digging her dripping hair out of the collar. Deciding to put in a bit of effort for later and taking into consideration that evening rehearsal, she shakily applied the mascara she'd dug out of the bottom of her suitcase and rubbed concealer under her eyes to at least make her look a bit less hungover.

She snatched up her phone, forced her feet into a pair of sneakers, and was out the door without a backward glance, letting it slam loudly behind her. The hallway felt longer than usual, and the elevator ride made her feel a little queasy, but Reese made it to the dining room, where she quickly spotted Elliot and Amy shrouded in giant stacks of paper, family members standing around the table and chatting away about wedding plans.

Elliot waved once he spotted her, and Reese trudged over to them, pulling out the last empty chair and sliding unceremoniously next to Amy.

"You look awful," her brother told her matter-of-factly, grinning as he took a sip of coffee. Reese glared at him and shifted forward, rocking the table a little as she did so.

"Gee, always the charmer, Elliot. I see you've gone straight for the compliments," she muttered darkly. He laughed and slapped her on the black roughly.

"Sorry, you look great -- what happened last night, anyway? You disappear for hours, and then you show up with a phone number written on your forehead? Talk about a rough night! You didn't almost get lucky, did you?"

Reese rolled her eyes, and in one quick movement, pulled his coffee over and took a generous swig from it, ignoring the searing pain in her tongue as it burned her.

"No dear brother, I did not 'almost get lucky.' I just had a nice chat and maybe drank a little too much-" Elliot snorted at this, "-but nothing happened."

As she said this, Reese felt her phone vibrate in her back pocket, and she pulled it out and clicked on the lock screen. Another text from Tom:

"I suppose we are -- in that case, does that mean I can see you again? Maybe we can have another heart-to-heart chat, or possibly extend our friendship to a movie?"

Her brother peered at her screen and let out a long, humorless chuckle.

"I think he just asked you on a date, little sister."

Reese shook her head and pushed him away, sending a quick 'yes' back, then tucking her phone safely out of view.

"It's not like that, stupid," she snapped. "In fact, I hardly know the guy. He may actually be a potential friend if you don't scare him off with your idiocy."

With that, Elliot just shrugged and resumed his hunched posture over a particularly monstrous stack of papers, a smug smile glued to his face. Reese had to hold herself back from trying to smack it off, instead busying herself by draining the last of his coffee.

***

Reese might've thought Amy expected to be married that night, the way she was running around, making last minute plans like she didn't have another week. Reese honestly felt no reason to be there, since she would only be a guest, but, after her brother practically got on his hands and knees, begging, she accepted.

She didn't bother wasting energy about her appearance, instead just stopping to slip on her dress and shoes, grab her bag, and hurry out the door. As she walked down to where the rental car was waiting, she found herself desperately missing her own car back home. She really didn't want to spend forty-five minutes in a van with people she didn't know, but also begrudgingly accepted the fact that she didn't have much of a choice.

At seven on the dot, Reese spotted the group on the far side of the lot, piling into a huge white car that had to have taken up at least two parking spaces all on its own. Amy waved her over, seeming to snap into business mode almost instantly.

After maneuvering around six pairs of legs, Reese found herself in the very back, crammed between a younger man with a plain goatee (looking more excessively trimmed and brushed than anything else) who, so far, hadn't taken his eyes off his phone once, and a woman, the collar of her pale pink dress just a little too low for comfort, who was shakily applying a second layer of lipstick. Both, fortunately, didn't bother making any efforts to strike up a conversation and Reese was able to distract herself by scrolling through text feed most of the time.

She checked her mother's first, the last thing sent being: "You should come visit sometime! It's lovely here, and you might meet a nice guy ;) Our mailman's actually quite the looker..."

Reese didn't speak to her mother much, for obvious reasons:

One: She had divorced Reese's dad when she was about seven, choosing to move to Florida with her 'new man.'

Two: When Reese's dad got to the point where he couldn't take care of himself anymore, she didn't volunteer to move back, and Reese had to hire a worker to keep an eye on him 24/7.

Three: Every talk Reese started with her ended with her listing all the reasons why she'd broken up with her old boyfriend, and why she wasn't looking for any new relationships at the moment. It was apparent her mother would have none of it.

She moved on to her dad, whose last message was asking if she knew where he'd left his car keys, and that was over a month ago. He'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's exactly nine years ago, and at this point, was having trouble remembering very basic things. It was depressing, but Reese had learned to accept and move on, doing what little she could to help from five-hundred miles away.

Reese checked Tom's last, feeling, for some reason, a twinge of guilt for checking it more than four times in the past hour. They were just starting to get to know each other, but Reese had already fallen in love with their conversations. That day, they'd taken to shooting sarcastic banter, and Reese's was stuck on, "So what if I've never seen the Avengers? I can't help that you're so self-obsessed, you're begging me to watch a movie just so I can admire your acting job :p." It was definitely more fun, now that they weren't being so painstakingly nice to each other, but it was still new enough that she felt her heart skip a beat when she saw a response to something she'd sent.

It was strange too. Reese hated change and new things. She was a creature of habit, and proudly so, and instant friendships were not one of the things she sought after, though she could say with complete confidence at this point, she regretted absolutely nothing.

Her head shot up as the car sputtered to life and crawled sluggishly from its parking spot(s). When it went over a speed bump, Reese swore she felt herself fly a good foot in the air as the whole inside was jostled roughly. Elliot shouted a quick apology from the driver's seat, but was interrupted as the van sunk into a viciously deep pothole and the group was knocked back into their seats.

Reese grabbed her seatbelt a little tighter and leaned back, tucking her phone away. She was in for a long ride.