By morning, sleep had erased most of our worries and, in my case, replaced them with a pounding hangover. The light filtering in through the curtains felt like daggers going through my eyes and my stomach churned angrily whenever I tried to move. Sophie lay next to me giggling as I groaned and prayed to every god I could think of for a merciful end to my suffering. "I'm dying, Soph," I whispered, and the entire space between my temples throbbed. "Make it stop."

"Talk about a role reversal," Sophie replied, gently squeezing my cheek.

Without looking, I reached for a pillow and dropped it on my face so that the fabric covered my eyes. I breathed in deeply through my nose while debating the merits of living. "Do me a favor. Please go find a gun and kill me," I said, swallowing hard when bile tickled the back of my throat.

Clearly unimpressed by the pity party that I was throwing for myself, Sophie clucked her tongue and jabbed the space above my belly button with a finger. "Stop whining."

The sudden pressure on my stomach caused me to gag and tears sprang to my eyes. "Why did you do that?" I complained, weakly trying to swat her away.

Undeterred, Sophie knocked my hand back and traced circles along my chest. "Because you're being silly. Don't tell me you've never been hungover before."

I groaned as I hiccuped and the taste of whiskey briefly filled my mouth. "Not like this."

"Well, aren't you a special snowflake? Don't worry, I'll take care of you," Sophie cooed in my ear. "I don't have anywhere to be until tomorrow."

Somewhat shockingly, Sophie made good on her offer by bringing me water and toast throughout the day while I alternated between sleeping and swearing up and down that I'd never drink again. The lowest point of my recovery came when I got up to use the bathroom and ended up spewing a rancid torrent of vomit into the sink. Sophie walked in while I retched and wrinkled her nose. "Gross," she commented and I grunted in agreement before throwing up again.

By four in the afternoon, I'd miraculously regained the ability to stand up without the world spinning so I put on my glasses and dragged myself to the living room. Sophie sat cross-legged on my couch and looked up when I plopped down beside her. "How are you feeling?" she asked, reaching out to pat my back soothingly.

"Fragile." I folded my arms over my stomach and clutched it protectively. "Please try not to make any sudden movements."

"Poor baby," Sophie said with a hint of laughter in her voice. "You went to your first grown up party and look what happened."

"What have you been doing all day?" I asked, ignoring the jab when I noticed that my laptop was open on the coffee table. "Besides hacking into my computer."

"Oh, sorry," Sophie said, as she closed out of whatever she'd been looking at. "I would've asked first but you were asleep."

"It's fine, but how did you..."

"You should probably change your password," Sophie interrupted, guessing what I was going to ask. "I got it right on the second try."

I started to roll my eyes but stopped when I felt a burst of pain radiate from beneath my lids. "Find anything good?"

Sophie grinned. "Why, was there something good to find?"

"Nope, sorry."

"Yeah, tell me about it," Sophie said, pointing at the screen. "You're, like, the most boring person ever." She shook her head. "Anyway, in case you were worried, I don't think anyone noticed us leaving together."

"Oh, yeah? How do you know?"

"Well, I've been reading all the online tabloids and apparently a bunch of camels escaped from Armada's property right after we left. A couple even made it close to Hollywood Boulevard."

I snorted at the mental image. "You're joking."

"Totally serious. Some model had to go to the hospital with a broken foot and a few other people got bitten. Animal control didn't round them all up again until six or seven in the morning."

"Sounds like a nightmare."

"Definitely, but it's also the only real story that's come out of the party. The most exciting article that I've read about myself has to do with the fact I'm taller than Richard in heels."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes." Sophie nodded solemnly. "In fact, there's a hot online debate raging as to whether or not I should consider his ego and wear flats when we're out together."

"Maybe you should just date taller guys," I joked, relieved our paranoia from the previous night hadn't turned into anything more.

"My thoughts exactly." Sophie smiled and motioned for me to put my head in her lap. Careful not to move too quickly, I swung my legs over the side of the couch and leaned backwards until I could feel her bare thighs on the back of my neck.

"Thanks for the bread earlier," I murmured while she stroked my forehead. Her fingertips felt cool against my skin and her touch was wonderfully comforting.

"Anytime."

"Hopefully never again."

Sophie chuckled quietly and I closed my eyes, drifting slowly back to sleep. I could feel a dream beginning to form in the far reaches of my mind when Sophie thought aloud, "You didn't have any fun at all last night, did you?"

I cracked an eyelid to look at her. "It was alright."

"I don't know," Sophie said, scrunching her face up thoughtfully. "Whenever I looked at you, you seemed super sad."

"Yeah, well, I was. They kept running out of those salmon hors d'oeuvres."

"Parker, be serious," Sophie chided. "You weren't happy, were you?"

Sophie stared down at me knowingly, though I hesitated to respond. Choosing my words with precision, I replied, "I think things were just different from what I'd expected."

"What had you been expecting?"

"I'm not sure," I admitted. "I guess it felt like a giant performance rather than a party. Like, look at what I can do with all of my money, you know? Maybe I just felt a little out of place but the whole thing seemed weird and fake... I don't know, I can't really explain it."

Sophie's smile took on a rueful quality. "No, that all sounds about right."

She didn't say anything beyond that and I was too tired to ask her what she was thinking, though I noticed that she kept her brow furrowed contemplatively. We stayed like that until my stomach began to gurgle and the thought of eating no longer made me want to puke. To celebrate the end of my hangover from hell, I got up to rummage for food but soon gave up when I realized that I hadn't gone grocery shopping in weeks.

"Here," I said, handing Sophie a steaming cup of instant ramen. She gripped the styrofoam container between her hands and looked at it with uncertainty. "Don't worry, it has vegetables in it so it's healthy."

"These can't be good for you," Sophie muttered, eyeballing the expiration date printed on the side of the bowl. "Nothing that lasts for four years should be marketed as food."

I passed her a spoon and sank onto the couch before beginning to slurp up the noodles in my soup. "It's not going to kill you if you eat it one time."

Sophie studied me with a frown. "I was actually more worried about you."

Despite her skepticism, Sophie surprised me by finishing over half of her meal, which was frankly a lot more than I'd expected her to eat. She handed me her leftovers and I drank them greedily, not bothered by "Best By" dates or how many calories were in a single noodle. Setting both empty containers onto the coffee table, I turned to look at her. "Where did you say that you need to be tomorrow?"

"On set," Sophie replied. "I have a twelve o'clock call time."

"Oh, right." I paused. "Do you want me to drop you off at your house later tonight?"

Sophie shook her head. "In the morning is fine. Besides, and no offense, but even though you're feeling better, I wouldn't be surprised if you still blew over the legal limit."

"I haven't had anything to drink since last night," I protested, but Sophie shook her head.

"Yeah, and you probably need a few more hours until it's all out of your system."

"Whatever," I muttered defensively. "I wasn't that bad."

Eyebrows raised, Sophie scoffed. "Right."

I reached up to touch my hair, slowly getting used to its new length. "Or, was I? To be honest, I can't really remember much before I met up with you."

Sophie leaned over to give me a kiss. "Don't take this the wrong way or anything, but I'm surprised that you even remember that."

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After I dropped Sophie off the next morning, I drove along Santa Monica Boulevard for a while before pulling over and idling my car in a space marked as a fifteen-minute loading zone. I tossed my phone from hand to hand while watching the earlybirds who wandered the streets. Most were toned women in coordinated jogging outfits but plenty of bleary-eyed workers stumbled past as well. None of them spared a second glance towards my car, though a toddler being carried on his mom's back waved and offered me a smile. The longer I sat, the more I knew what I needed to do... The problem was that I really didn't want to do it. Sighing, I pulled up my contacts list and hit the Call button before I could change my mind.

"Well, well," Michael answered on the third ring, "glad to see that you're alive."

"Yeah, barely," I said, shuddering at the memory of how miserable I'd been the day before. "How was the rest of your night?"

"Nothing special; I'm guessing you've already heard about the camel fiasco. It was total chaos so I bailed right after that and woke up feeling like you'd expect. Maybe even a little worse."

"Sounds familiar."

I could hear the clinking of metal in the background while Michael spoke and guessed that he was at the gym. I would never say it to his face, of course, but I could probably think of two hundred things that I'd rather do than wake up at six on a Sunday morning to run on a treadmill. "Hey, listen," I said while fiddling with my car's A/C, "something kind of weird happened Friday night—well, I mean, I think it was weird. I'm not sure."

"A lot of weird things happened on Friday," Michael replied with a laugh. "Do you mean after you left?"

"Yeah, I don't know, I'm probably overreacting but I saw a van drive into Sophie's community right as we got there."

"A van? Well, I suppose that is strange for her neighborhood," Michael agreed sarcastically. "What's the world coming to? Wait, don't tell me; was it even American-made?"

"No, that's the thing," I jumped in. "I don't think the person driving it lived there."

Michael paused. "Why do you say that?"

"The guy—or girl, I guess—handed the security attendant money to get in, I think."

"You think?"

"Yeah, you know, I was drunk and it was dark. I couldn't tell for sure..."

I replayed the scene in my mind, trying my hardest to focus on what had been in the driver's hand. It had certainly looked like a wad of cash at the time.

"Okay," Michael said, interrupting my thoughts, "the guy gave the guard money. And?"

"And," I continued, "I know it sounds crazy but at the time I couldn't help but think the driver was there to wait for Sophie or something."

Michael cleared his throat. "Parker, uh, I don't know how to say this but do you think that all the sneaking around that you've been doing with Sophie might be making you paranoid?"

I shook my head. "No, it's not like that."

"Are you sure?" Michael sounded disbelieving and that annoyed me more than I'd expected it to.

I started to bite down on a nail but then slapped my steering wheel instead. "Look, okay, like I said, I'd been drinking and maybe I am a little bit paranoid but..."

I stopped, suddenly remembering a detail about the car that had undoubtedly left my subconscious spooked, even if I'd been too wasted for it to register at the time. Had that been why I'd known to turn around and head for my apartment? "The van's license plate," I said, confident now that I hadn't been overreacting in the slightest.

"What about it?"

"ELITPIX." I drew each letter in the air with my index finger.

"Excuse me?"

"The license plate: E-L-I-T-P-I-X. That sounds like it's gotta belong to some kind of paparazzi company, right?"

Michael responded with stony silence and I signaled to a passing meter maid that I'd be moving from my now-illegal parking spot soon. She motioned at me to hurry up but drove off in her car without handing me a ticket. I waited another beat before probing Michael to make sure that he was still there. "Hello?"

"I have to go," he said with a clipped edge to his tone. "Do me a favor: stay away from Sophie for a couple of days."

"What? Why?" I asked, confused until understanding dawned on me. "Do you know whose car that was?"

"Maybe. Yes, probably. Parker, thanks for letting me know. I'll talk to you at work tomorrow."

"Hang on, do you really think I need to avoid Sophie for a while?"

Michael sighed and I knew the question had annoyed him. "Never mind. Just be careful, alright? And tell Sophie to report that guard to her home owner's association."

"Mike, wait, I..."

But by the time I got the words out, the line had already gone dead. I stared at my phone, debating whether or not it'd be worth it to move to a new parking place and call him back. When I tried Michael's number again, I was greeted by a busy tone and I knew that I'd lost him for the foreseeable future. Shifting my car into gear, I began the drive back home with a sinking feeling in my stomach that, even without Michael's confirmation, I could guess who'd been driving that van.

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A/N: Sorry for the long delay but I'm back and I'm married now. How weird is that? Thank you for all of the messages and comments that you beautiful people left in my absence! You're amazing and I promisepromisepromise I'll be better at responding now that I'm not fussing over matching centerpieces to table linens. :) <3 xoxo