Ashley

My first conscious thought was that there was sunlight in my face and that my head hurt like a bitch.

Groaning, I pulled the covers over my head to block out the light. That's when my groggy brain registered that I didn't have my usual blanket on top of me. As more of my senses kickstarted, I began to notice the several tiny differences at once. Like the way the bedsheets under me were rougher than my usual silk sheets. The way nothing smelled like my lavender scented fabric softener.

Panic seized me when I realized why it all felt different. Because it was different. I was in someone else's bed and I had no recollection of how I'd gotten there.

I jolted upright at once, looking at my surroundings. A wave of dizziness washed over me because of the sudden move and I collapsed back in bed.

"Fuck," I groaned and held my head. It felt like tiny bombs were exploding in my skull.

Shutting my eyes, I tried listing everything I remembered from last night in chronological order. Hopefully, that'd help me figure out how I ended up in someone else's bed.

The Eagles had a home game and I went to watch it like a supportive girlfriend. Bethany threw a tantrum. Shane and Juliette were there too. Then I met Kris outside the locker room. He invited me to dinner. Holden invited Shane for dinner too. Ugh, the car ride was awkward.

Just thinking about Shane and his big talk about how much of a great athlete he was made my stomach revolt. It made me wonder what exactly had younger me liked in him that I dated him for three years. Three long years of emotional turmoil that ended up making me question my worth and breaking me to the point I couldn't recognize myself anymore.

Maybe I couldn't see how much of an asshole Shane was because I was surrounded by guys worse than him. Among all the bad apples that was the male student population of my high school, Shane was like the least dented apple. So when he asked me out, it was easy to choose him over the alternatives.

But now with Kris in the picture, I could see the glaring flaws in Shane's character that I previously overlooked. Small signs that were a dead giveaway of what being with Shane would entail and yet, I ended up ignoring them.

Kris on the other hand was everything a girl would want in a boyfriend. He was sweet, caring, kind, and everything Shane could never become. He was my fake boyfriend and he had treated me better in the past few days than Shane had in the past three years.

The difference was so stark that sometimes it made me want to cry for my younger self for everything she went through in the hopes of getting an ounce of love from Shane. My life would have been so much better if I had never dated Shane. If only I had met someone like Kris sooner...

Kris!

I was with Kris. During dinner I had to sit on Kris's lap and I couldn't find a comfortable spot and then there was that cocktail...

Fragments of memories from last night flashed before my eyes like I was watching some kind of a parody of myself. While everything was pretty hazy and I couldn't remember anything I'd said or done, I distinctly remembered clinging to Kris and sleeping in the same bed as his.

Gasping, I sat up straight again and gingerly lifted the covers to peek underneath. I was wearing a t-shirt that I didn't recognize and was entirely too large for me. The t-shirt had ridden up, exposing my thighs and I quickly covered myself again. I wasn't wearing anything else. That could mean only one thing.

I slept with Kris. I slept with Kris.

"Oh, God," I gasped and brought my knees to my chest as I rocked back and forth, processing everything.

How could this happen? How did I let this happen? I couldn't believe I acted so recklessly. I knew I couldn't hold my alcohol well and still I drank enough to wipe out my memories from last night. What must Kris think of me now?

That thought brought on a new wave of anxiety as I imagined what must have went down. Had I thrown myself at Kris? The possibility was high considering I remembered clinging to him and not the other way around. April had warned me countless times that alcohol and I weren't a good mix, and that I lost all inhibitions when drunk.

That's why I avoided drinking most of the time. I only drank with my friends in the safety of our dorm. No one needed to see me embarrassing myself.

Except, Kris had seen it. All of it.

Heat crept up my face while tears burned my eyes. I had ruined everything. Kris would never want to be friends with me after this. He wouldn't even want to see me again. We had made rules for a reason. Things always went south in a romance book once the main leads had slept together. There was no way—

My phone pinged from somewhere around me and I began searching for it. I found it on the table beside the bed, attached to a charging cord. I stretched my hand and swiped it off the table, unlocking it immediately.

There were several texts from April and a few from Kris. He probably wanted to break off our deal, but didn't want to say it personally. That must be it. There was no reason for him to text me otherwise.

But I wasn't ready for that. Gulping the lump in my throat, I decided to ignore his text for a while and opened April's chat. She had sent me a text asking if I was up yet every other hour followed by some random meme about being hungover. However, one particular text attached to an audio clip grabbed my attention.

April: Listen to yourself. You were hammered beyond belief Ash

April: Lmao this is so goood. I'm gonna save it so I can play it on your wedding

A snort left my mouth despite how dire the situation was. And since I wanted to procrastinate a little more before facing Kris's texts, I pressed play on the clip.

My extremely giddy voice came through the speakers followed by April's concerned questioning. Soon the conversation shifted toward what Kris and I were doing. The more I listened, the more my cheeks flamed. God, I was such an idiot. How could I ask him if we were going to have sex?

I needed to quit drinking. No more just with friends and family. I needed to stop. Period. It was better than living through this traumatizing embarrassment.

Kris's voice came next where he assured April that we weren't going to have sex. Relief like no other washed over me on hearing that and I flopped back on the bed. April's weird motto of collecting embarrassing memorabilia from our college days so she could use them in the future had come in handy for once.

Kris and I hadn't slept together. Which meant we wouldn't have to break our deal and I hadn't lost the only guy friend I'd ever had. I still had questions about me wearing just his t-shirt and nothing else, but it was something I could deal with later. So, I scrolled back a little more to check what more ammunition I'd given to April before opening Kris's chat.

Kris: Hey, I have kept some aspirin on the table beside your phone

Kris: Take it. It'll help with the massive hangover you'll be having after waking up lol

Kris: There were some puke stains on your top and cardigan so I put them in the washer

That explained why I was in his shirt.

Kris: I didn't get to take them out of the dryer because of practice

Kris: But they should be dry enough by the time you wake up

Kris: And your jeans is in my closet

Aww, he even washed my clothes for me. Although it was mildly horrifying to think that Kris witnessed me puking my guts out, it was still heartwarming that he thought that far. I remembered the one time I had gotten drunk with Shane and my then friends, he had refused to even hold my hair while I emptied my stomach behind a bush.

I heaved a sigh as I put my phone aside and blinked up at my ceiling. It was already close to 11:00 am and I had missed most of my classes for the day, so there was no point in rushing. I stayed in the same position for a few minutes before deciding it was time to get up.

Throwing the covers off me, I stood up and stretched myself. A giggle left me when I noticed the dog's face on the front of the shirt. I didn't know Kris would pick something so cute for himself. I liked it. Kris's shirt swished around my thighs as I walked over to the table near the window.

Two pills were placed in a tiny china dish beside a bottle of water. I downed the pills in one big gulp and then finished the whole bottle. I must have drank a lot to feel this parched in the morning. I went to open his closet next to get my jeans. Although I was confident there wouldn't be anyone else in the house at this time, it felt weird to be walking around in my underwear in someone else's house.

However, as soon as I opened the closet my breath got stuck in my throat. My jeans were neatly folded and placed on top of a stack of Kris's sweatpants and lying on top of that was my bra. My bra that shouldn't have been there. And if it was there, it meant Kris had seen it. And touched it.

Ahhh! I wanted to die. I wanted to evaporate into thin air.

There were a hundred ways I could have embarrassed myself as a result of which my bra ended up in Kris's hands. I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or bad that I didn't remember any of it. How was I going to face Kris knowing he remembered something embarrassing I did and I didn't?

This was a disaster.

I wallowed in my disgrace for a few more minutes before I pulled up my big girl pants. Literally.

What had happened, had happened. There was nothing I could do about it now. I made a note to buy some pastries for Kris to later and apologize for my behavior.

Once I was ready, I made Kris's bed and stepped out of the door. The house was dead silent, making the sound of the creaking floorboards echo around me. It strangely resembled the houses from countless horror movies and that little observation made me more nervous about being alone in the house.

Not wanting to spend another minute in the hallway with so many doors for a ghost to pull me inside and murder me, I rushed downstairs as if I was running for my life. I had no idea where the guys did their laundry but I assumed it must be somewhere downstairs.

"Oh, you're up."

Hearing a voice in a house I had assumed to be empty was so startling that I let out a scream similar to the ones in a horror movie. I whirled around, my hand on my chest as I searched for the owner of the voice.

"Relax. It's just me," Dylan said from his seat on one of the kitchen bar stools, a coffee mug in his hand.

"It's you. Thank God," I said, sighing in relief. "You spooked me out."

I walked inside the kitchen and sat on the bar stool across from him. "For a minute I thought the house was really haunted," I said and laughed at my own silliness.

But Dylan didn't laugh along with me. "It is," he said instead.

"W-What?"

"The house. It's haunted," he said. "Our previous roommates told us the ghost of the elderly couple that donated the house to the university still haunted this place. They say you can see them sitting in the armchairs near the fireplace in the living room."

I blinked at him, trying to make sense of his words and then I started laughing. No way the house was haunted. Ghosts weren't real.

"I get it. You're teasing me," I said, smiling at him.

Dylan raised a brow at me. "Do I look like I'm joking?"

He didn't. He looked very serious. Something that was in complete contradiction of what I'd heard of him.

Kris had told me among all of his friends, Dylan was the most easygoing and fun. And everything I had read online on the university's gossip forums, backed that up. Dylan was the life of the party type of guy who rarely took anything seriously. So this side of him was a little...surprising.

We sat in tense silence as Dylan finished whatever he was drinking while I fiddled with the ends of Kris's shirt. I should have just asked him where their laundry room was and walked away really, but something about Dylan's demeanor glued me to my seat. It was as if he had something to say but wasn't saying it outright and was also judging me for it.

Maybe I was looking too much into it or maybe it was the hangover that was messing with my perception. But I knew those stares. The ones that picked you apart and put you under a microscope. I had endured enough of those to know when someone was judging me.

"You have something to say. Say it," I said, cutting to the chase.

Dylan stared into his coffee mug, his fingers tapping on it for a brief second before he looked up at me.

"You dated Shane before," he said, his steel gray eyes honed in on me.

My eyes widened at the way he said that. Like a definitive statement and not a question. The only people who knew anything about my past love life were my roommates and Kris. April and Nicole knew I had a shitty ex-boyfriend, but they didn't know his name or that he attended the same university as us. It was just Kris who knew about Shane.

So if Dylan was confidently stating this, it meant that either he was close to Shane and Shane told him about us, or it was Kris who revealed it. But it was a little hard to believe that Kris would divulge something like this to Dylan or anyone for that matter. He just wasn't the type.

Dylan seemed to sense the questions churning in my head because he immediately cleared them away. "The topic came up last night during dinner. You were too drunk then and I'm assuming you don't remember a thing based on your clueless expression."

I cleared my throat and straightened my posture. Sooner or later people were going to find out about it. Although I would have liked to be sober and alert when that had happened, I was glad that it was finally out.

"I did. What about it?" I asked.

"It's just a little weird that you suddenly started dating my best friend when your ex started dating your friend. Seems a little sus no matter how I look at it," he said.

It was jarring how close his guess was to the reality of the situation. It made me anxious. But I couldn't waver now.

"What do you want to say?" I asked, meeting his gaze head on.

Dylan's jaw ticked in annoyance. "Fine. I'll say it straight then. Are you using my best friend to get revenge on your ex? Because if you are, you need to back off this instant."

I steepled my fingers in front of me in an attempt to look composed when in reality I was rattled from the inside.

"Kris already knew about Shane. From the very first night when you and your friends locked me in the store room with him," I said and narrowed my eyes at him.

He needed to know that he couldn't accuse me of seeking Kris out when he was the reason we first met.

"And to answer your question, no, I'm not using Kris to get revenge on my ex," I said.

A partial lie. It was more to keep him away from me, the sting of moving on with someone better than him was just an added bonus.

"So you just ended up liking the guy you got involved with because of a failed prank? Who also happened to be a hockey player just like your ex?" he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. "Tell me it doesn't look weird to you. Almost like a deliberate plan."

I heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Look, believe it or not, I really like Kris. He's sweet, kind, and caring. And I didn't really know he was a starting defenseman or whatever when we first met."

"He's also sensitive when it comes to relationships and already has a lot on his plate. He doesn't need your drama with your ex added on top of it. So if you are with him just for the sake of it, then—"

"You're way too involved in your best friend's love life and awfully pessimistic about it. Why? You don't think he has any other likable qualities or personality traits other than being a hockey player?" I asked, cutting him off.

My rebuttal caused Dylan to scowl. "You have no idea what he's been through and frankly, I don't think you really care about him as long as you get what you want."

"Everyone needs to stop trying to decide what's good for Kris and what isn't based on his past. He's a grown man and can decide for himself," I said and pushed my bar stool back, standing up. "And if you really cared so much about your friend, you wouldn't meddle in his relationship behind his back.

Dylan's gaze followed my every move, burning holes in the back of my head as I exited the kitchen. I tried my best to not let my nerves seep into my posture or my actions and maintained an even pace. As if this sudden confrontation with him hadn't scared me to death.

If he had figured things out to this extent in just one dinner together, there was no telling how much more he would uncover if Kris and I failed to convince him that our relationship was legit.

One mistake and it would all blow in our faces. And there was a high chance of Dylan being the cause behind it.

For the first time, I realized exactly how serious this dating deal was.