“Holy shit,” I said aloud. I checked and saw that the truck was gone from the front yard, but César’s car was still in the garage next to mine. I walked through the revolting mess in the rest of the house to find him, wondering if Arielle was still there, too. “César?” I called loudly as I went, because I really didn’t want to run into the two of them while her tongue was in his mouth, like it had been the night before when I’d left for Roy’s Tavern.
“I’m in here,” he answered, and I walked into the room he used as his office, the one he had locked last night just as the guests started to arrive. That meant that today, it was a sanctuary of cleanliness from the horrors outside the door. César lay on the couch, and he rested a book on his chest when I came in. “Good morning,” he told me. “Or, good afternoon, is more like it.”
“Is it good?” I asked. He pulled up his legs to make room and I sat down, curling into a ball.
He looked at me. “Good party, at least.”
“Yeah. But the house may need to be condemned.”
“I did some work in the kitchen but got depressed. I was going to start again when you got up so I didn’t wake you by running the vacuum. Or I’ll get a leaf blower, and we’ll just push it all into the garage.”
“I don’t remember it being like this after parties. This gross.” But when I thought about it, I had never had a party at a place where I had lived. I had always used other people’s houses, like I’d invited tons of friends over to Lincoln’s apartment but I had never stayed the night to see the situation next day. I wondered if it had been this bad and I felt guilty, thinking that I had never helped him with the morning-after mess.
“You got in late,” César noted.
“You were still up?” I asked, and he nodded. “Uh, when did Arielle leave?”
“Arielle? I guess around one. She didn’t stay over,” he told me. “Where were you?”
“I went to Roy’s. Everyone did shots but I poured mine out,” I said.
“Probably no one noticed there, the place is so disgusting. But that’s a long way for you to drive.”
I shrugged. “It was ok, but I won’t be doing it again, not so late by myself.”
“I was a little worried,” he admitted.
“My friend Melissa was all over me to go. Sometimes, I get weird about stuff like that. Like, if someone dares me or challenges me, it revs me up. She said something about me being lazy and…” I shrugged. “I didn’t think you were worried. You didn’t text or anything. I wasn’t thinking you would,” I said quickly, but his brown eyes just watched me as he slowly nodded.
“Next time, I will.”
I squirmed, uncomfortable. I had never, ever let any guy watch over and check up on me before, and I thought that I shouldn’t allow it now. “What are you reading?” I asked, to get away from this topic, and he held up the thick book so I could see the title. “Romulus Augustus and the End of the Empire, a Brief History,” I read. “It doesn’t look brief. That’s your post-party entertainment?”
“I’m interested in ancient Rome. With my name, I kind of have to be.”
“Hail, César!” I told him.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “I try to encourage everyone to greet me that way. I’m not focusing great today, though. My head hurts.”
“Hangover?” I asked sympathetically. “My cure was always water. You could do what I just did in the kitchen and put your mouth right under the faucet.”
“Are you that thirsty?” He sat up a little. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m ok. I’m just tired, and then also, I’m really tired. And, I’m tired.” I yawned, to prove it. “I shouldn’t have kept up with the crowd last night and gone to Roy’s.” I yawned again. “I want to add that the thought of cleaning up this house makes me feel so overwhelmed that I want to die.”
“I’m thinking of moving,” César said.
Moving. Me, too, I should have been thinking of moving, since I wasn’t going to Florida anymore.
“Why did you just look like that?” he asked. “Your face got so sad.”
“I’m depressed. Post-party funk,” I explained, like that was all there was.
César put the book on the coffee table. “I feel the same way.” He looked at me and then patted his chest. “Come here.”
“On you?” Like, lying on him?
“I need it. You look like you do even more. Come.” He patted again.
I crawled up the couch and lay on my side next to him, snuggled in between his body and the back cushion, my face on his hard pectoral. Ok, wow, this did feel good. Especially when he put his arms around me and rested his chin on my head. Even better.
“That’s nice,” César sighed. “Instead of reading and cleaning, I’m feeling more like napping.”
“I just woke up,” I said, but I yawned again, and yawning made me want to burrow into him more. His arms gathered me closer.
“A short nap, and then we’ll work out, and then we’ll clean,” he suggested.
“A long nap, then we’ll eat, and then we’ll hide in here and watch movies for the rest of the day.”
He laughed. “There has to be a way for us to reach a compromise.”
“We agree on the nap.” I felt like I would have agreed to anything at the moment, but it wouldn’t have been
