OUT OF THE RED ↝ dave grohl

one-hundred-twenty-five.

REAGAN WOKE UP before Dave did. Even while asleep, she was conscious of the heat rolling off of him and the mere fact that for the first time in forever, the shape of his body was fitted next to her between a set of bedsheets.

As she laid on her back staring up at the ceiling, she waited for a seemingly inevitable guilt to fix its hold on her. It never came though, and for that, she was relieved. The declarations she'd exchanged with Dave the night before hadn't taken a recess throughout the night and she was still sure, even as she scrubbed sleep out of her eyes, that she loved him.

She wanted to be with him.

Reagan glanced at the bedside alarm clock, noting that it was nine. Not only did she have to go get Gracie that day, honoring the suggestion for her daughter that everything was normal and nothing had abruptly changed over night (even though it had), but she had to confront Chris.

She sat up slowly, hunching over and grimacing. Knowing Chris, she was never going to hear the end of it. She wasn't even sure that she ought to tell her best friend about the renewed pledge of love that she'd made with Dave, only because it wouldn't have made sense to anyone else but the two of them. It wasn't the kind of decision meant to be made in glitzy hotel rooms after a night of guzzling champagne, but Reagan had done it anyway and was pleased that hours later, her feelings hadn't changed.

Dave snored lightly beside her, one arm flung over his head while the other laid draped around the pillow where her head had been. She studied him, blinking several times to assure herself that it was actually her ex-husband that she was waking up next to.

Without any clothes on, at that.

Not wanting to wake him, Reagan gently peeled the sheets away and crept out of bed, stepping lightly onto the floor on the balls of her feet. She covered her arms over her chest even though no one was looking and glanced around the room, deciding what her next move would be.

There was still a lot to think about — a lot to process. Perhaps it might have even been too much to put her brain through in one sitting, which was why she instead focused on formulating a plan of how she was going to leave Dave's room without looking like a stereotypical key player of a one night stand.

It was unfortunate that he didn't have any clothes for her to steal. He'd booked the room only the night before, or so he had told her, and had gone straight there without even an overnight bag. Reagan smirked at the idea of snatching his clothes and leaving him empty-handed for the day to come, but the baggy cargo pants he'd been wearing would have swallowed her figure whole anyway, not looking any better than her evening-wear from the night before.

Picking her dress up off the floor, she shimmied back into it, sighing when she had to slip her high heels back on. The blister on the back of her right foot was already screaming.

When she walked by the nearest mirror, she stopped in front of the glass in horror. Her hair had morphed into a rats nest, piled high in a mass of messy knots, and her makeup was smeared under her eyes from a mix of sleep and sweat. Reagan quickly combed her fingers through her lifeless curls, attempting to smooth them out, and wiped the sides of each pointer finger beneath her eyes.

Her reflection was still haggard, but there wasn't much else she could do. Chris was certainly going to have more ammunition to pummel her with when she got back to their room.

Reagan walked over to Dave's side of the bed and tucked her tangled hair behind her ears, leaning down to rouse him awake with a small whisper.

"Dave? Dave?"

No response. The closest thing she got to some reassurance that he wasn't comatose was his soft snoring, but otherwise, his eyes stayed close.

She grabbed a hotel pad of paper and a pen and jotted down a quick message for him, explaining that she'd had to leave to go get Gracie. It was better than leaving him with nothing. If she'd done that, she was sure that she would have received a frantic phone call from him later in the day, begging to know why she'd slunk out without a word.