Her Song

10 - Flat Out

**Kim**

This was not my bed. The cats bracketing my head? Those were my cats. But this was not my bed.

I really wished it was my bed because even in the head throbbing agony that was my hangover it was impossible to ignore the luxurious comfort of what was not my bed. I'm not going to lie, I was not missing the rogue spring in my mattress one little bit.

Except if the fluffy cloud that was currently cushioning the multitude of aches in my body was not my bed, who the hell did it belong to and why were the cats purring like motorbikes on the pillow beside me?

With a supreme effort of will I managed to roll to one side. Zinzan blinked down at me in irritation as I jostled him on the pillow but he refused to move. Slowly my sluggish brain was able to process my surroundings. The artwork on the wall was familiar. No, it was not the vaguely Turner-esq water stain from my bedroom but it was something original, not sure who the artist was but it was someone decent. That narrowed down the candidates for the owner of my cloud like sleeping arrangements significantly. It could have been a member of my family but the chances were slim, they didn't have the decency to leave a giant glass of water and a sleeve of paracetamol on the bedside table for me. That pretty much left Lucy as the winner. Except she was in Los Angeles.

Something about realising that Lucy was in LA triggered a flood of memories from the previous day and night. It was Lucy's flat but not the one she lived in. Oh no, it was the flat that I was now living in. Me and Van.

Hoooooly fuck.

I'd moved in with Van. Bradley was a treacherous arsehole and Van was my proverbial white night. A white knight wrapped up in a delightfully sinful package.

Bad Kim. Very bad Kim!

Along with the memory of my new living arrangements other less comforting memories began to flood back in.

Oh god...

Had I really stood on the coffee table and waved a bottle of brandy as I loudly proclaimed like a demented Oprah Winfrey, "I am the fucking L'Oreal of girlfriends. Because you are worth it! You are worth it! You're all fucking worth it!" to Van, Ace, Josh and Gray who along with a couple of audio engineers named, if my scattered memories were correct, Colin and Darren watched on in bemusement. Jonah and Zinzan had looked on with unconcealed feline disdain.

I groped with horror for the water and painkillers – not that a painkiller could kill the pain of the memory of Gray crash-tackling me in order to secure control of my phone. He'd spotted the signs of imminent drunk-dialling. Not that I'd planned, from what I could recall, to call Bradley but Helena, she was a completely different story. Gray would be receiving a particularly elaborate thank you gift for his role in preventing me from calling Helena to tell her that not only was she a supercilious bitch but she was married to a cheating arse who wasn't even that good in bed.

Thank you Gray. Bullet dodged.

How I even made it bed was the vaguest of memories but somehow I knew that there was flailing involved. A lot of flailing. And when I stumbled into the ensuite bathroom I realised that, based on the streaks of black that ran down my cheeks, there had also been tears. So many tears.

As I tried to scrub mascara from my face – you'd think that something that had failed so miserably at its stated water and smudge-proof mission it'd have been easy to remove but nooooo – I heard a voice calling me name from the bedroom. Wondering if whoever was calling me would leave me to my private shame if I just ignored them I continued to scrub ineffectually at me face for a couple more minutes. Finally giving up in disgust I opened the bathroom door. Yes, I'd closed it when I was the only person in the bedroom – I didn't like the cats watching me when I peed. Van stood right in front of the door an anxious look on his face.