Standing in front of you |ON HOLD|

The morning after

Olivia could scarcely open her eyes, never mind lifting her head, as she woke up the next morning. She felt dreadful; feeling sick, thirsty, suffering from a banging headache and needing to pee all at the same time. Then was this strange ringing sound in her ears that seemed to swing from sounding distant to loud. She forced herself to open her eyes and spent a few moments taking in her surroundings. The room she was in was dim thanks to a heavy pair of dark brown curtains but she could see an armchair to her left and slightly further round from that a large tv was mounted on a cream coloured wall. The floor looked to be dark wood and she was laying on what felt like a leather sofa with a fleecy blanket draped over her and a couple of cushions behind her head for a pillow. On the floor, not far from her head was a bucket and she spotted her bag on the armchair. She slowly sat up, giving her body time to get used to any movement, the wall behind her was wallpapered with what looked like some kind of brown floral print with a cream background. It was lined with a dark wooden sideboard that was adorned with photos but in the dim light she couldn't make out what or who was on them.

She was still trying to get her bearings when someone quite heavy footed came down the stairs. It was dawning on her that she had no idea as to where she was but the grumpy male voice answered one question - who's place this was.

"Christ, aren't you going to answer that? My heads fucking killing me," Curtis groaned as he opened the curtains before he went through to the kitchen on the hunt for some paracetamol and his trusty Berocca's - his go to vitamin drink to help with hangovers.

"Huh?" Still feeling confused and having no memories about last night beyond arriving at the pub, she watched him go with a dazed, half asleep look on her face.

"Your phone," came the gruff reply back from the kitchen, "it's been ringing on and off for ages."

She looked to where her bag was on the chair, out of her immediate reach. So that's what the ringing in her ears was! Pushing the blanket off of her body, she suddenly became aware that her dress was unbuttoned; not all the way down though, just the first few and enough to expose her chest and her white lacy bra. Had Curtis done that? Had he touched her when she'd been too out of it to say no? In a flash of panic she stuck a hand beneath the skirt of her dress to check if her panties were still on. To her relief they were, it still didn't mean that she could be sure what things might have happened though.

"Answer your bloody phone!" came an annoyed shout from the kitchen just before Curtis reappeared, pausing with a bright orange liquid in a glass, a tablet still fizzing away in the bottom of it.

Ignoring her phone, she decided to answer the question that was now causing panic to swirl dramatically in her chest, "last night....." she looked at him, her eyes now wide open, worry etched across her makeup smeared features, "did we....you know?"

"Fuck? No." He answered bluntly, looking quite pissed off as he leaned against the wall in the doorway to his kitchen, swirling the now fluorescent looking orange liquid around his glass, "we could have, you were well up for it until you puked on the floor."

Her hand flew up to her mouth, she couldn't believe she'd been so reckless, that she'd allowed herself to get so drunk that she'd nearly had sex with a man she didn't really know all that well and that she'd got so bad that she'd vomited on his floor. She looked down at her lap, where her bare legs were stretched out in front of her along the sofa, feeling horrifically ashamed of herself.

"Answer your fucking phone, will you?" He huffed before walking back past her and stomping his way back up the stairs. "And then we'll have to get you back to your hotel, we've both got work and you stink of puke and need to shower. I'll book us a taxi!" He yelled from upstairs.

In that moment she felt so unwelcome here and so dirty and mortified that she wanted to cry but more than that she just wanted to get out of here. The thing was though, although she knew she was at Curtis's house, she had no idea of where he lived. Not wanting to risk him yelling at her for not answering her phone, she got up from the sofa and went to her bag, opening it and pulling her phone out as quick as she could.