Anthony by J.P. Barnaby

Author:J.P. Barnaby [Barnaby, J.P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: gay romance
ISBN: 978-1-63477-457-4
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2016-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

Eleven

THE SHRILL ring of his cell phone crashed against Patrick’s temples with the force of a sledgehammer. He tried to roll over but couldn’t get any leverage with the body half on his. Patrick’s dick tried to show some enthusiasm at Danielle’s proximity, but the inside of his mouth tasted like a rabid hamster’s cage. No morning fuck for them.

As the shroud of unconsciousness rolled away, his stomach recoiled. He took several long, deep breaths to try to stop the onslaught of his stomach contents from spewing over the bed. When he cracked one eye open, the cooler in front of his face confused him. Nothing made sense. He had no memory of the night before and was almost afraid to turn his head and see who lay in the bed beside him.

Like bad cable reception, pictures started to form in his head: getting dressed for his date, Danielle sitting on the couch, and then the drive to the store. The pictures were broken and warped leading into the eye of the storm: smashing bottles, screaming, Anthony.

Anthony.

The mattress beneath him felt like the inflatable kind, like the one from upstairs, the one Anthony slept on. He couldn’t think about it anymore. Patrick didn’t go to bed with a seventeen-year-old. He certainly didn’t go to bed with a seventeen-year-old boy. Even drunk, he couldn’t have strayed that far into insanity.

“Are you awake?” a timid voice whispered in the darkness.

Oh fuck.

That’s exactly what I did.

“Yeah,” he managed, a wall of regret and pain stacking brick by brick in his chest. Patrick cracked an eye open. A mass of soft, shaggy brown hair filled his vision, and he took another long breath.

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t know yet,” he said honestly. “I think that depends on if either of us are naked.”

“Neither of us are naked.”

“Thank fuck for that.”

A long pause stretched the air between them. Patrick felt the tenuous mattress shift violently, and the warm weight across his chest and arm disappeared.

“Well, thanks for that ego boost,” Anthony said.

Patrick’s eyes were open just far enough to see Anthony grab a discarded pair of jeans off a nearby case of… something, he couldn’t tell what. Then he threw on a pair of shoes without bothering to tie them and stalked toward the pint room and the stairs beyond. Patrick tried to sit up, to follow, but his hangover slammed him back down onto the mattress with the force of a giant, invisible anvil.

He closed his eyes and took stock, tried to formulate a plan, but his brain battered the inside of his skull. Everything seemed so far away: the john, the bottles of water in the cooler, and especially the container of aspirin in his desk drawer. He’d have to crawl across the Sahara to reach any of it. Somewhere above his head, he heard the cooler door open and close, but he couldn’t make sense out of it. Then he heard it again. Before Patrick could turn his head to look, a bottle of water appeared from thin air, dangling in front of his face like a mirage.

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