to become my little spoon.
My kitchen light remains on, but I’m not getting up to switch it off.
Hugging Galileo close against my front, I bury my face in the fur at his shoulder blades, and pray his proximity will help keep my nightmares away.
“Goodnight, buddy.” I slide my hand along his strong neck, and exhale. “Goodnight.”
It’s too bad my nightmares never stay away.
Chuck
Who’s the Real Victim Here?
Waking up in a new apartment – a new bedroom, a new window that leads to a new and different side of town – is disorienting, even for a guy who got a full night’s sleep.
Unfortunately, I’m not that guy.
Bleary-eyed, and with a pounding headache, I wake as the sun streams through the curtains I didn’t close before I finally collapsed into bed.
I had shit to get out of the hallway, boxes to empty out of my friend’s car, furniture to assemble so I could sleep on something other than the floor, which meant I didn’t get to bed until three. Which means, despite the fact I wasn’t out partying last night, it sure feels like I was.
My head pounds, and my throat is desert dry. My stomach rumbles from starvation, so now I fight the good fight between staying in bed to catch a little more sleep, or getting up and filling my stomach before I die.
Turning over and burying my face beneath my pillows, I groan when my alarm sounds on the bedside table. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to do anything but stay right here and sleep. And after that, I wanna clean the pigsty I left when I finally conceded and passed out.
Packing boxes lay everywhere. Packing tape, scrunched and tossed to the floor. Broken plates in my kitchen. No fucking idea where my coffee mugs are.
My alarm silences without me touching it, but a minute later, it starts again and drills into the side of my skull until I swing an arm out and blindly slap at the clock until it stops.
“Shut the fuck up,” I grumble. “Piece of shit.”
I have to be at work today. One hour from now, my ass needs to be dressed, my blood needs to be pumped with caffeine, and I have to be at the garage working on Mrs. Bentley’s… Bentley. Which means I can sleep for fifty more minutes and race to the shop without a shower or breakfast, or I can get the fuck up now, find my coffee mugs, and work on humanizing myself before I have to face other humans.
Both options suck.
My eyes flitter closed without my permission, but my stomach growls and brings them open all over again. I need food more than I need sleep. And I need my paycheck more than I need to revisit my dreams and the busty blonde I saw at the racetracks a week ago.
My lips quirk up into a smile at the memory.
Shoving my blankets off, I roll to the floor and grunt when I land on my hands and knees. Then I climb to my feet – buck-ass naked – and search with my eyes most of the way closed for a pair of sweats to pull on.
I don’t know where shit is, because we dumped boxes last night like it wouldn’t be a pain in the ass today to find clean underwear.
Bringing a hand up, I wipe the crusty shit from my eyes, and slowly crack them wider to take in the mess that is my room. I’m not a clean freak by any stretch of the imagination, but the state I left this place in last night disgusts me. But aha! Pants.
I dive across my room like I’m afraid they’ll come to life and run away, and, stabbing my legs into the holes, I grin like that busty blonde is in front of me again.
Pulling up my sweats and tightening the drawstring, I head out of my room and pretend that the mess that surrounds me isn’t real. It’s a problem for tonight. A problem for future me. Because right-now me needs to find the coffee mugs, and get his ass to work.
Thankfully, last-night-me was smart enough to find my coffee machine and plug that baby in before dropping into bed.
The sound of boiling water helps pull me out of my half-asleep state, and the smell that wafts through the air when the water hits the coffee helps me wake up fully, so by the time I reach my front door and swing it